How to maximise space and daylight when renovating a townhouse

When it comes to renovating and decorating townhouses, we always work closely with our clients to brainstorm how the space will be used in the medium and the long-term. It’s so important to consider who will be living in this townhouse, what they want to get from it and how we can make the space work better for them.

Designing the layout in a townhouse is especially tricky as these properties have a fairly narrow footprint and are quite tall, with several stories to consider. Often people try to approach the design of a townhouse by trying to fit everything you want into just one floor, usually the ground floor. As a consequence, all the upper floors are allocated as bedrooms and bathrooms, resulting in 20% of the entire footprint of the townhouse being used a lot and being at maximum capacity at all times.

That leaves you with the other 80% - bedrooms and bathrooms sitting empty, without any true function and a home that doesn’t make the most of the beautiful space available.

Planning the layout of your townhouse

What we recommend in terms of the layout of your townhouse, is planning what you truly need from your home. Do you have young children? If so, would a playroom better suit your family rather than an extra bedroom? Perhaps you might consider having the playroom on a separate floor so that when they’re having a bit too much fun, you can escape from the noise. Perhaps you work from home, and rather than squeezing a desk into your bedroom or living space you could create a separate office which allows you to compartmentalise your work/life balance a little more. By approaching the layout in this way we aim to spread the living spaces over more than one floor, which means you’re not overloading one area.

Approaching the ground floor layout and design of your townhouse

Starting with the ground floor, traditionally townhouses featured a lot of hallways and corridors. This meant a lot of space was eaten up in just getting from A to B. Nowadays, we’ve seen a shift into open plan living, creating spaces which flow without boundaries. This drive towards open living allows us to regain some of the square footage taken from those corridors and add them into valuable living space.

That being said, we also think that there’s also been a movement away from having everything open plan in recent years. After all, do you really want to see your mess all of the time and have no quiet spaces away from the rest of the family? What we often encounter is an opportunity to combine these two notions. Claw back some of that space used in walkways, but also consider having spaces that allow for a sense of privacy with big double doors, pocket partitions or perhaps moveable walls. That way, you can create a sense of intimacy in each room, as well as being able to give them their own identity rather than a blurring of all the spaces together..

Approaching the upper floor layout and design of your townhouse

Especially in London or major cities, homeowners tend to try and cram as many bedrooms and bathrooms into their property to maximise the potential resale value, should they ever be in a position where they need to move. This approach results in basic landing designs, full of doors, closing off light and interest as soon as you move from the ground floor up.

What we would encourage you to think about is to take the same approach as we recommended for the ground floor; think about what you need and how these rooms could flow. Rather than having every room off of the landing, think about whether that study could connect to the master bedroom or whether the playroom could flow between children’s bedrooms. The concept of interconnecting spaces is a great way to save on unnecessary circulation space. We start by creating a bubble diagram to try and figure out how our clients live and what they need rather than just looking at the space and trying to fit as many rooms into it. We like to encourage our clients to step back and allow us to be creative about how to conceptualise these upper floors, thinking about what they need rather than what they want on paper.

Developing the main point of focus in your townhouse

Whilst we have our layout hats on, let’s look at the most important question of any renovation, what is the main point of focus for the home? Is it the kitchen where the family spends most of their time? Or is the sitting room the key focus? Once that vital question is answered we can then start trying to get the best out of the layout.

Why is daylight important in a townhouse design?

In parallel with the consideration of space planning when planning a townhouse renovation , we always try to maximise the daylight throughout the space.

Why daylight you ask? For us it seems obvious, people navigate towards the light in all situations. When you’re deciding where to read a book, would you pick a dark corner or a window seat? It will always be the window seat. And if you’re working, where would you put your desk to stay energised and efficient throughout the day? It would be near the window.

The human population has evolved to be attracted to daylight, it’s a Biophilic approach. What we find with our clients time and time again is when they come to tell us their must-haves, maximising daylight is always within the top three. Mentally speaking, daylight is good for us, it lifts our moods and it’s important to our overall well-being, that’s why light can make or break a home, and its layout.

It’s not surprising at all that finding out where the sun will be at certain times of the day throughout the house is important when buying and designing a home. Sometimes we find clients will buy a home, even though it makes no sense on paper, just because the daylight is amazing and it feels just right for them. Whereas they might find a place which ticks all the right boxes, but if there’s not a good sense of daylight they’ll find it somehow isn’t as attractive as it perhaps should be in terms of ticking boxes on their wish-list.

How to maximise daylight in the layout of your townhouse

More often than not you’ll find a lot of windows at the front and a lot of windows at the back, compromising the division of light in your townhouse. So our main consideration is how we can use the roof to bring in more light - a place that people often forget can be vital for the change in light distribution.

Recently we had the benefit of having a very old unloved townhouse which didn't have any redeemable architectural features. We collaborated with an architect to come up with a floor plan whereby instead of having one staircase core to one side of the house -usually the most space efficient way of positioning a staircase- we designed two sets of stairs off-set to one another. This provided a triple height void that allowed a skylight in the roof to cast daylight from the second floor, through the first floor and into the ground floor living room, which we positioned in the middle of the house.

Collaborating with an Architect allowed us to to look at the home’s footprint holistically and work out the best way to bring in that extra light. This is truly where it pays off to work with a professional, because it gave this house an edge which was dramatically different to the other townhouses all around it. It adds a real stamp of architectural quality, which improves the whole inner workings of the townhouse. Now, the light is evenly divided between all the rooms, making them all a bright and pleasant space to live in.

Take a look at our Chelsea Modern Townhouse

The Gunter & Co guide to renovating and decorating townhouses