The first home I owned was a lovely Victorian terrace in London. Full of original features including fireplaces, ceiling roses and even a built-in dresser, my husband and I were won over by its charm as soon as we walked in the front door. After months of looking at properties and not finding anything we liked within our price range, we couldn’t believe we might be lucky enough to get our hands on this gem of a house.
Of course, not everything about it was perfect. Like so many period terraced homes up and down the country, it lacked the open-plan layout so many of us crave, and it still had a ground floor bathroom as it hadn’t yet been extended to create space for one on the first floor. All fairly minor issues for us - until our first child came along, that is! Then trips downstairs in the middle of the night and separate closed-off rooms where we couldn’t keep an eye on our daughter while cooking, for example, suddenly highlighted the changes we needed to make to the house.