Words Kate Jacobs
Architectural photography French + Tye / Dan Glasser
Portrait photography Paul Whitbread

Having moved to Bath from Brixton in 2016 in search of more space, easier access to nature and a city with its own identity, the pair bought and renovated a Victorian terrace here before deciding to move to the south of the city, where many of the secondary schools are located.

Here they spotted the potential in an unremarkable mid-century bungalow and – in partnership with architects Forgeworks – have effected a sweeping transformation, with just a few thoughtful interventions and a new palette of warm, tactile materials.

Crucially, the house now makes the most of the jaw-dropping views. Once only glimpsed through normal-sized windows, the family can now drink in epic vistas and ever-changing skies, via floor-to-ceiling glass that runs the length of the house. Each room opens onto its own decked area, for a seamless flow between inside and out, offering a welcome increase in light throughout the house.

An earthy, tactile material palette reflects the woodland setting and brings new warmth to the house, from the cedar-shingled façade and exposed glued laminated timber beams framing panels of pleasingly speckled wood-wool, to the bandsawn oak used for the floors and kitchen cabinet doors.

Now, Celia has crossed ‘next-level retrofit’ off her to-do list and is ready for a new design challenge, which means this unique space is for sale.

Keith: “When we first saw it, the bungalow felt very old-fashioned and tired, all very brown and beige.”

Celia: “The estate agent said to us, ‘You are not the people I see living in this house,’ and that was like a red rag to a bull. I needed to prove that it could be a house that we could live in, which is what we’ve done. There was plenty of opportunity, and it was very solidly built and sturdy, with good bones.”

Keith: “We both grew up with single-storey living, so it felt like we were coming full circle in making this our family home.”

Celia: “We had conversations with Forgeworks about apartments in Berlin and Scandinavia – what could we take from that and inject into this lateral living space? The estate agent presumed we’d add another level, but we really didn’t need to, and we spent the money on how the house looks and functions, and on really beautiful finishes. People think of a bungalow as squashing everything in willy-nilly, but we prefer living on one level, and it works for us because there’s no sense of separation. It’s great when you have active kids running around.”

Keith: “In Bath, there are houses with a similar square meterage, but they feel smaller because 20% of the space is taken up with stairs.”

Celia: “Forgeworks had done a garden office for our last home, and they were really helpful, so this time we went with our gut and didn’t speak to anyone else. They’re very approachable and listened to our aspirations for the house. They did the initial concept and the design development went from there – very hand in hand. We tweaked things and had open discussions around the sizes of rooms and how to get the views through the building; it was a very symbiotic relationship. Forgeworks don’t just think about the ‘ego’ of the house, they got to grips with how we’d live in the space.

“We added two modest extensions at opposite ends of the bungalow, one to create a new boot room entrance, the other to add a principal bedroom, since we were turning the smallest of the four bedrooms into a utility and plant room for the solar power and air source heat pump.

“The extensions mean that the house can function and be navigated in a completely different way. We only needed to add 20m2 to totally reinvent the house. At the same time, we flipped around the monopitch roof over the main living room, so that it opens up and out onto the incredible views, rather than boxing us in."

Celia: “We’ve opened other key rooms up to the rafters too, including the kitchen-dining room and our bedroom, while the central spine of the corridor is open to the pitch of the roof, creating a new sense of volume and space. And deep-cut roof lights in the corridor, snug, and children’s rooms wash these previously dark spaces with light. Everywhere there are new vistas framed by doors and windows to draw your eye through the house, we’re constantly seeing snippets of nature as we move around.”

“Every space has some kind of tactile finish bringing softness, and where there’s no texture, there’s colour. Dusty peachy pink, natural greens and sunny yellows, against the neutral mushroom tones of the breathable lime plaster.

“The building is cloaked in high-performance insulation under the sustainable cedar shingles. We looked at different cladding materials, from slate to metal, but when Forgeworks suggested cedar shingle, we knew that would bring amazing texture and stop the house from looking too new and sterile.

“We set ourselves some big goals, like not taking any removed elements offsite to landfill, so we back-filled gabion baskets with the waste, fronted with ironstone and used them instead of retaining walls in the hillside below the house. It’s great because they also work as bug hotels.”

“The double garage is now an office and a studio, with a platform bed so that it can function as an overflow guest bedroom. The pitch of the roof reflects the pitch of the living room, and we can sit and look over the same views as the main house.

Keith: “As much as we enjoy the beautiful house and the interior, a huge part of the success of the project is what we’re looking at. I don’t think we were prepared for how dramatic the views were going to be. We can see Bath, Bristol, the Severn Estuary and beyond to Wales. You can watch the weather fronts moving in and out, and we get incredible sunsets, as we’re facing west. At night, we’re sitting above all these twinkling lights in the distance, and the house takes on an LA vibe.”

Celia: “Even though we’re both visual people and we’d seen all the 3D models, the reality of the house has been even more special than either of us could have hoped for.”