Victoria Eggs saw real potential in this Victorian end-of-terrace house – it just needed some clever room swapping and a vision.
We are…
Victoria Eggs, 41, a textile designer at victoriaeggs.com, my husband, Dan, 39, a painter and decorator, and our daughter, Etta, five.
Our home is…
A three-bedroom, Victorian, end-of-terrace house in Kingston, Surrey. We moved here in October 2018.
For inspiration…
I go to Peggy Jean, which is a riverside restaurant on a moored barge. I love the combination of gold lettering, scalloped pink parasols and blue decorating details.
My top tip
The Google Lens app overlaid on a photo is good for finding cheaper alternatives to expensive brands as it does the searching for you. Decorating-wise, Dan prefers the quality and consistency of Johnstone Trade paint as it goes on easily, has a better finish, lasts longer and doesn’t easily mark.
My best idea
We had a £3,000 quote to make our bedroom wardrobes bigger, so we did it ourselves and it cost around £150! We used MDF and IKEA doors and Dan did the alterations himself.
My style is…
Seasonal – for example, I’ll swap the Autumn Garden cushions from my collection with my Wildlife in Spring designs when the seasons change, and I especially look forward to getting out my Christmas collection of tea towels, mugs and aprons.
Explore Victoria and Dan's home
Victoria Eggs and her husband Dan viewed 20 houses before they found the one, and spent another few years mulling over the changes they wanted to make to it before starting their reno project. The couple relocated to Kingston after 10 years of living in North London, where they used to visit nearby Richmond on the overground train.
‘We liked the park and the river, but property there was way out of our budget,’ says Victoria. ‘We widened our search to Kingston, but the houses we saw were either too dark or had already been done up, until we found this end-of-terrace with a south-facing garden. Downstairs was mostly open plan and had been decorated in dark brown and, although it felt oppressive, there was lots of natural light, so we knew it could be even brighter with the right changes.’
They were drawn to the garden and additional space in the double-storey side extension, which had a large main bedroom with an en-suite. The narrow downstairs utility was less impressive, though. ‘It had been built alongside the outside wall but there was no internal access, so we had to go outside to go in and use the washing machine, which became annoying,’ says Victoria.
All in the planning
They did an initial redecoration of the house and sanded back the dark wood floorboards to make it their own. During lockdown, the couple began firming up ideas about how they could better use the space. They briefed local architect, Paul Crowther, who was recommended by a friend.
‘We wanted to do this project once and do it right,’ says Victoria. ‘Paul knew the builder, Gray Alexander, and project-managed all the way through so the design was built exactly as we expected.’
The couple reinstated walls to separate the living room from the hallway and the back, and swapped Etta’s small front bedroom with the bathroom at the back, knocking through the separate toilet. A priority was inside access to the utility and adding a downstairs WC, plus a large kitchen, dining and living space with floor-to-ceiling sliding doors.
‘Friends ask if we’d change anything, and we wouldn’t – it’s like waking up in a fancy Airbnb and remembering it’s our home’
‘I’m like a sunflower, I just need to be in the sun!’ says Victoria. ‘We loved the idea of open-plan living with a seamless connection to the garden so we could be in the same space together but doing different things.’
Paul came back with a few design options and surprised the couple with a layout they weren’t expecting but loved, which involved cutting the utility room in half so the remaining part could become usable space inside the house.
‘To do this, we knocked down the wall and a defunct chimney, which then created a workspace and access into a smaller utility – it was the perfect solution,’ Victoria explains. ‘The new extension with its pitched roof links up here with the old kitchen. It’s only about 4m x 4m but now we have one large room, and it’s made a massive difference to how we live.’
Best-laid plans
The building work wasn’t without its challenges. Shared drainage meant digging six-foot trenches in the garden and moving the manhole away from the extension foundations. Relocating the bathroom pipework was tricky too. ‘We moved in with family, but it was worth the effort and money because it’s made Etta’s room feel like a proper bedroom,’ says Victoria. ‘She’s so proud, it’s the first thing she wants to show visitors when they come over!’
Victoria put together moodboards to ensure her home had a cohesive look, adding photos of ‘spa-throoms’ with terrazzo and pink tiles, and a navy, yellow, pink scheme for the open-plan kitchen. ‘Our family colour is pink – even before we had Etta, we both wore pink – so there are touches throughout,’ she says. ‘I also like colour-blocking and bold colours – some of my design collections are in bright reds and blues.’
The couple tested paint samples and picked two key colours for the dining area and front living room – Farrow & Ball’s India Yellow and Dulux’s Copper Blush. ‘By coincidence, we found a pale pink sofa for the kitchen with flecks of these colours, so we could have gone either way with the paint in here,’ she says. ‘But we settled on yellow, as Copper Blush looks great with the exposed brick fireplace in the living room.’
Victoria and Dan had some furniture and went hunting for a dining table, bar stools and bedside cupboards. ‘I often have a clear visual of what I want but I can’t always find it,’ she says. ‘That’s why our bedside tables were a recent purchase. I knew I wanted floating dark wood with a touch of gold and eventually found them from Swoon.’
Despite taking five years to create their dream home, it means the couple have no regrets. ‘Friends ask if we’d change anything, and we wouldn’t – it’s like waking up in a fancy Airbnb and then remembering it’s our home,’ says Victoria. ‘We’ve got everything we wanted, and it was worth waiting for.’
The kitchen-diner
The living room
Etta's room
The main bedroom
The bathroom
Feature by Jane Crittenden, styling by Marisha Taylor, photos by James French
