KEEP IT UNDER WRAPS

Enveloping the extension in aluminium mesh has turned a dated suburban villa into a stylish and much more contemporary home

- Caroline Ednie

There was much to like about this unusual 1950s two-storey villa when Daniela and Duncan Forbes bought it in 2018. It’s in Cramond, one of the most sought-after suburbs of Edinburgh, close to the couple’s family, handy for the city centre, and blessed with a large garden. But it also had some very obvious drawbacks, particularly in the way the ground-floor living spaces were arranged, and the new owners realised from the start that they’d be facing a major renovation and extension project before long.

The couple and their two young children lived in the house for around eight months to get a feel for it and a sense of the changes they’d like to make, before they approached a friend, Neil Taylor of Edinburgh-based TAP Architecture. They asked him to renovate and extend the ground floor, focusing on creating a large kitchen, dining and living space that would be connected to the garden, and forming an en-suite bedroom and a cosy living space in the existing house.

“The internal layout was awkward,” recalls Taylor. “It had a constricted entrance space, under a porch and into a narrow hall, with a dark kitchen on the north-east corner of the house. There was an L-shaped living room which went into an uninsulated sunroom and another conservatory on the back of the house that was similarly cold and unattractive.