Berkshire House

Full refurbishment and remodelling of an 8 bedroom Dowry House in Berkshire, for a large young family.
We addressed the sense of entrance and overall flow on the ground floor as it had become confused when a handsome Victorian addition was added to the 17th Century host building. A new 20th Century entrance had further muddled the route to the heart of the house, so our first task was to look at the advantages of reinstating the original Victorian driveway and reutilizing the original front door.

The driving force for a total house reconfiguration was to choose the spacious south-facing rooms for the most frequently used areas: kitchen, dining room, hall and reception. This freed up the old kitchen, located in the 17th Century portion, to create a family TV/snug and encouraged us to knock through and connect this to the existing games room. We thus altered what was a rather tight space into an open, friendly and playful one, which juxtaposed the adjacent formal spaces. We looked at numerous ways to link the heart of the house to a new entrance. By further reconfiguration and an appropriate engineering solution we connected the west-facing courtyard front entrance to the east garden via a new entrance hall. This intersected nicely with the existing north-south axis and the resulting orthogonal design vastly improved the circulation and visual legibility.

We were able to honour both the period nature of the building and introduce contemporary and playful elements which would contrast. All joinery was highly bespoke and RVN provided a full interior decorative service, sourcing special items of furniture and light fittings.