She Lost Out on Her Dream London Home—Then Bought a Crumbling Alternative at Auction and Rebuilt It From Scratch

Buying a house is never something you want to do impulsively, but Canadian interior designer Elizabeth Macfarlane had a feeling about the London home in which she and her family live. After losing out on a beautiful Victorian villa with its original architectural details intact, Macfarlane and her husband came across another property in the neighborhood that was heading to auction. As it goes, the second property, the one that was available, was hardly move-in ready. “It had been broken up into bed sets and all of the original features stripped out of it,” Elizabeth recalls.

Still, she could see its potential, and after five nerve-racking hours of online bidding, the couple secured the property. What followed was an extensive renovation that took the house down almost entirely back to brick. “There’s one original feature in the house, the staircase, and apart from that, everything you see we built up,” she explains. You’d never know from looking at it, though, because she performed such a historically accurate reproduction.

Determined to restore the home’s Victorian and Edwardian character, Macfarlane researched the architectural details that would have existed when it was first built. In the sitting room, for example, an elaborate marble fireplace was recreated after she discovered that the antique version she loved was slightly beyond her budget. The room’s traditional plasterwork and oak parquet flooring further reinforce the home’s historic feel, while a carefully collected assortment of artwork adds personality.

In the kitchen, Macfarlane took a similarly thoughtful approach, choosing a freestanding dairy table rather than a conventional island. “I love kitchens that don’t feel ‘kitchen,’” she says. Just beyond, a newly constructed dining room was designed to resemble an Edwardian conservatory, creating a beautiful connection to the garden.

Throughout the house, Macfarlane’s interpretation of English country style brings together antique furnishings, patterned fabrics, and a soft, cohesive color palette. Her study is especially personal, with a portrait of Virginia Woolf and a Swedish antique table in place of a traditional desk, while the sunroom draws inspiration from her childhood home in Canada.

Upstairs, a bedroom palette inspired by her grandmother’s Art Deco lamp adds another layer of family history. Despite the scale of the renovation, Macfarlane never wanted the finished house to feel newly decorated. “What I was trying to do with this house is feel like it had evolved over time,” she explains. The result is a London home that feels as though its character has been accumulated over generations.

For Macfarlane, the most important part of the transformation was creating a home that feels both beautiful and lived-in. “Home is where you feel comfortable, where you feel calm, where you escape from the stresses and strains of the world,” she says. And after bringing this once-neglected property back to life, she’s found exactly that.

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Explore more Homeworthy homes across the pond below:

• A 100-Year-Old Brighton Apartment Inspired These Designers to Embrace Its Past
• This London Flat Has All the Grandeur of an English Country Estate
• The Secret to This 1910 London Home? Not Everything Is as Old as It Looks

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