“All I have retained of the original building is the bricks and mortar The rest has either been fully restored or replaced. The four first-floor bedrooms all have fitted carpets, and there is under-floor heating throughout the house. The windows are all new and, although they look remarkably like the Crittals that were probably originally fitted, are in fact double-glazed Clements. The kitchen is Bulthaup, all of the bathroom sanitary ware is by Duravit, and the taps are from Dornbracht.The indefatigable Kelvey is now off to tackle yet another restoration job – she says she is “exploring several possibilities, but nothing definite yet” – but has nevertheless finally decided to sell up the beloved Art Deco house that she’s been working on for the past five years.She thinks one of the house’s prime attractions for potential buyers will be its combination of Art Deco splendour, open-plan family-friendly ground-floor layout, the cosiness of its upstairs bedrooms and its tranquil surroundings. The kitchen and dining room area is floored with slate, while the rest of the ground level and the second-floor master bedroom is floored with dark wenge hardwood. The whole property is ringed by security fences, and it has an electronically operated front gate.Similar attention to detail is noticeable in the house’s internal fittings and fixtures. This (subject to planning permission) could fairly easily be converted into an additional self-contained living unit or office block, still leaving plenty of parking space in the driveway.

At night, both sets of terraces are illuminated, and the master bedroom glows like a beacon above the rest of the house.A stand-alone garage was added to the side of the house with a toilet and kitchenette at the back. The work was seamlessly done and blended in perfectly with the original lines of the house. All four bedrooms on that level now enjoy direct access to the terrace as well as sharing the main family bathroom on the landing.The house’s original roof terrace had been one floor further up, on the second level, which was reached by a flight of stairs.Kelvey now had the brainwave of adding an additional master bedroom suite at the apex of these stairs, jutting out from the top of the house and flanked on both sides by what remained of the original terrace. “Wherever you happen to be in those two rooms, you can see right through the house and out into the garden, so it’s magic for when you’ve got lots of kids around.”The flat roof of this new extension, meanwhile, provided Kelvey with the opportunity to create a vast first-floor roof terrace on it. A study and sitting room now occupy one side of this floor, while the rest has been totally knocked through and opened up to create two vast open-plan living spaces, which serve as the main family living room and kitchen/dining-room areas.”It was specifically designed to be family friendly, and with children in mind,” says Kelvey. Her overall plan was to double the size of the existing living space.First, she knocked through the back of the house and added on a substantial extension.

Past projects have included warehouses, loft conversions and a 16th-century cottage.When Kelvey bought this house, the place hadn’t been touched for 30 years. She’d always been a fan of the Art Deco style but had never had the opportunity to work on a building of that style.The house wasn’t listed, but for Kelvey that was an advantage, as it gave her a freer range when planning structural alterations. It’s immensely rewarding work.”Kelvey has been working full time at renovating since the late 1980s. You start with a pile of bricks and then you transform it into something new and exciting. She’s a designer who specialises in restoring period properties, buying up places in need of extensive work, doing them up, selling them and then moving on to the next project. “It’s hard work, stressful and often inconvenient, but I love the whole process,” she says “It’s like being a sculptor. The house sits secluded amid large gardens opposite the local public school, with a cricket club behind it.

It is one of a pair of houses standing next to one another in the same style, but the name of the architect responsible for them has been forgotten. It’s a 10-minute stroll into the market town itself, from where trains to London Liverpool Street take 35 minutes.
Kelvey found the house five years ago. “A lot of Art Deco houses have been demolished and redeveloped,” says the current owner, Louise Kelvey. “Most of the ones still standing are found around the coastline, where they often change hands for millions. It’s quite rare to find affordable Art Deco housing, especially this far inland.”That depends a little on your definition of affordable, but she has a point This is high design that a family can live with.

This stunning Art Deco house, in the leafy suburbs of Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire, was originally built in 1936 It’s unusual in many ways. Another daughter, Kate, lives in what her father calls “a bijou apartment in Grimethorpe”.The words “bijou” and “Grimethorpe” may only go together in the imagination of a poet, but not so long ago, the idea that this most evocatively named pit village would harbour four-bedroom detached homes would have seemed almost as fanciful as remaking Barnsley as a 21st-century market town, let alone Tuscan hill village.. McMillan actually lives in Darfield, a former pit village on the outskirts of town, with what agents now call a “semi rural” outlook – with the pits flattened, the landscape has opened up. “I’ll be here forever,” he says of the three-bedroom semi he shares with his wife Catherine, son Andrew, 17, daughter Liz, 20, and her son Thomas, 18 months. New office spaces are going up, restaurants and bars are opening. “We may not become a Tuscan hill village,” he says, laughing, “but the Remaking Barnsley master plan is full of good ideas to make this a market town for the 21st century.”As part of the masterplan, the 1970s market is coming down to be rebuilt Near Pollyanna, artists’ studios are being constructed.