Real home: a contemporary basement transforms an Edwardian terraced house

Hywel Jones transformed his home from top to bottom, including the basement, with his love for playing music at the heart of his redesign

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Hywel Jones’ renovation stemmed from his love of the arts. Having lived in the house since 1992, he’d already converted the loft and redecorated several times, but now he decided it was time for a drastic change.

After playing around with ideas, and working with Granit Architects, he chose to extend into the side return and to the back of the house. He dug down into the basement, spanning the depth of the house, creating enough space for a kitchen-diner, utility room and a TV snug.

Find out how he got on below, then browse all our real home transformations. Find out more about converting a basement, too.

Project notes

The owners: Hywel Jones, a solicitor, lives here with his partner Aidan O’Rourke, who works at the Royal National Theatre, and their cat, Bonnie

The property: A five-bedroom Edwardian terraced house in Clapham, London

Total project cost: £1.68 million

The island worktop is from Silestone, the sink is from Blanco, and the boiling water tap is from Franke

contemporary landing and mezzanine in an Edwardian terrace

The ground-floor living area features colourful storage by Geppetto, sofa by John Lewis, wooden flooring by Wooden Flooring Shop, and a wood-burning stove by Envirostoves

Hywel dug down into the basement to create this spacious kitchen-diner. Despite being underground, it’s flooded with natural light thanks to full-height panelled glazing by Clement Windows. The kitchen’s stainless steel worktop and dining table were imported from Hungary and are by Geppetto

The garden can be accessed from both the living area through glazed doors, and from the kitchen-diner basement via an external staircase

Hywel transformed a reception room into a music room so he could invite friends round to practice their chamber music

Hywel’s bedroom has a simple but bold colour scheme. The walls are painted in Anthracite Grey by Dulux, the bed is by Geppetto, the armchair is from Andrew Martin and the bedside tables are from Made.com

Browse more gorgeous contemporary renovations:

Amelia Smith
Amelia Smith
Content Editor

After joining Real Homes as content producer in 2016, Amelia has taken on several different roles and is now content editor. She specializes in style and decorating features and loves nothing more than finding the most beautiful new furniture, fabrics and accessories and sharing them with our readers. As a newbie London renter, Amelia’s loving exploring the big city and mooching around vintage markets to kit out her new home. 

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