Open House: architect Jonathan Nicholls and lighting designer Alex Randall on converting a Victorian house in Peckham
Step behind the front doors of some of our listings in our ‘Open House’ series, for which our sellers share their story of living in their homes. Here, architect Jonathan Nicholls of Hayhurst & Co. architects and lighting designer Alex Randall share their experience of converting a Victorian house in Peckham. Check out the listing here.
Jonathan: “I had lived with my brother in the Brunswick Centre for 15 years before Alex and I moved in together, to the developer Russell Gray’s old house in Bermondsey. While we were there, we started looking for projects all over London, and eventually found this house.”
Alex: “We were completely open-minded to different periods and types of buildings, and I would say we were a little prejudiced against converting a standard Victorian house. But, when we came here, we immediately saw something a little bit different.”
Jonathan: “The odd thing about it is that it’s a Victorian house with two Georgian neighbours, one of which we’re attached to. So, it’s a kind of infill plot, and to get more light into the space a lightwell was installed, which you don’t often see in conventional Victorian homes. It’s actually very similar to the way my practice designs for tricky urban plots.
“The lightwell provides daylight and ventilation, and in the summer it’s remarkable how cool it keeps that part of the house. It would make a great cheese room! But it’s also been our test bed for various biophilia projects – at the moment we’re experimenting with ivy but we’ve also had various ferns and a Japanese hanging moss, called kokedama.”
Alex: “We found the house five years ago and it was in quite a state. We moved in though and set up a makeshift kitchen upstairs while we redid the entire house, gutting it all and then extending out the back.
“The kitchen was very much our priority, and at the core of
the brief. We both love cooking, and we designed a kitchen that would be a
pleasure to cook in, with lots of storage and a deep sink.
“What’s nice is that, because we changed the layout of
downstairs to be more open and circular, the kitchen flows naturally into the
living room, and then out onto the garden. It’s not a huge footprint, but it
feels generous, with space to move around.”
Jonathan: “As an architect, working on your own house is great fun. Because of time constraints, I didn’t get a chance to do full, proper drawings, so a lot of the time I’d scribble some plans on the wall at night for the builders to interpret a few hours later.
“It was pure luxury, and an indulgence I can’t imagine any client would ever pay me to do! But, because it was our own house, I could experiment a lot more with things I wouldn’t risk at work.
“I think the joinery in the kitchen was one such experiment, as we weren’t entirely sure how it would turn out, but it’s beautiful. And we’ve used fibreglass on the exterior of the extension, instead of render or metalwork, which looks great. Then there’s the wildflower garden on the roof, which was nice to play around with a bit.”
Alex: “Living here has been a joy, and not least because we’re in the heart of Peckham – we could rave for hours about this area. We love being sandwiched between Bellenden Road and Rye Lane because you get something completely different – both are amazing.
“Everyone is so friendly here, with a real community feeling. We know all the shopkeepers’ names, and they all know Piper, our son.”
Jonathan: “I think the other thing that attracted us to this house was that it feels urban. You go a couple of streets back from here and it feels like you could be anywhere in London. We’ve got the station on our doorstep, 24-hour convenience stalls selling amazing vegetables within two minutes and then restaurants like Levan.
“At the same time, having Piper and getting our dog, Gillie,
opened up our eyes to all the green spaces around here. We’ve got Warwick Gardens
and Peckham Rye Park on our doorstep, and lots more within easy reach.”
Alex: “Working on this house was testing at times, but you soon erase that memory! We’re on the search for somewhere we can add a home studio, because I closed mine when I became pregnant. I’m ready to reopen that, but if it’s attached to our home I can still be around for Piper.
“There were times with this project when I remember thinking, ‘We’ll never do this again’, but here goes! We’ll miss this house a lot though, it’s the result of a lot of care and love.”
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