Open house

Space saving staircase Architect Bobby Open tells us about one satisfied customer, and why his practice will be signing up to the scheme again.

This house in Cambridge belongs to a middle-aged couple whose children had left home, though they did have frequent house guests. It’s a Victorian brick-built end terrace with slate roof, dating from around 1900. The floor plan was fairly typical, with living room, dining room and kitchen/breakfast area downstairs, and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.

The couple wanted to convert their roof space to create a new bedroom and free up bedrooms for guests downstairs, which involved extending full width at roof level at the rear of the house. The new room is now their master bedroom with en suite shower room.

Cambridge room Cambridge room 2 Cambridge room 3

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The clients had the idea of using bamboo for the flooring, skirting, architraves, doors, and a unique alternate-tread space-saving staircase and balustrade. This worked really well with the existing landing and staircase, where new meets old at first-floor level.

Storage was a primary concern, and every leftover space was used for clothes storage, including the roof void at the front.

The shower room also used space-saving devices and sanitaryware, and the clients took the opportunity to update their heating system, installing a solar panel on the new stainless steel roof.

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