A complete makeover

Nathan Berger and Donna Pettefer followed their hearts and injected new life into an abandoned architectural project

WORDS HEATHER DIXON PHOTOS DAVID BURTON

From the roadside, the six-bedroom 1950s bungalow was unremarkable. Positioned on the bend of a busy road and in the direct flight path of a major airfield, the property was in desperate need of some TLC. “It was in pretty poor shape,” says Nathan. “A lot of people wouldn’t have given it a second glance.”

However, Nathan and his wife Donna weren’t put off and arranged a viewing. They were greeted by a space-wasting entrance hall that was disproportionately huge compared to the rest of the house, which comprised a disorganised jumble of corridors and small bedrooms with no flow or character. But when the couple went upstairs, they immediately saw its potential – through the eyes of the previous owner. “The bungalow had formerly belonged to an architect and his wife, and they’d started to transform it into something really different,” says Nathan. “Unfortunately they separated before the work was complete, so although the bones of his original ideas were there, it was very much a renovation in limbo.”

In fact, the previous owner had only managed to apply his vision to the bungalow’s huge loft space, which had been turned into a large, open-plan living area. There was a kitchen at one end of the zone, with a dining room in the middle and a sitting area at the other end, which overlooked open fields. A split-level floor across the middle of the room was bound by a series of vertical and horizontal wooden support beams and a door leading towards the garden actually opened out straight onto a sheer drop.

BERGER & PETTEFER FILE

NAMES Nathan Berger & Donna Pettefer

OCCUPATIONS Recruitment consultant and musician & manager of online interior design business