This beautifully crafted extension pays tribute to its surroundings, both inside and out, with every design decision thoughtfully reflecting its context. Nestled in the heart of Epping Forest, surrounded by endless greenery, wildlife and natural beauty, homeowners Fatima and Sven took an old house and turned it into the ultimate forest retreat. While searching for their new home, Fatima, who had only ever lived in urban areas, and Sven, who craved the countryside, sought the perfect blend of both lifestyles. This property was the ideal fit; slap bang in the middle of nature, yet still a train ride away from Central London. Having learned from a previous project where they didn't use an architect, Fatima and Sven approached Resi with a creative and detailed brief, envisioning an open-plan family home for themselves, their twins Odin and Thor, and their dog Arthur.
Fatima:
We moved to this property in 2021, in the middle of the pandemic. My husband had spent the last three years hounding me to move out of London, because he's from Germany so he's a country boy at heart, and living in Leyton just wasn't cutting it for him anymore! Eventually we found this property that was quite close to London, but still had a really gorgeous forest environment which was perfect for our kids who love animals and being on their bikes. I've always lived in really urban areas, so this was the first time that I've moved anywhere rural, and I love it. I go running on the trails quite a lot, and the children take advantage of the mountain bike trails too.
I've been driving home and have had to stop the car in the middle of the road to let a hedgehog cross the road! And there's deer everywhere, it's really majestic looking out into the garden and seeing them roaming around. I used to have this recurring dream where I was driving down these winding roads that had trees on either side. And when I got to my destination, a beautiful home would emerge. And when we were doing property viewings and driving through the forest, I felt this really weird sense of deja vu.
The house was in desperate need of modernisation, the kitchen was quite small. And the decking was rotten, so we couldn't even utilise it to sit out on or to access the garden, as it was quite dangerous! And there was an old plastic conservatory which we used as a dining room. If we wanted to walk from the conservatory to the kitchen, if you wanted to wash something off or bring something to the table, you had to go around the house and there were numerous doors you had to go through, which was impractical when you've got young children. We needed to have an open plan space where we could live as a family and always feel like we were hanging out, and so the layout was really important for us. I wanted to be able to have my eye on the kids when I'm cooking. We wanted to feel close to each other all the time and be able to see and talk to each other. If they are playing in the living room, or doing their homework at the table, we can be here in the kitchen preparing dinner and we're all living and breathing as a family.
We did a lot of thinking about how we could bring some walls down to have clear views of the garden, which was pretty much the main reason why we bought the property. We decided to take advantage of it by having the seven-meter-wide glazing, and to make sure that the interior felt in harmony with the outside. Sven and I have busy jobs and family life is hectic, so the mood that we wanted to deliver was 'how can it feel like a spa hotel crossed with a forest retreat?' It was really important to have an earthy palette with natural materials, so we went for a real wood kitchen, a mango wood table and granite worktops - we didn't want to have anything that felt too manufactured. Luckily Sven's a creative director, so he's pretty good at rustling up lots of different moods.
Our friends lived so close to us in London, but we probably have more people visit us now than we did when we lived there. We've got a swimming pool in the back garden, so that's a good excuse for people to make the journey up! We love having people over, the open plan really helps us to enjoy the space.
We came to Resi after an experience at our last property where we didn't use an architect. We came across some hurdles without having the proper plans drawn out, and we didn't have enough time to think thoroughly about the design process as well as all of the interior decisions. We found that project quite stressful, because we didn't have a framework that the builders were working to, and we didn't realise that we would have to make some very important decisions that would compromise the quality and the aesthetic of what we wanted to achieve. With this project, we really wanted to engage with an architect that could help us to bring our ideas to life, and it was good to have a one-stop shop for designs, planning and also a recommended network of surveyors and structural engineers.
Ben, Technical Designer:
The key thing to understand about this site is the level of beauty that surrounds the property. The Epping Forest area has been a royal forest since the 12th century. It's a very protected area with lots of beautiful wildlife, ancient oaks and beech trees, just a really serene and wonderful site. As a designer, it's important to pay some amount of respect to what's around the house and what came before it. And I think the real beauty of the way this brief landed with us is that Fatima and Sven really wanted to frame and make the landscape part of their home life. It wasn't just about improving the circulation here, which really needed to be done because of the arrangement of the existing spaces, but it was about celebrating the outside to the in.
Fancy a tour of Fatima & Sven's gorgeous home? Head to our YouTube channel.
Photography by Peter Furlong.
