The bungalow’s new owners, Sally and Paul, bought the bungalow as a project a few years ago. Sally explains, “We had a larger family home no more than about 750 metres from this place. With the kids’ grown up and at university we decided it was time to think about downsizing. We loved where we lived so didn’t particularly want to move far so when we saw this nearby 1960’s bungalow was on the market we decided to snap it up.”
With the home purchased and the kids returning from university soon, the couple decided to sit tight on making a move into their new house, letting their children live in it while they made the transition from university to new independent lives.
“They lived there for a couple of years and we spent that time thinking about the work we wanted to do on the bungalow. It was very old and tired and we really wanted to create the perfect home for us where we would be happy to spend the next stage of our lives. When we eventually sold our family home and moved in we spent the next few months finessing our plans as it was useful to live in the property and be sure of how we wanted the renovated house to work and feel.”
The couple instructed a local builder to remove an old conservatory, replacing this with a new extension to increase their living space. “The house can be quite dark as it has lots of trees surrounding it so adding a new skylight and patio doors would really brighten up the home. As this extension would create a new open plan living space running into a dining area and new kitchen we also added a utility room which also houses a pantry and cloakroom as this would help keep the new open plan room clutter free and give us some extra storage space.”
For the internal décor, Sally was keen to keep this very light, playing to Scandi design influences.
“Making the home feel bright and spacious was really important to us. We’d always lived in period properties before and we were keen to do something very different with this place. We wanted elements of character, but within a generally clean and contemporary palette.”
For the new kitchen, Sally decided on a modern shaker style from Units Online in their Stori Aldana range painted light blue, adding a contemporary white Apollo Slab Tech worktop which looks just like a quartz kitchen worktop but has the seamless finish of a solid surface manufactured from mineral filled polyacrylate resins.
When it came to flooring the couple were originally keen on finding an engineered wood floor that could run throughout all of the living spaces in the bungalow. “We’re local to the new V4 World showroom in Woking and it looked so impressive so we headed over one weekend. I’d ordered various other floor samples from online retailers but they were so small and trying to get any advice was non-existent, so I was so pleased when we visited that the team were so helpful, knowledgeable and patient in talking us through our options.
“After much consideration we thought we had found the perfect engineered wood floor for us and arranged for a local floor fitter to visit our home to quote on installation. We were a little dismayed when he told us he wouldn’t advise on an engineered wood floor. We discovered we’d been misinformed about retrofitting underfloor heating on top of our old parquet floors as this method could compromise an engineered wood floor so installing it would be at our own risk to possible future issues.
“We just couldn’t face the thought of changing all of the subfloor and heating, or the cost involved, so we headed back to V4 World as we knew they had laminate options available and this would be our best alternative.”
While Sally wasn’t originally keen on a laminate wood floor as she had pre-conceptions they could be very unrealistic she was impressed when she took a closer look at the Natureffect laminate collection. “The planks looked great, so realistic and with a great choice of wood tones. We had a favourite but Meghan at V4 World mentioned a new extra large collection that was due to arrive in the showroom any day and it would be worth taking a look before we made our final decision. We’re so glad we did as these extra large floors were so lovely.
“I was so impressed with how natural and realistic they looked. Being larger planks they would really give the feeling of space we wanted inside the bungalow, and the surface had less repeat patterning than I had seen in other makes of laminate making the finish seem so akin to real wood floors.”
The Natureffect XXL laminate floors are imprinted and embossed with natural textured grains on extra large planks making it almost impossible to tell it apart from solid oak flooring. The high-quality laminate floors feature a softwood core and glueless locking installation and are registered embossed to the contours of the natural grain, just like real wood.
The couple eventually chose Beach House, a beautiful light oak effect which plays to the Scandi influences Sally wanted inside the home. The floors were installed in a day as a floating floor and new skirting was added to complete the neat finish.
“We love the finished floors. They look so impressive and are so incredibly durable and easy to keep clean and work really well with the underfloor heating. They’ve given the bungalow the light and modern feel we wanted and all the spaces flow so naturally. We really don’t feel like we have compromised at all as they look and feel just like the real wood floors we had originally planned for our home.”
The home was finished with a neutral paint palette where they used the different tones available in the Little Greene Slaked Lime range to create tonal changes and soft, subtle contrasts. A new wood burner from Home Wood Stoves in Sandhurst in the living space adds a beautiful feature to the living area.
“Everything was finally completed just before Christmas, and while my husband and I were a little bit apprehensive about downsizing after years in our family home we now absolutely love it here with our new home finished just how we wanted it.”
