All too often creating drama in an interior is assumed to require radically changing a house from a being set of distinct separate rooms to a single open plan space. This process often removes the character of the original house with its specific cornices and fireplaces defining each room’s purpose.

Instead, making selective new openings to align doorways and window can bring the satisfaction of say glimpsing the rear garden from the entrance hall, or allowing borrowed light to enter a room previously denied it.

Having lived in the property for twenty years, the clients were well-placed to separate the idiosyncrasies that they wanted to retain to keep the character of their blonde sandstone Victorian semi, and those they wanted to improve upon. “Victorian houses like this often have a very dark rear area,” explains Craig, “there were a couple of doors that led into what would have been the maid’s area and original kitchen, but they could not be opened together, so it created this kind of ‘social airlock’.”