Back-to-brick renovations · Princes Road, ST4

Back-to-brick renovation — Princes Road, ST4

A period terrace refurbished throughout, original hallway and all

Location: Princes Road, ST4

The finished kitchen at Princes Road, with dark units, a breakfast bar and herringbone flooring

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Open-plan kitchen and living space

The brief

A period terrace on Princes Road to be refurbished throughout, with an open-plan kitchen and living space at the rear.

The challenge

A smaller terrace has less room for error than a large one — every square metre has to earn its place, and there is nothing spare to lose to a badly positioned staircase or an awkward door.

The result

A kitchen and living space that people actually sit in, and a hallway that still reads as a period house rather than a stripped-out let. The slider above is the same hallway, mid-strip and finished.

Before & after

Drag the handle.

Same room, same angle. This is the part that's hard to argue with.

The finished hallway, with herringbone flooring, fresh white walls and the original front door restored

What we actually did

The hallway

Worth showing because it’s the honest version of a refurbishment. The “before” photograph is the hallway mid-strip: original floor tiles uncovered, treads bare, walls back to plaster.

The finished version keeps the proportions and the front door, with herringbone flooring, clean white walls and the original arch left as it was.

The staircase

Kept and repaired rather than ripped out. Original stairs in a house of this age are almost always better made than what would replace them, and repairing them is usually cheaper than a new flight once you’ve paid for the new one to be fitted and finished.

Fire doors that don’t shout about it

Every room off the escape route needs an FD30S door with intumescent strips and smoke seals. There’s no way around that and no reason it should look institutional. Painted to match the joinery, hung properly, with the ironmongery chosen rather than defaulted to.

The kitchen

Dark units, a breakfast bar and herringbone flooring running through from the hall. A proper communal space is what stops a shared house feeling like a corridor with doors off it.