Victoria and Michael Anderson have given an old agricultural bungalow a contemporary upgrade

WORDS HEATHER DIXON

PHOTOS DAVE BURTON

Torrential rain fall, collapsing ceilings and a monstrous telegraph pole were just a few of the obstacles that stood in the way of Victoria and Michael Anderson’s vision to transform a dated 1960s bungalow into a modern family home. Yet the couple took every challenge in their stride as they embarked on a two-phase plan to more than double the size of the property. Even when Victoria was heavily pregnant with the pair’s two children, it didn’t stop her climbing ladders and generally getting stuck in to keep momentum going as the scheme took shape.

“You just need to be well organised,” she says. “We managed the first phase ourselves, which was very time consuming on top of everything else. However, the second phase was managed by the builder, who was brilliant. We gelled with him straight away and it took a lot of stress out of the process.”

Complete transformation

The modern family home that stands on the site today is a very different dwelling to the one Victoria and Michael first saw in 2010. The couple had been living in a modern townhouse nearby when they started searching for a more rural property. “We both have country backgrounds and love horses, so we were looking for somewhere in the country yet still close to a town,” says Victoria. “This bungalow was in the perfect location and stands in six acres of land, so it’s not overlooked.”

The house stands in six acres of land. It has been extended and over the years and is now almost double its original size

The property itself was nothing to write home about. When the previous owners bought it, the house was an agricultural tied bungalow, and they had stables on the land. By the time Victoria and Michael took ownership, however, the conditions had been removed. “Although it still felt small and very dated, we could see the potential in the building,” says Victoria “The people who lived in the house before us had already extended the property by adding a conservatory. They also had planning permission to go up into the huge attic space but had never taken it further.”