SARAH BEENY
RENOVATE
DON'T
RELOCATE

SWINDON

Sarah Beeny's Renovate Don't Relocate show (series 2 episode 28), advising on a Wiltshire based Victorian property owned by IT Consultant Jon.

The four-storey townhouse, situated in Old Swindon, is home to Jon, his step-daughter Bee and two young children. The narrow galley-style kitchen is out of odds with the rest of the open-plan layout and a cramped outrigger building at the back, which was tacked on to provide a utility and downstairs bathroom, blocks the view out to the garden.

BetterLivingSpace worked with Jon and the Renovate Don't Relocate team to provide the structural engineering expertise to redesign the back of the property and integrate the outrigger into the rest of the house. Walls were also removed to create a large open-plan space in keeping with the rest of the property and falling within the existing footprint. The structural work was complicated by the fact that the house has a basement, so we had to ensure that the foundations were at a suitable level so as not to impact on it. The presence of a basement also meant we had to be a little clever in our use of supports to ensure we did not compromise the design.