When two become one

Looking for extra space for her family to grow into, Miranda Davies snapped up the house next door and took on the challenge of turning two townhouses into one home

- JULIET BENNING; LISA FAZZANI

Living room

The wallpaper was the starting point of the scheme: ‘It looks different from every angle, depending on the light and the time of day,’ says Miranda.

BUY THE KEY PIECES

The Oralia wallpaper, £59 a roll, Harlequin, is a match. For similar, try the Celine armchair, £225, Habitat

When the house next door came on the market, Miranda Davies and her husband debated whether or not they should buy it. ‘We knew that if we didn’t, then someone else would snap it up and develop it,’ says Miranda. ‘So we bought and then rented it out for 10 years while getting the funds together, with the plan of eventually combining the two properties. We wanted to create one large house that would accommodate our growing family of four children and numerous pets. The two houses were originally designed by the same architect, so from the exterior, they could always have been one building.’

With the couple envisaging a dramatic makeover, they commissioned architecture and design team, Robinson Van Noort, to help. The initial plan was to remove the partition wall between the two properties and build a central staircase, but planning constraints required that the central wall be retained, so the architects had to work out an alternative way of connecting the two houses. Eventually, they came up with the idea of adding an aperture in the central living room wall to achieve a sense of flow, with sightlines stretching all the way through to the dining room at the far end of the house. ‘It was a huge constraint, but it enabled us to come up with something far more interesting, with these unusual, charming spaces and interior views.’