Jane and Sam Arman admit that they were complete novices when it came to the world of building renovation, but as professionals themselves, they decided to pay heed to the advice they were given.
TEXT Nik Hunter IMAGES ZAC and ZAC/Evan Holahan
Jane, a dentist and Sam, who is a doctor, were living in Inverness when they decided a move to Edinburgh was on the cards. In July 2022, the couple came across a terraced property in the West of Edinburgh. Jane arranged a viewing and while it appealed to her, she knew instantly changes would have to be made if it was to work for her and Sam.
“The layout felt weird,” Jane recalls. “And, the front of the house didn’t match the back,” Sam adds. This “weird” layout consisted of a traditional, corniced sitting room at the front of the house and a kitchen towards the rear, which was joined with a flat roof extension that incorporated a WC/utility space. This extension was located at the back of the building, but off centre and had created two rather unusable patio areas. Upstairs, there was a family bathroom and four bedrooms.
Keen to make the house usable as quickly as possible, the couple didn’t waste any time, as Jane explains: “We wanted to make it our space, so we didn’t see any reason to put the renovations on hold.” Within three months, the couple had set up a meeting with Edinburgh-based architects, Pend. “I had seen posts from Pend on Instagram and there wasn’t a project of theirs that I didn’t like,” Jane continues. “We didn’t look at anyone else.”
The couple both agree that this was possibly quite a naive approach to such an expensive undertaking, but they were also realistic about their own abilities, as Sam explains: “We came into this knowing that we didn’t know anything about self-building, but we were also aware that we didn’t have the time to learn anything about it either. We both work full-time, so we thought we might as well find someone who knew what they were doing. We’re complete novices, but also, we didn’t really know what we wanted to do or what we could do with the space. We didn’t even know how big we could go.”
After a meeting with director, Jamie Anderson, an initial brief was established in October 2022. “We didn’t give Jamie much of a brief,” says Sam. “We really did leave it very much up to him although I wanted whatever we did to make sense with the garden, so we could actually utilise it.” Jane continues: “I didn’t want it to be a box, I wanted it to appeal to open plan family living and I wanted the finishing touches to be important.”
For the Armans, their brief to Pend seemed rather vague but for Jamie and project architect, Ben MacFarlane, the site had already given them an idea as to what they could design and how to achieve it as Ben recalls: “Jamie had the first meeting with Sam and Jane and then I came on board when we started the drawings and it quickly became apparent there was one design that we wanted to put forward.”
Surprisingly, what interested and inspired Ben were the constraints that the site threw up: “At Pend we like to dial into the constraints at the outset. What are going to be the potential pitfalls later in the project? If we factor them in at the start, it’s less to navigate later.”
The issues in this case were the slope that the original house and garden were built on, neighbours on both sides, a retaining wall, and a public sewer which ran through the garden and now runs under the new extension.
“The arrangement of the space and the relationships to the garden came to us quite quickly and Jamie and I both felt this was the design and thankfully Jane and Sam felt the same,” says Ben.
Pend’s design incorporated a new kitchen/dining/living space at the rear of the property with a utility room in the middle of the house, a generous shower room under the stairs and a playroom between the hallway and sitting area for the couple’s two children, Rosie (four) and Annie (two). Both the playroom and utility are accessed by pocket doors to emphasise the open plan design and provide practical solutions for storage and access.
The plans from Pend also included the removal of the offshoot extension in the middle of the patio, thus establishing a new connection with the garden accessed by floor to ceiling sliding doors leading to a sunken patio, raised flower bed and varied ground levels to the end of the site. “The offshoot extension interrupted the connection with the garden and as the site is on an elevated position on Corstorphine Hill, surrounded by greenery and views, I wanted to make the most of the blue skies when they’re available!”
This elevated position, while enviable for the views, also ensured that Ben had to create a design that took into account two sets of neighbours, their privacy and their sunlight. He did this by simple geometry, creating two pitched volumes in the roof that slide and intersect and which had a twofold effect. On the one hand, this design protected the neighbours’ privacy and light and on the other created an internal variation in volumes in the open plan space.
“We like to ensure that our clients don’t need to have tricky conversations with their neighbours about planning permissions,” Ben explains. “There’s no point us designing and building a fantastic extension if you’ve annoyed the neighbours and have to live next to them for the next five years!”
This foresight worked and planning permission was granted with no objections. Contractors Rollo Developments were suggested by Pend to carry out the project and work commenced in March 2023 with a completion date of December 2023.
“It became clear from the outset that we wouldn’t be able to live in the house while the building work was going on,” Sam remembers. This was due in no small part to the fact that there is no access to the rear of the property; therefore, every piece of machinery and all the materials had to be transported through the house and also, there was simply no space for the family to live. “I’m still shocked that Rollo managed to get a digger through the house!” Jane continues: “The builders said there may be some damage, but there was none; they were incredibly careful and much of the house was boarded up for protection.”
The building process went relatively smoothly apart from one hiccup. Although Pend thought they had dealt with the issue of the sewer and designed around it, it wasn’t to be. “When we’re dealing with historic drainage records, they are usually pencil sketches from 100 years ago and they’re not always 100% accurate,” says Ben. Fortunately, the alterations required were approximately half a foot and didn’t hold things up for long. “There were a few other small discoveries, as there always are with older buildings,” Ben adds. “In this case, we discovered the timbers under the original kitchen had rotted, so the new floor was extended into the old part along with the insulation and the underfloor heating.”
While Jane and Sam had been unsure about how the actual extension would take shape, they knew the aesthetics and finishing touches were important to them and this part of the design process was much more collaborative.
As a result, the inspiration for the materials palette was drawn in the main from the original exterior at the back of the property, as Ben explains: “Sam and Jane showed us some images that they liked and we proposed a material palette based on that. We took inspiration from the brick boundary wall outside and from the back elevation, which was a sandy coloured pebble dash.”
A buff toned Marziale brick was chosen for the interior wall in the snug area and part of the dining space and this complements both the red brick boundary wall and the beige pebbledash.
This attention to detail and a quest for continuity and flow were reflected in the choices for the rest of the material palette. With a marble fireplace in the sitting room, echoing this material in the kitchen countertops and island, along with the sanitaryware in the shower room, brings a cohesiveness to the ground floor which was formerly lacking.
The kitchen, designed in collaboration with Archispek, is a contemporary combination of natural oak, off-white veneer cabinetry and white Calacatta marble. “We changed our minds a few times around the kitchen design and how large the island should be,” Jane recalls. “Wooden floors were a consideration, but then I thought there would be too much wood and Ben suggested micro cement instead.” says Jane. “Everything is very functional but stylish too and there’s so much storage that I haven’t used it all yet!”
Although the couple were keen to get the aesthetics just right, one thing they hadn’t considered was the impact of their new lighting system, as Sam explains: “The lighting really took me aback. I wasn’t expecting it to be so cool or for it to have such an impact. It plays such an important role. If we were in charge of the lighting, there would be something dangling from the ceiling and that would be it.”
“You don’t want to simply luminate rooms, you want to set the ambience in each space,” Ben explains. “Here, some of the lighting is functional, some of it is a feature, such as the adjustable Malamatta one and some of it is backlighting. Lighting really is the vehicle to set the mood in the spaces.”
Another surprise for the couple was the smallest room in the project – the playroom. “We didn’t realise how well the location of the playroom and the aperture that was punched through to the open plan area would work,” says Sam. “The light that the opening brings through the house is amazing. Visually, it’s great and practically, it works really well too. We can see and hear the kids and they and their friends also enjoy climbing through it, which was an unexpected use!”
“This extension has completely changed how we live in this house,” says Jane. “I think we lent on Pend quite a lot, but with good reason and the outcome speaks for itself,” Sam adds. “If you ask a professional for advice, you might as well take their advice. Jane and I are professionals, and we hate it when people don’t take our advice. And, while we always had options on the project, it was pretty clear in our minds that the option that Ben suggested was probably the best one.”
For Pend it was also an enjoyable experience as Ben explains: “I found it very refreshing how much trust Sam and Jane put in us; it’s not always the case when clients are so well aligned with our vision. I’m proud of what we’ve done here and I’m jealous when I visit!”
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