From Church Hall to Two Stunning Homes

You don’t have to go ahead with plans to transform a whole building in one go - you can complete your project in stages.

Our client Christine wanted to transform an empty commercial property in Kelso in the Borders into two separate stylish homes.

Although we drew up plans for the whole building which used to be a church hall - Christine went ahead with developing one half of the building at first. Then when that was completed she moved onto developing the second half into another home.

Before: The church hall was used as a commercial premises

After: The hall was transformed into two homes in two phases

Completion

Now both unique properties are complete and the development is striking. Christine has moved into the second more spacious home on the site and plans to the use the first house developed as a rental.

The latest phase of the development has just been featured in the July 2024 edition of Grand Designs magazine. The first phase was also featured in the magazine back in September 2020.

Before: The Church Hall has a long deep plan

After: The new courtyard helps defines the two homes

Christine’s family nursery business had originally been based in the building before she moved it to a different location and then sold it. The 1930s building was then let out to different businesses before laying empty for a while.

We worked with Christine to come up with a design to convert the front of the building into a three-bed home which was completed in 2019.

Then Christine came back to begin work on our design for the back of the site. Now married and with a baby on the way we worked with her on adapting the design to create a more spacious family home which was just finished in March 2024.

The existing roof truss is exposed in the dramatic double height living space

Before: The suspended ceiling concealed the roof structure

Design

As the building was originally designed as a church hall it was a large open space inside but with little available outside. We removed a portion of the side of the building - taking away a wall and part of the roof to create a courtyard for outside space which also let light inside. Through our design we created two distinctive and unique semi-detached properties.

For the second phase we changed the single height space internally by removing the suspended ceiling. This meant we were able to create a second floor for bedrooms but also meant we could form a dramatic double height space over the living area and master bedroom on the ground floor.

As the building was hemmed in by other properties in the street, rooflights became an important design element to let light into the inside spaces.

To allow sufficient head room on the upper levels, the smaller rooms on the ground floor such as study were ‘cosy’ with the ceiling at 2.1m high. These were in stark contrast to the double height public spaces.

We designed the building to be highly energy efficient with an EPC A rating. It was fully insulated to well above the current standards, with energy efficient modern glazing, PV photovoltaic panels on the roof to generate electricity with a home storage battery, and an Air Source Heat Pump to provide the hot water and heating.

* Check out the first phase of the Christine’s development here

GRAND DESIGNS: July 2024

Images: David Barbour

Words: Caroline Ednie

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