When Jenny and Edward Lovett purchased their fixer-upper in 2020, their vision was to remodel the kitchen and dining room to make it bright and airy enough to host their extended family on special days. That was it.
But when they couldn't find the perfect kitchen, Jenny and Edward, both 37, decided to look for a second-hand model that they could customize to suit their tastes.
Telegraph Money spoke to interior architect Sandy Armitage for his thoughts on the couple's decision to renovate and buy a second-hand kitchen.
Jenny, a lawyer, and Edward, a teacher, lived in a four-bedroom semi in St Albans, Hertfordshire, with their two daughters Arabelle, seven, and Clementine, five, during lockdown in 2020. I bought a detached house.
Despite the challenges this presented, the couple were undaunted by the amount of work required to transform their 1930s home into the ideal family home.
“It was really a fixer-upper house, where the kitchen was the biggest project,” Jenny says. “Most of the house needed to be updated with new electrical equipment and decor, while downstairs required a complete remodeling of the back of the property.”
Before construction work began, the downstairs toilet and utility room were located at the rear of the house. These rooms prevented natural light from the garden from reaching the kitchen, which is located at the end of the utility space hidden behind a partition wall. The Lovetts relocated the kitchen to the back of the house overlooking the garden (see drawings below).
“When we bought the house, it had already been extended twice to the side and to the rear, but minimal changes had been made to the interior, leaving the kitchen dark and gloomy with the old internal walls still in place. It was also dirty and outdated and didn't even have an oven.”
