Room for One More

Ian and Rachel came to us on a recommendation, which is usually how the good projects start.

They come from two different cultures. That was the brief, not a difficulty to manage around. Both of them had to walk into this house and find themselves in it.

They had decided to spend far more of the year in Portugal, so it was never going to be a holiday house. It had to hold a life. What they wanted was a beach house that had grown up: relaxed, close to the sea, and still with the comfort and the finish of a modern villa. Not cold. Homely, without tipping into rustic.

Two things were not negotiable. A kitchen good enough to cook in properly, because Rachel cooks and the table is where their day happens. And a bedroom on the ground floor. The house had nowhere to put one. We found the space, and under the stairs we fitted the bathroom to go with it.

We ran all of it. The full refurbishment, the interiors, the furniture, and the pieces we had made for the house.

Partway through the project they invited Céline to England, to look at another house they are planning there. She stayed with them. She is now the only one of us who can claim to have eaten Rachel's cooking.

Then their circumstances changed and they decided to sell. We went back through the choices that had been most personal and asked which could stay. We kept the identity. We loosened what only made sense if you were Ian or Rachel.

Two houses at once. The home we originally created for Ian and Rachel, and a house ready to begin a new story with another family.