Hanbury Street was once a furniture factory of Harry Epstein Ltd, a world-famous manufacturer of bespoke furniture and known as one of the finest cabinet makers in Europe. The building has since been converted into residential units and is located in the The Brick Lane and Fournier Street Conservation Area, the property is surrounded by characterful retail shops, pubs, restaurants and cafes at ground floor level, with offices, storage and residential units above.

Our work began first by restructuring the layout to accommodate the family of five. In doing so, we introduced a set of stairs linking the two floors as a new lightwell to bring more light into what is a relatively deep building.

Important to the design was to maintain the original factory character. Here we kept the original brickwork, details and doors, including a large steel sliding one. The spaces were kept as large and generous as possible while still accommodating the different rooms of the house.

The house had many features already there. This included some nice teak doors, shelving and tiles. At the start of the work, we spent a substantial amount of time taking an inventory of what was already there — all with a view to incorporate them in the new.