When Sue and David Black first laid eyes on their future home 11 years ago, it was potential they saw, not charm. From the outside, it was just another modest suburban house in Barnet, a 30-minute subway ride from the West End of London, no different from thousands of others built around the capital's outer edges in the 1970s.
And the interior was worse. "It was like a dark, creepy old lady's house, with a lavender bathroom," said David Black, 44, an award-winning Fleet Street cartoonist.
But one glimpse through to the garden was enough. Beyond was an unbroken view of sloping farmland, dotted with trees and hedgerows, just right for a couple hankering for a touch of the rural in reach of the city, and still on the patch where both grew up.
"We didn't really look at the house: we just thought that's so cool," said Sue Black. A big idea was born. "We have rebuilt the house around the view."
Architecturally, that was going to take imagination. London planning restrictions can be tough, and the Blacks had some particular requirements. They needed not just a suitable home for their two small boys, but also the right backdrop for the midcentury furniture that's their shared passion.
Sue Black name checked a few of the period's top designs: a Saarinen Womb chair, a Bertoia seat, a George Nelson clock, and a Jielde lamp. Some are fairly recent reproductions, but the Blacks are ready to dig deep into their pockets for the right vintage piece: the 1946 Eames molded plywood chair in the corner cost about $4,000.
Like any good collector, enthusiasm sometimes outruns prudence. "I love buying stuff - I'm the Queen of Google - but it can just turn into clutter," said Sue Black, who once worked for the respected Erotic Print Society. One room upstairs holds her "mistakes" awaiting disposal.)
Not that all is expensive or from their favoured period. The living room mat is from Ikea and the chunky French dining table was picked up from an antiques store in the East End. "With two dogs and two kids, everything is going to get hit a few times so it has to be durable," David Black said.
And their taste in pictures is playful. On a bright, white living room wall hangs a Banksy print—one of an edition of five—of a tortoise with a hard hat for a shell, a comment on the slow pace of reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina. Above the fireplace in the dining area is a black-and-white tangle by the New York artist and fashion designer Jordan Betten.
But it's the house's radical redesign—the work of Paul Archer Design in London—to capture the view that delights the Blacks. The front of the house has kept its bland suburban look, but the interior is transformed. Today the ground floor is flooded with light and almost twice its original size.
Gone is the garage and decking terrace at the back, replaced by projecting single-story extensions on two sides, with outsize east-facing windows. For summer there's a small patio between the two wings, with the same flooring of three-square-foot cool gray porcelain tiles used in the house.
And the interior was worse. "It was like a dark, creepy old lady's house, with a lavender bathroom," said David Black, 44, an award-winning Fleet Street cartoonist.
But one glimpse through to the garden was enough. Beyond was an unbroken view of sloping farmland, dotted with trees and hedgerows, just right for a couple hankering for a touch of the rural in reach of the city, and still on the patch where both grew up.
"We didn't really look at the house: we just thought that's so cool," said Sue Black. A big idea was born. "We have rebuilt the house around the view."
Architecturally, that was going to take imagination. London planning restrictions can be tough, and the Blacks had some particular requirements. They needed not just a suitable home for their two small boys, but also the right backdrop for the midcentury furniture that's their shared passion.
Sue Black name checked a few of the period's top designs: a Saarinen Womb chair, a Bertoia seat, a George Nelson clock, and a Jielde lamp. Some are fairly recent reproductions, but the Blacks are ready to dig deep into their pockets for the right vintage piece: the 1946 Eames molded plywood chair in the corner cost about $4,000.
Like any good collector, enthusiasm sometimes outruns prudence. "I love buying stuff - I'm the Queen of Google - but it can just turn into clutter," said Sue Black, who once worked for the respected Erotic Print Society. One room upstairs holds her "mistakes" awaiting disposal.)
Not that all is expensive or from their favoured period. The living room mat is from Ikea and the chunky French dining table was picked up from an antiques store in the East End. "With two dogs and two kids, everything is going to get hit a few times so it has to be durable," David Black said.
And their taste in pictures is playful. On a bright, white living room wall hangs a Banksy print—one of an edition of five—of a tortoise with a hard hat for a shell, a comment on the slow pace of reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina. Above the fireplace in the dining area is a black-and-white tangle by the New York artist and fashion designer Jordan Betten.
But it's the house's radical redesign—the work of Paul Archer Design in London—to capture the view that delights the Blacks. The front of the house has kept its bland suburban look, but the interior is transformed. Today the ground floor is flooded with light and almost twice its original size.
Gone is the garage and decking terrace at the back, replaced by projecting single-story extensions on two sides, with outsize east-facing windows. For summer there's a small patio between the two wings, with the same flooring of three-square-foot cool gray porcelain tiles used in the house.