This Victorian house has been reshaped many times over the years. Now, finally, it’s not too big and not too small, but just right for its happy owners

Since the late 19th century, successive owners have struggled to fit just the right size and style of house on this slim and sloping corner plot in Edinburgh’s leafy Grange neighbourhood. Finally, following a transformation of the property by Somner Macdonald, Fraser and Jenny Smith could claim to have solved the riddle of this home.

It began life as a humble single-storey sandstone cottage. In the century and a half since, a hodgepodge of additions changed its shape: a second storey was laid on top, bay windows were built to the front, and a timber-and-glass entrance vestibule was tacked on the side (all probably done before or during the early Edwardian era). Later expansions included the construction of two rear annexes, one latched onto the back of the other.

“It had changed format significantly,” recalls Séan Gaule, director-architect at Somner Macdonald of his initial encounter with the house back in 2020. Fraser and Jenny had only recently purchased the property and were already planning their renovation journey, but they knew they could do with some specialist input. “It had not been lived in for some time,” Séan adds. “It was dated. The fabric of the building was tired, and it had clearly had a chequered history.”

All of that made it exactly the house the couple had long been waiting for. “It was always our dream to do a big Grand Designs-style project,” Fraser explains, “and for ten years we’d been looking for suitable properties to come up. But in the Grange, they very rarely do — and then they go for silly money. This was a house that needed a lot of work. But we could see it had huge potential.”

That potential, like the house itself, was largely hidden. The property sits behind a high boundary wall in a sloping, wedge-shaped plot of around a quarter of an acre; the garden level drops several metres from street level, making much of the building invisible to passers-by.

With two teenage sons in their household, plus a cat and a dog, maximising space for the whole family was a priority for the Smiths, along with adding a generous, light-filled kitchen-living area opening to the outdoors, thus finally integrating the home with its hitherto disconnected rear garden. They also wanted to maximise south-facing aspects and light — and all while retaining much of the original Victorian character and working in an element of future-proofing.

The physical tightness of the plot wasn’t the only restriction; the Grange Conservation Area’s planning controls placed another layer of complications on the project — including strict height limits below the existing eaves, and the need to avoid increased overshadowing or overlooking of neighbouring properties.

A building to the north side imposed its own particular set of amusingly archaic stipulations. “It’s a former college for ministers’ daughters,” explains Fraser, “and the title deeds say you can’t have any windows facing its play area — which was actually fine, because we wanted to make the most of the sunny south-facing aspect.”

This is an excerpt from issue 165 of Homes & Interiors Scotland.

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This B-listed mansion renovation by Somner Macdonald, in Barnton, is something of a unicorn project.

This B-listed mansion in Barnton is something of a unicorn project