The best home renovations and extensions of the year

Take a tour: the best home renovation and extensions of the year

• 78show all

Take a tour: the best home renovation and extensions of the year

• 1/78 Micro living in Bethnal Green

  Through skilful design Sara L’Esperance, 29, and Michael Putman, 42, managed to transform a dark and dated 60 square metres into a light-filled two-bedroom home/office with 77 sq m of floor space, including two bedrooms, a dining room and masses of inbuilt storage.

  Adrian Lourie

• 2/78 Micro living in Bethnal Green

  By thinking vertically, they managed to add in a 9m square guest bedroom, 6sq m of storage and a small office on two mezzanine levels. The couple spent £485,000 on the apartment, £85,000 in renovation costs. Its estimated value is now £695,000.

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  Adrian Lourie

• 3/78 The Pink House, Forest Hill

  Emily Murray, founder and editor of award-winning interiors blog The Pink House, has used her own home as a canvas for her inspired interiors tips. "I feel I am immersed in a cookie-coloured world when I am in this kitchen,” she says.

  Gavin Smith

• 4/78 The Pink House, Forest Hill

  In the dining area, she installed what she calls her "wall of words”. This gallery of framed typographical artworks includes a vintage Rockett St George Archway Station original bus blind, a map of London in words and the 24/7 print from We Are Amused.

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  Gavin Smith

• 5/78 Wow-factor warehouse in Shad Thames

  Jenny Clare thought the warehouse flat she was viewing looked like a dark, damp windy chimney but she fell in love with it anyway — or, at least, she fell for its setting. With its cobbled streets, old brick warehouses connected by iron walkways and the river alongside, Shad Thames feels like a film set.

  Charles Hosea

• 6/78 Wow-factor warehouse in Shad Thames

  With metal-framed windows, cast-iron radiators, exposed brick and a deep-joisted timber roof, the flat was attractive but quite dark. Sulking in a back corner, a cramped spiral staircase led through a hole to a platform from which sprang a big industrial stairway, rising up the height of two storeys through an old brick tower just 12 feet square. Designing a new staircase was a challenge but now the bespoke open-tread staircase doesn’t hog the tower, which now has two super-cute rooms.

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  Charles Hosea

• 7/78 Hackney home with seven different types of wood

  Lucy Dusheiko’s architect husband completely remodelled their home, designing it around the family’s need for more light, space and generous storage, in their choice of materials. Truly bespoke, sustainable, calm and scented inside with seven different types of wood, this airy house is enviable but not flashy — quite a transformation from what they bought in 2010.

  Charles Hosea

• 8/78 Hackney home with seven different types of wood

  They moved the basement stairs to the other side, allowing a double-height kitchen-living room, connected to the floor above. The couple also raised the low basement ceilings by a foot, created a peaceful loft extension and the glass-fronted shower features a skylight that fully opens to the sky. Its estimated value is now £1.8 million.

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  Agnese Sanvito

• 9/78 Two stylish homes in Walworth

  Brownfield sites are not the land of the quick buck. But what the developer turns down, turns up as an opportunity for creative thinkers prepared to put in the time. Like David Johnston, 64, a former graphic designer who started out in advertising but got the bug for doing up houses in his thirties.

  Juliet Murphy

• 10/78 Two stylish homes in Walworth

  Instead of building one big house he has built two attractive, modern, two-storey houses of 1,230sq ft, each with three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a sunny walled courtyard, on a brownfield site that used to be home to a workshop for making iron railings. Hemmed in by houses, David and his architect Malcolm Crayton knew they would have to keep the roof lines low, so each house is sunken down around three feet and cannot be seen from the pavement.

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  Bruce Hemming

• 11/78 Mews house with showstopping skylight near Hyde Park

  Claiming a link between the South of France and a traditional London mews house might seem far-fetched. But it’s a connection that French-born Elodie Besson makes about the four-storey mews home she shares with her husband Alexandre Tiers and their sons Antoine, seven, and Nicolas, four. "I grew up in the South of France, so I love having lots of light,” she says.

  Adrian Lourie

• 12/78 Mews house with showstopping skylight near Hyde Park

  Formerly a gloomy house, it has been transformed by London-based Binom Architects into a surprisingly light-filled, even sunlit family home, thanks to the addition of a large skylight on the top floor that draws light down the stairwell to the ground floor. The original mews house cost £1.35 million in 2011 but the house is now valued at approximately £2.1 million.

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  Adrian Lourie

• 13/78 An enterprising renovation in Walworth

  When architect Sofia Kapsalis and her husband Soren Krautwald heard in 2016 that their Walworth neighbours planned to enlarge their house sideways and outwards at the back, they were immediately interested and the couples got together to share a wall and save themselves some money.

  Juliet Murphy

• 14/78 An enterprising renovation in Walworth

  To put this mutual advantage into financial context, Sofia’s builder said that if she glassed over her side return on her own then the work without glass, which is often the most expensive part, would be about £50,000. If she did it with her neighbour, it would be £30,000. They all saved their bricks and combined them into the new, strong wall between the two houses. The house cost £595,000 in 2007 and is now valued at £1.25 million.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 15/78 Contemporary living in Kensal Rise

  Ian Dollamore’s architecture firm focuses on squeezing extra from what is already there. His transformation of a one-bedroom Victorian garden flat into a glamorous two-bedroom flat is a perfect example.

  Gavin Smith

• 16/78 Contemporary living in Kensal Rise

  Ian added 200sq ft to the 560sq ft flat in Kensal Rise, north-west London, and the visual difference and feel of extra space is striking. The flat now features a spacious living-diner, a long kitchen where the side return used to be, a low-maintenance garden and a tiny courtyard outside. The flat cost £585k in 2015 but is now worth £880-890,000.

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  Gavin Smith

• 17/78 The ultimate gap house, Bethnal Green

  After a two year search for a plot to build on, Oliver Lazarus and his wife Anu Kumar found a space near Columbia Road flower market, just 12ft by 216ft. It had a restrictive legal covenant preventing residential use, was an awkward shape and had been on the market for years. It took the couple almost five years to get planning permission for a four-storey, three - to four- bedroom house.

  Juliet Murphy

• 18/78 The ultimate gap house, Bethnal Green

  The house, which cost £240,000 in 2011, makes the most of its space, with built-in desks and shelves in the hallway to create a perfect office/study space. All its landings are large allowing them to be used as open-plan rooms.

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  Charles Hosea

• 19/78 Seven bedsits transformed into family home, Shepherd's Bush

  It is always wise to get a good look at a house you’ve seen in an auction catalogue and get a proper survey done before getting carried away in the saleroom. Chelsea Dixon and her husband Robert Bühler did neither.

  Juliet Murphy

• 20/78 Seven bedsits transformed into family home, Shepherd's Bush

  The couple, who run an architectural design company, bought a Victorian terrace house in Shepherd’s Bush, west London in October 2015. The place hadn’t been touched in 25 years and had damp. Luckily for these two, fortune does indeed favour the brave, because they’ve turned the old wreck into a fantastic family home with a huge, sunny living room at the back of the flowing, wide and now long ground floor.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 21/78 Glass topped warehouse in Shoreditch

  Andy and Dorys Lewis wanted a loft apartment with the flexibility to divide it into private rooms, then reopen them easily and smoothly - keeping that distinctive warehouse feel. With the help of skilled architects the couple transformed the huge top floor of an old Victorian warehouse in Shoreditch, where uniforms were made in the Second World War.

  Juliet Murphy

• 22/78 Glass topped warehouse in Shoreditch

  Sliding doors, a spacious main living area and a hall as wide as a gallery make up the luxury apartment. Above, the terrace level is a triumph. The airy bedroom pavilion leads onto a roof garden designed by a Chelsea winner, with nodding agapanthus and grasses. In 2016, the warehouse conversion cost around £400,000 to £450,000 but the loft is now valued at £2.85 million.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 23/78 Victorian house where work meets play, Stoke Newington

  Architects Ran Ankory and Maya Carni expected the Stoke Newington house they bought in 2015 to require a lot of work but they never planned to disembowel it. Yet that's what they ended up doing. Gutting their Victorian terrace allowed the pair to make spectacular changes to connect the basement floor and ground floor into a multi-level, open family space.

  Juliet Murphy

• 24/78 Victorian house where work meets play, Stoke Newington

  The split-level living space is the focus of the house and though the house is only marginally bigger, it now feels twice the size. Ran and Maya were determined to give their boys their own area for homework and play that was part of the living area, so everyone could be together, yet do their own thing. The result is a bespoke bench/work table that slides out and slides away.

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  Matt Clayton

• 25/78 A reversed living space in Shepherd's Bush

  Wanting to make her home bright enough to work in, fashion designer Catherine Teatum called on her architect brothers Tom and James, who overhauled her small mews house in Shepherd’s Bush to suit her lifestyle perfectly. The Teatum brothers reversed the conventional living arrangement of the 850sq ft, two-storey house, putting two bedrooms and a bathroom on the ground floor and a generous live-work space above.

  Ingrid Rasmussen for Habitat

• 26/78 A reversed living space in Shepherd's Bush

  They opened up the space to give double height and varied the roofline to add an extra floor and a roof terrace. The stair to the new top storey runs beside a birch ply library shelf and the small living room up there has a glass side wall that allows more light into the main room below.

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  Ingrid Rasmussen for Habitat

• 27/78 Budget bolthole in Norfolk

  For Steven and Scott Harding-Lister, and their spaniels Penny and Rosie, a dark and poky 18th-century cottage in Norfolk had the potential to become the perfect getaway from London.

  Joakim Boren

• 28/78 Budget bolthole in Norfolk

  They bought in October 2016 and began a strict, no-frills £20,000 restoration, using traditional materials and colours, plus a local carpenter and tiler to complete the work. The cottage is now valued at an estimated £230,000.

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  Joakim Boren

• 29/78 Sky garden home in east London

  Architectural designer Ran Ankory, co-director of Scenario Architecture in Islington, is fascinated by the effect a house can have on its inhabitants and concentrates on tailor-making homes, with meticulous attention to detail. He put his distinctive approach into practice in 2013 when a couple with a toddler, whom he had met at the school gates, asked him to do their house. They’d bought an uninhabitable Nineties live/work shell in a terrace in east London and wanted to enlarge it into a proper family home.

  Matt Clayton

• 30/78 Sky garden home in east London

  The couple’s new home has three full-size floors plus a large cedar-clad roof terrace. A large corner section of the terrace was sunk down inside the flat, with glass walls all round it — almost as if a big corner square of the terrace has gone down three feet in a glass-sided lift. This means that part of the garden is visible at any time from the living room, along with sky.

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  Matt Clayton

• 31/78 Georgian gap house in Putney

  Lawyer Alice Spani-Molella's handsome Putney home began as a tiny Georgian Grade II-listed house the size of a two-bedroom flat, formerly used as servants' quarters. By digging out the driveway, she and partner Peter added 50 per cent more room.

  Juliet Murphy

• 32/78 Georgian gap house in Putney

  The narrow, bendy old staircase was refurbished and kept. It now sweeps through a swish sitting room to the bedrooms in the old part of the house above. The house is now valued at £1.29m, compared to £550k in 2012.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 33/78 Fabulous light-filled home, Maida Vale

  Ben and his wife Winnie, bought a dark, damp basement flat in Maida Vale for £1.15 million in 2010. At 1,800sq ft the three-bedroom flat has more than double the floor space of an average UK home of 893sq ft.

  Juliet Murphy

• 34/78 Fabulous light-filled home, Maida Vale

  The flat not only required structural work, it needed complete reconfiguration to make the most of the light. The walls were knocked down to create the large, open-plan, light-filled kitchen, living and dining room. Their architect extended the living space into the courtyard in the centre of the house and built the extension from glass to maximise the natural light. The renovation cost £250,000.

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  FRENCH+TYE

• 35/78 Rachel Khoo's kitchen, Kensal Green

  Popular food writer and broadcaster Rachel Khoo has always lived in small spaces but hasn't let that limit her. Now she has been space-creative yet again in Kensal Green, north-west London, with a bigger home-office ingeniously created from a small Victorian garden flat.

  DeVOL kitchens

• 36/78 Rachel Khoo's kitchen, Kensal Green

  Khoo had dreamed for years of a big, airy kitchen to cook in and for filming. She wanted "a country look with a twist”. Now she has made that dream a reality, with a run of bespoke cabinetry down one side, plus table and chairs and a mirrored display vitrine.

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  DeVOL kitchens

• 37/78 Passivhaus built in four days, Hampshire

  This Hampshire Passivhaus is the first of its kind in the borough. It is the new family home of architect Ruth Butler, who specialises in this type of super-efficient eco-housing; her engineer and Passivhaus designer husband Julian Sutherland, 51; their 12-year old daughter Eva, and their pet puss KitKat, who has his own Passivhaus-accredited cat flap, also the first in Havant borough.

  Peter Langdown

• 38/78 Passivhaus built in four days, Hampshire

  This 1,650sq ft, two-storey, three-bedroom house with three courtyards, three bathrooms, a big central family kitchen-diner and an extra, sun-soaked sitting room, took only seven months from breaking ground to full interior finish. The walls and roof went up in a mere four days to an exceptionally high standard. Amazing stuff.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 39/78 A former gin distillery in Whitechapel

  Rupert Scott and his wife Leo Wood transformed a former gin distillery in Whitechapel, once dark and dank with rats, into a sunny and super-stylish two-storey home.

  David Butler

• 40/78 A former gin distillery in Whitechapel

  The couple liked its "hidden” quality and turned their blank canvas into a light-filled area, reinstating the elegant lost windows, creating four outdoor spaces and putting in an internal roof terrace at second floor level, which would also bring light into the house.

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  David Butler

• 41/78 Showcase home, Wandsworth

  Fine art expert Oliver Howell has lived in his four-bedroom Victorian railway cottage, in a quiet road in the heart of the sought-after Tonsleys area of Wandsworth, for nearly 10 years. Most of the houses on the street are almost identical but Howell wanted something a bit different.

• 42/78 Showcase home, Wandsworth

  The new interior is a showcase for his art collection. Howell and his builders ripped out the interior, dug out the back of the kitchen to create a lower level that leads out on to the southwest-facing garden and streamlined the house. Full-height, industrial-style, glazed doors lead into the garden and make the most of natural light. Materials used in the garden — Sydney stone blocks, wood and brick — reflect the interior scheme and pay homage to the fact that this was once a rail workers’ cottage.

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• 43/78 Future proofed home, Islington

  So often, Londoners face a dilemma when they retire: should they move house or stay put? When Julia Tayler hit The Big Six-O two years ago, she did some critical forward planning. Fit and youthful, she decided to stay put and make some major changes.

  David Butler

• 44/78 Future proofed home, Islington

  Sensibly, she had already written her wish list, for a "fun, functional, welcoming place, cosy and stylish but not twee” — and designed for getting older in. Most importantly, she wanted a bigger kitchen with more surfaces, along with two proper bathrooms. When Tayler moved back in, she was amazed by the sense of extra space, even though architect Peter Morris had actually only added 100 square feet. But "every inch is better used”, Tayler says.

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  David Butler

• 45/78 Self-built house inside a 'boat' in Poole

  The Poole house that architect and developer Roger Zogolovitch and his wife, Carola, use as a retreat from their London home is like nothing you’ve ever seen. It’s shaped like two upended half boat hulls joined together.

  Rory Gardiner

• 46/78 Self-built house inside a 'boat' in Poole

  ‘It’s called the Houseboat, because it is a boat with a house inside it,’ says Zogolovitch. The house took two years to build and many of the interiors were sourced at flea markets. With a front garden of grass and flowers, this extraordinary house has won the RIBA’s Stephen Lawrence Prize.

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  Rory Gardiner

• 47/78 A windowless house that is full of light, Clapham

  City worker-turned-bespoke home builder Ben Kendall bought and renovated his first flat aged 27. Fast forward 14 years, and his amazing new house, renovated from two dreary Seventies garages, is a far cry from that modest first attempt. Near Clapham Common, the 1,000sq ft two-storey house is ablaze with daylight, yet there isn’t a single window — Wandsworth planners said that was out of the question from the start.

  David Butler

• 48/78 A windowless house that is full of light, Clapham

  The main feature of the house is a big glass atrium which opens up to the sky while, upstairs, a smart white-tiled bathroom is bright from a skylight and the main living area has a skylight in each corner, plus light from the atrium. There just isn’t a dark corner anywhere. The lower level holds a peaceful bedroom and a large bathroom with bath and shower. Light filters down from a big oblong of glass bricks which, you suddenly realise, is the atrium floor, so the same daylight gets used twice.

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  David Butler

• 49/78 New staircase takes centre stage, Stoke Newington

  Replacing the grand Victorian staircase in their four-storey terrace house with a wooden slatted staircase gave one family the much-needed space they craved for. Now homeowners Marie and Ramon, along with their two daughters, have two extra bathrooms, a light-filled kitchen and a master bedroom in the loft.

  Juliet Murphy

• 50/78 New staircase takes centre stage, Stoke Newington

  Beautiful and surprising, this computer-cut birch ply creation, made from 2,000 separate pieces, is also quiet underfoot — important with wooden stairs. By taking up less space than the original huge one, it has also made room for space and more light.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 51/78 A tranquil garden extension, Lambeth

  Freelance psychiatrist Jane Mounty has lived in the same three-bedroom semi-detached Fifties house in Lambeth since 2000, but she has recently made changes that have connected her house to the garden and completely transformed her quality of life.

  Juliet Murphy

• 52/78 A tranquil garden extension, Lambeth

  Mounty asked for an extension that would focus on the garden and a wraparound timber structure creates one big space for living and cooking, with a wall of glass. The kitchen island, covered in white marble with rust-coloured veining, is set so that you can look out at the garden while Mounty cooks. The extension cost £135,000 but the house is now valued at £1.1 million.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 53/78 The pattern house, Southwark

  London fashion accessories designer Carolina Wong wanted a space full of pattern and not at all plain. Her Victorian home achieves just that. A cream marble worktop in the kitchen and theatrical style bathroom adds decadence while a complete redesign of the ground floor allows for more light.

  Juliet Murphy

• 54/78 The pattern house, Southwark

  One of its most striking features is the floor made of porcelain tiles in a herringbone pattern that zigzags from the street-facing living room, then to the kitchen-cum-dining area and finally the back garden, with its non-slip tiles. The extensions and renovations cost £240,000 and the house is now worth an estimated £1.4 million.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 55/78 Basement conversion with added value, Hackney

  Basement flats needn't be gloomy or dark, as this renovation proves. Adding £200k to the value of their flat, Cat Meribol and Merlin Mason totally gutted the lower floor, enlarging the size of the main kitchen-living room and replacing its grubby floors with wide wooden floorboards and painting the walls white.

  Juliet Murphy

• 56/78 Basement conversion with added value, Hackney

  The entire back wall of the flat was removed and replaced with floor-to-ceiling glass doors leading out to the large, sloping back garden. For these glass doors, Cat and Merlin chose the largest "off the peg” sizes available rather than go the made to measure route, in order to keep costs down. Though costs were around £130k, the three-bed flat is now worth around £1 million.

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  Adam Scott

• 57/78 Paddington Basin

  Anthony Sauerman and Manfred Noemdo already had the right location overlooking newly buzzing Paddington Basin, they just needed more space to create the calm, bright home they craved. They added space and doubled the value of their Paddington flat without an extension.

  Charles Hosea

• 58/78 Paddington Basin

  After visiting a friend whose apartment had just had a glass makeover, Anthony and Manfred decided to follow suit. The walls were painted black to emphasise the glorious views over the canal below, while the windows now have black-painted horizontals, adding great contrast. A timber-clad ceiling which extends to the back walls creates a geometric crisscross for hanging artwork and the whole flat now has a calm and light feel. Anthony and Manfred spent £210,000 but the property is now estimated at £1.6 million.

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  Charles Hosea

• 59/78 Eco house, Forest Hill

  A massive but badly overgrown garden formed the basis for Julia Jude and her daughter Elyse's garden extension. Inspired by clever "gap” houses they’d seen on TV shows, which achieve miracles on narrow plots such as theirs, their architect created a long, light-filled house next to their old one with a brilliant internal courtyard.

  Charles Hosea

• 60/78 Eco house, Forest Hill

  Down one side of the long hall run birch-ply cupboards and a smart concealed bathroom. Then the first surprise hits you — a triangular glass-sided internal courtyard, beside which is another bedroom. Finally, the biggest surprise: a big, light, rectangular living room with an end wall that’s all glass.

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  Niki Borowiecki

• 61/78 From hideous house to perfect family home, Peckham

  Ed and Sarah Burgess were desperate for a house with a garden and found it in a Thirties brick semi with a long back garden and four bedrooms. Though in a perfect location it was "absolutely hideous", says Sarah.

  Rachael Smith

• 62/78 From hideous house to perfect family home, Peckham

  With a series of small rooms across one side, Ed knew that he could open it all up and draw in light from the top. He got stuck into the loft conversion first and in just four months, added 540sq ft of habitable space. Downstairs, his solution was to turn the back wall of the house into a run of windows and glass doors punctuated by a window seat, a bookcase and an innovative sliding screen that covers the French windows to the garden, while adding a big double bedroom upstairs.

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  Rachael Smith

• 63/78 The "Fitzroofs" renovation, Primrose Hill

  Retired architect Bernard Hunt and his neighbours in Primrose Hill persuaded Camden council to let them build a one-storey roof extension on each of their homes in a single daring construction project.

  Juliet Murphy

• 64/78 The "Fitzroofs" renovation, Primrose Hill

  Hunt used his extra floor to create a bright library and workspace, while the other 11 homeowners on the street followed suit, unifying the look of their houses and increasing living space in their street.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 65/78 Clever gull's wing extension, Suffolk

  Ben Baglio and Richard Wilson bought a dilapidated Thirties property, knocked it down and built a new house next to the River Alde in Suffolk. The house takes the shape of a gull’s wing, enhanced by soft grey zinc and white-painted bricks, on a timber frame, with a low roof line to fit planning rules.

  David Butler

• 66/78 Clever gull's wing extension, Suffolk

  The architect designed the new home on a hillock set a little way from the original plot and five metres above sea-level, so even in a freak flood the house would stay dry. The house boasts underfloor heating, a great central room with soaring eaves and a kitchen-diner which enjoys river views through huge windows. There are two guest bedrooms and a master suite that has jaw-dropping views of water and sky. The house cost £1,021,000 to build but is now valued at £3 million.

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  David Butler

• 67/78 The Sun Rain Rooms, Islington

  Architects Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu added a two-storey extension to their Grade-II listed Georgian townhouse in Islington. The project won first prize in the Don't Move, Improve awards.

  David Butler

• 68/78 The Sun Rain Rooms, Islington

  The stand-out feature of the winning project is the incredible undulating roof overlooking the courtyard, which gathers rainwater in a harvesting tank. At the push of a button, the tank floods the patio transforming it into a reflecting pool.

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  Edmund Sumner

• 69/78 The Berkshire Twins

  Fred and Laura Guttfield built a steeply angled extension on the back of their Victorian three-bedroom terrace house in Twyford, Berkshire and when their neighbours, who were away during the build, came home they asked Fred to design a mirror-image extension on their own home. The resulting symmetrical pair are now nicknamed the Berkshire Twins.

  Juliet Murphy

• 70/78 The Berkshire Twins

  Each extension adds 20 per cent more space as well as creating a fourth bedroom and a second bathroom out of pre-existing space. The Guttfield's extension cost £90,000 while the neighbours one cost £145,000.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 71/78 A loft conversion with floor-to-ceiling windows in Walthamstow

  When Asia Kowalczuk and Duncan Grey turned their attic into a light-drenched master suite it transformed their family home. Their stunning loft extension now boasts super-light decor and floors that create a roomy feel for Asia, Duncan and their daughter, Iona.

  Juliet Murphy

• 72/78 A loft conversion with floor-to-ceiling windows in Walthamstow

  The attic conversion has floor-to-ceiling sliding windows at the rear that lead on to a small terrace with a glass balustrade, offering views of gardens and the park beyond, while light floods the new extra room, which has Velux windows overlooking the street. The four-month building project cost £60,000.

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  Juliet Murphy

• 73/78 A converted bunker in Camden

  Photographer Jonathan Root bought a bunker in Camden for £150k and converted it to three storeys on a shoestring budget. The project took 20 years and cost £350k, but the home is now worth around £1.95 million.

• 74/78 A converted bunker in Camden

  The stand-out feature in the property is the yellow staircase, which Root painted with 10 coats of paint. The house was named as London's most innovative house extension at the Don't Move, Improve awards.

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• 75/78 A dramatic modernisation in Camberwell

  In his latest project, architect David Money has dramatically modernised and extended the Camberwell terrace house he shares with three friends. David's co-buyer Kane Chan, 46, lives with his boyfriend in his own stylish section of the house with a bedroom, living area and svelte bathroom. The attic conversion is being rented out by a mutual friend.

  Taran Wilkhu

• 76/78 A dramatic modernisation in Camberwell

  The two-storey, brick terrace house with attic cost £750,000 in 2015 and Money and Chan spent £550,000 renovating it. Its current value is an estimated £1.8 million.

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  Taran Wilkhu

• 77/78 Laid back living in Wandsworth Common

  Though she moved to London 12 years ago, Sommer Pyne missed the light, airy, laid-back mode of living in Australia. She wanted a big, airy home in London with loads of light and sunny, open-plan living and renovated her Victorian property in Wandsworth Common, from top to bottom, to reflect this.

  Photography Anna Batchelor for MADE.COM

• 78/78 Laid back living in Wandsworth Common

  The house cost £2.8m and Pyne spent £1m on renovations, including a basement across the whole footprint of the house, which now houses a guest bedroom, en suite, cinema room, gym and bar.

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  Photography Anna Batchelor for MADE.COM

Amid the backdrop of ongoing political uncertainty and stretched affordability, more property owners than ever are choosing to stay exactly where they are and instead of moving - more of us are taking on the challenge of a home renovation project. 

Inspired by yet another blockbuster season of Grand Designs, home owners across London and beyond have carved their dream house from former factories, derelict properties and unwanted patches of land.

The best of this year's innovative renovations even includes a tiny 60sq m micro-flat, which has been kitted out so cleverly it has given the rest of us design envy.

Meanwhile, one couple bought a tiny pad which they transformed into a spacious home by building vertical rooms and creating much-needed extra room.

One brilliant money-saving idea was to raise the roof rather than digging down into the basement, which saved one owner £60,000.

Plus, when architect Sofia Kapsalis and her husband Soren Krautwald wanted to extend their side return, they joined up with their next-door neighbours to build a shared wall, saving money on costs and party wall agreements.

For homeowners looking to add small designer touches to their space, rather than a full remodel, interiors blogger Emily Murray's top tips - including adding colour to the home and switching up cabinet handles - will give a home a new lease of life.

Whether you want to add a nifty extension or are looking for space-saving tips to do up your home, there are plenty of inspiring ideas here to create your own stylish spaces.

Click through the gallery above to find out more on this year's best home renovations and extensions.