Access all areas

Rose and Jason Marlow created an elegant wheelchair-friendly home that works for all the family

- Alexandra Pratt

Form and function go hand in hand in Rose and Jason Marlow's elegant home. Renovated and extended, this early 1900s property is designed to accommodate wheelchair user Jason without compromising on the needs of their three small children – or on style.

“We were looking for a new house after Jason's accident – a home with our new requirements in mind,” says Rose. “We needed space and parking, so we started looking further afield, on the edge of Bath. Once we realised that we didn't need to have a bungalow and we could simply put in a lift instead, well that was a revelation.”

The house the couple chose had originally been two cottages. At some point, these had been joined up, and bay windows were added to create a more imposing property. “It had appeal due to the land and the fact it wasn't listed, so we had scope to renovate and extend,” says Rose. “For all its charm, we underestimated the amount of work it needed.”

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The family stayed in their rented bungalow and engaged specialist architect practice Wyvern to design and oversee a new accessible extension and renovations to the existing building. But before they could introduce new adaptions, Rose and Jason tackled the fundamentals – as with any old building, it needed to be brought up to 21st-century standards with new plumbing, new electrics and new render.