This loft conversion is a great example of what happens when clients think ‘in the box’: two statement dormers created brand new sleeping quarters for this young family.
Ask any new parent what they want, their reply will mostly be some version of ‘a good night’s sleep’.
However, although the brief for this bungalow renovation began with new bedrooms, it didn’t end there. The existing property in east Edinburgh had been extended by previous owners, but it was awkwardly open plan, and what ‘functional’ rooms there were felt too small.
With a baby on the way, our clients wanted to upsize the downstairs bathroom and study, alongside a request for a loft conversion with two extra bedrooms, an ensuite and a dressing room. The only snag? In an ideal world neither new bedroom would face onto the busy main road.
Well, we all take our rest seriously at AGORA, and we also like a challenge. We recommended adding two large dormers front and back; the ensuite would lead through a dressing room to the principal bedroom on the side of the house, with the new baby given peaceful quarters at the back.
To make this work the parents would have to place their bed under the eaves, but this position would be offset by large skylights to create a sense of airiness and volume. The benefit of this scheme was that we could position the staircase on the other side of the loft, unlocking a whole series of improvements on the ground floor. Taking a bite out of the unwieldy living room-diner meant we could create a really spacious hall, with pocket doors leading to a much bigger bathroom, and a small-but-perfectly-sized home office. And did we mention the storage possibilities? A cloakroom corner, tucked away from the new line of sight from front door through to the living room and garden, and a handy understairs cupboard, with a hidden door camouflaged within tongue and groove cladding.
These core features were all there in the original concept stage, and were finessed over three months of design development before we applied for planning permission. Scaling down the original back room gave the clients permission to think big elsewhere, and they specified some really arresting features before going out to tender. One great example is the bold Crittal-style dark graphite frames for the glazed internal doors, a lovely reference to the property’s thirties roots. These doors allow light to diffuse through the house, and mirror the existing windows. Carrying on the graphic theme, that transformative staircase was also painted a moody black to show off the crisp vertical lines. Deft colour blocking continues in the bedrooms: a scalloped blue border in the baby’s room, a green ceiling in the spare bedroom, and warmer pink and biscuit shades in the principal suite.
Outside we took a different approach: the dormers for this loft conversion were big so needed delicate handling. In the end we opted to wrap them in Thermopine, a modified wood chosen for its stability and compatibility with tinted coating (which ensures even weathering). The silvery colour also blends in well with prevailing Scottish elements, which often paint the sky grey. Talking of sky, we also made the skylights upstairs taller than standard, to ensure the owners could see greenery as well as clouds. This creates a more interesting outlook: the weather can be grey, but there’s always something going on in a garden (even if it’s just plants versus wind!).
All told, this was the little house that could: after six months of construction it had grown a whole new floor! Still, we’re not done yet. Stage Two will see the infill of a small alley between the utility and an as-yet unrenovated room off the back of the living space, which will then flex to be whatever the family needs: playroom, gym, second workspace, additional bedroom. That’s the beauty of phasing a renovation – you can make a big leap and then see where you’ve landed before moving forward. Here’s to the next jump!
