The roof took three years, the floors another two, and by the time that the kitchen was finished, the youngest child had learned to walk and then learned to drive.
The house
From the street it looks like nothing much: a brick terrace with a slightly newer door. Then you walk through to the back of the house, the ceiling lifts away, and the whole place opens to the sky in a way that makes guests stop mid-sentence and look upwards.
There is no finish line, only progressively better rooms to be cold in.
A room at a time
The owners did most of the finishing themselves, which took about three times as long as planned. Plaster was left unpainted in the end because they had grown fond of it, and the kitchen shelving is built from scaffold boards, salvaged from the extension and left deliberately a little rough.
What they would do differently
Materials do most of the talking here. Lime plaster, oak, zinc and a floor of poured terrazzo that has been mixed with stone from the local quarry: all of them are chosen because they will age well. In ten years' time, this house should look better, and much less like a photograph.
Asked what they would change, they point at the bathroom and sigh. It is always the bathroom. Otherwise the advice is simple: live in the place for a year before you spend anything, watch where the morning light falls, and notice where everybody actually ends up sitting.
