Some traditional ideas. Not for everyone but I think it would really suit your home.

those pics are fab sonia! I'm not sure I would go quite as traditional, but I would love a persian rug...

I should have mentioned I have three kids under eight so need to stay reasonably practical with the furnishings.

sarh123 - I LOVE morris fabrics, might go for some of the wallpapers, just have to decide where (and sell one of the kids to afford them...)

WOWZERS Tania, what a beautiful home, Congratulations. I would look at Lewis and Wood fabrics and wall coverings, they are doing some drop dead gorgeous things that would suit your classic/modern look.

Tania that's such a beautiful property! One way of having Morris wallpaper AND keeping the kids is to do (for example) a frame of beading to make a panel round one or 2 strips of wall paper. This could be above a bed, or as wall panels in a living room. I will try and find examples to post, as that is not a very good explanation. That way you only need to get 1 roll of wall paper. Another way to include the beloved Morris is how I have here.

Private Residence, Surrey · More Info

Tania I just love those photos you've saved for inspiration. Your place is going to look fantastic.

Tania I have a Persian rug and it’s amazing how hardwearing it is and the pattern hides a multitude of sins! There’s a wonderful Oriental Carpet shop in Olney, Bucks if that’s in your area? Here’s a bit of my rug.

Ah Chioma @Chioma Caster, please stop spamming.

My brother was on one of Sarah Beeny’s programmes. He did all the hard work, never got a mention apart from one shot of him on a digger! Most disappointing.......😂😂😂

I don't think I'd risk it somehow, don't they always go a hundred grand over budget!

Wow! What a gorgeous house - so much fun to be had making it your own. For inspiration you might like to look at https://www.instagram.com/comedowntothewoods/?hl=en

Another large property with high ceilings and a totally different take (read colourful and bold) on period property decoration and sharing a home with 4 kids!

Your instagram is lovely katie.

Ah no it's not mine! Another Katie.

What an impressive house. 👌

Contemporary while sympathetic to its Edwardian roots would probably be my mantra.

How to achieve that is another matter. 🙂

Out of interest, what is meant by ‘apartments’ in the description? Is this referring to the rooms/spaces?

hi E D,
yes 'apartments' in this case just means rooms, estate agent trying to sound fancy!
i'm definitely going to keep a core edwardian feel if I can!

It may be worthwhile checking an extensive thread here on the Houzz forum from some time ago by a person called Resh.

They turned a substantial period house into a fantastically stylish contemporary (family) home.

Hope I can find it so I can share the link.

Yes, I've read the whole of Resh's thread, he did a brilliant job. Might have to read it again now we've got the house!

Ah ok. Here’s the link if needed.

https://www.houzz.co.uk/discussions/5234656/victorian-renovation-in-london-part-4-snagging-and-garden#n=213

A wee mini update.

So we have been busy getting quotes for the rewire and central heating install (expensive, but not much more than we had planned for). I am missing doing the fun stuff like decorating so I bought myself a wee treat. I have always wanted a secret door and here it is coutesy of a cheapie wall mural sticker.

The room behind the door is actually the study!

Love the secret door!

How cute!

Nice secret door, but I think you should colour-coordinate the books.

😂

Really nice space. Because the space looks really big with a lot of different colours and textures. I would probably try to remove some these elements and maybe start adding your personal taste to the space. I tried to create a very basic draft of what I mean.

As you will see from the picture below, you keep the main elements the same, but what I would suggest is bringing the whole space to a kind of neutral stage and then start adding some accents.

Latest update: not really allowed to do much before the rewire and plumbing but have had a fun little update of my bedroom fireplace.
Eventually I would love to reinstate period fires, but for now I used some peel and stick tiles to give it a wee change. Here's the before and after pics.

So we have entered that awful phase of renovation where we are making the house look worse! A full rewire was done last week and beautiful column radiators are going in this week. We have decamped to a flat to allow the guys to make a mess in peace! Some pics of the chaos...

Look at Greg’s Instagram page (manwithahammer), he is restoring a gorgeous Georgian house in Devon. Iam lurking on PistonHeads Homes and Gardens forum, Resh is on there as well (different account name). Lots of useful information in those threads.

wow, that manwithahammer house is epic! mine doesn't feel so huge now! thanks for the recommendations.

I'm following him too now :-) Thanks, nmlondon. What a house! What a project!

Yours is definitely in the same league, Tania.

We look after London, Essex, Hertfordshire - if you need woodburning Stove advice please get in touch 🔥 (we also have Everhot Range cookers in our showroom)

More slightly geeky photos, first one is of the boiler - so excited to have central heating! Its a big beastie as it has to be for a house this size. Other pics are of heaters etc going in. The guys did an awesome job but OMG the dust!

Just because it might be useful for others, we were roughly 8500 for the full rewire and 12000 for the central heating install (boiler/pipes/radiators, the whole shebang). My column radiators were probably 6k on their own. So just over 20k for this part of the works. It came out a couple of thousand more than I was hoping for but the guys were really quick. 4 Days for the rewire, 5 or so for the plumbing. Can't complain at that, they were like locusts all over the house!

It's a beautiful boiler. Polishing those copper pipes will keep you busy though 😉 Always nice when something goes well when you're renovating.

Hi there! I'm working on a new TV series of 'Sarah Beeny's Renovate Don't Relocate' in which Sarah Beeny helps people decide how to utilise the space in their homes and you seem perfect for it. If you're interested in applying, please do email me at chiomah@outlineproductions.co.uk

If you need a wood burner - we can help. Good luck 🔥

Hi everyone,
Hope you are all doing well. What a year it has been! Thank goodness we have had the house to work on, its really given us something to focus on given the covid/lockdown stress.

We have finally got one room finished! The family living room (previously a dining room) is done. Very proud of my husband who ripped out the old gas fire, removed the lovely asbestos board behind it and got to work on the new fire. I will try to attach some photos but it was a hell of a lot of work.

Like most period fireplaces it had been made smaller over the years so hubby and his trusty sledgehammer removed 6 buckets of bricks and a hell of a lot of dust! I was pretty confident that there would still be a big lintel in place when we knocked out the smaller ones, but it was rather a relieve when I was proved right and the wall didn't fall down!

We then polished up and fitted a reclaimed fireplace and hubby had a go at creating a tiled hearth. Very pleased with the end result!

The rest of the room was a case of stripping off the old wall paper, a lot of filling and prepping on the walls then repainting. We Also gave the tired a gloss a coat of white to brighten it up. I'll attach the estate agent's photo to show you the before and after.

So that's one room done a lot more to go!

Well done. I always think a fireplace is improved by a lick of white paint! Good luck with the rest 😊

Aw that looks lovely, and at least you have somewhere to retreat too when the rest of the house is chaos

Update time: yes, I'm still here, we're still working on the house slowly but surely!

Our schedule has (as you can imagine) totally gone to pot this year with the lockdowns, but we're getting a bit more done now. The last couple of weeks have been spent doing up the spare room which saw our first guests this week since September!

My husband worked really hard on this room. When we stripped the wallpaper the paint underneath was peeling and in a pretty terrible state. We used an anti-peel primer, filled holes then a skim of filler and then painted. Hard work but got there eventually. I went darker on the wall here for a change, hope you like it!

A lovely rich colour! Could I ask you what the pale greenish colour is in the photos with the white fireplace?

Love the blue! And thanks for coming back with updates

Hi @sarh123
It's willow tree by dulux.

It's the end of September, how did that happen! Work on the house has been a bit slow due to struggling to get tradesmen, but the lovely husband has been doing really well on his own.

We did manage to get the stained glass done which was very satisfying. The original glass panels were long gone and the replacement was sagging and dangerous, so we arranged for a local glassmaker to make us a new one. I wanted it to be a contemporary version of a victorian skylight rather than a pastiche, hope you'll agree it looks great! Before and after pics, new is the blue one!

As you can see we still haven't managed to find anyone to plaster the hallway!

We did end up paying for a decorator to do the bigger boys' room, I went quite neutral with the colour scheme in here, but the new carpets have made a massive difference.

Every time I see this thread I say I love it and this is no exception! Love the skylight and the yellow. What’s next?

Hi Tania! Loving this reno so far! Cheeky qn - found your quotes for the rewire and heating really helpful so hoping you don’t mind - how much did the skylight set you back? We are interested in placing an offer on a house that just has a sheet of corrugated plastic in place of skylight atm so keen to get an idea of cost!!

Hi kathryn,
I'm trying to remember the exact figure on the skylight, I think it was around 2k-2500. The way it worked was we paid a joiner (recommended by the stain glass guy) to make the window frame and install it, and the stained glass artist was paid separately. How complicated you want the design would obviously affect the cost. Ours was done by Phil Melville stained glass in Glasgow if you're local!

Hi kathryn,
I'm trying to remember the exact figure on the skylight, I think it was around 2k-2500. The way it worked was we paid a joiner (recommended by the stain glass guy) to make the window frame and install it, and the stained glass artist was paid separately. How complicated you want the design would obviously affect the cost. Ours was done by Phil Melville stained glass in Glasgow if you're local!

Thanks so much - really helpful and not quite as eye watering as I thought it might have been! We are local, so reccommedations are great, thankyou. Can’t wait to see what you do next!

Update january 2022 - Happy New Year everyone! Gosh, 18 months into our renovation now, still loving the house, still lots to do! We are currently having all the guttering and down pipes replaced which has pretty much eaten up the last of our budget, but it'll be worth it to stop the random leaks we've been getting. We have made good progress on the 'posh' living room at the front of the house.

The biggest change is the fireplace. Like all the rest in the house it had been ripped out and replaced with a horrid 80's gas thing. We pulled out the 80's monstrosity and were excited to find... A horrible 40's monstrosity! The original was long gone. Luckily I came across an edwardian original on ebay and snapped it up for £99! Sadly it cost a lot more than that to get the flue lined and the fire reinstated but never mind.

 Hubs did a great job as ever removing wallpaper and fixing walls (two full layers of filler!) and we've even managed to get some colour on. Lot's still to do including all the woodwork but loving it so far!