At last, after many months of looking and searching for our perfect home, we finally moved into a house we were both happy with on the 20th of September 2010.
We particularly liked this house for its central location in Balham and the fact that it needed work doing to it. I wanted a project I could get my teeth into and a house we could renovate to our specification. This meant, doing as much as possible within our budget to make the house as eco friendly and energy efficient as possible.
The house was built in the 1870's. It has a large cellar, two reception rooms on the ground floor, kitchen/diner and a downstairs bathroom. Upstairs, there are three bedrooms a bathroom and a separate loo.
Until we bought it, it had been occupied by the same family for over 40 years. In that time, the house had gone through a lot of changes including at some point, having every original Victorian feature taken out and replaced by 70's style deco. The bathrooms were also all in the wrong place blocking out natural light coming in to the house. Despite this, the house had a few good features, it had a new roof with lots of insulation and double glazing!
We decided not to replace the original features but to restore it to a 21st Century standard home.
