How to choose an architect: collaboration was key for this Maida Vale couple when creating their stunning family home

When it comes to changing or extending our homes, the world divides into those of us who know what we want and those who don’t.

If you hire an architect the difference is important, because some enjoy active collaboration, while some have strong ideas that they’re keen to explore.

Hire the type of architect who fits you. For example, if you find spaces and finishes difficult to imagine — and many people do — then choose an architect who’s done projects you love, and ask for something similar.

Trine and boyfriend James, both 39, work in advertising and are visual and creative.

They live and breathe ideas and find it easy to imagine 3D space. So naturally, they’d want to be closely involved in creating the home for them and their young children, Ryker, four, and Oktober, two.

“We wanted someone secure enough to listen to us and work with us,” says Trine.

They found exactly that online, in architect Dominic McKenzie. They hit it off — and the stunning, stylish result speaks for itself.

Yet alongside that rapport, it’s interesting that after laying a glamorous black terrazzo floor with sparkling bits throughout the apartment, the couple changed some areas to natural oak, to lighten the tone.

They did this with their architect, and it illustrates a good point, which is that there are many challenging decisions to be made when doing works like this. So if at the end there’s something you’re not as keen on as you expected, change it. The sky won’t fall in.

The couple met in 2011, when they each had a flat. They consolidated in Maida Vale, in a flat Trine says was gorgeous but set on different levels and not quite big enough for a family.

While expecting Ryker, they began looking for something on one level, with a garden and three bedrooms.

They wanted good outside space and something to improve and extend. But prices were rising fast in those days before the Brexit brake.

They looked first in family-friendly Maida Vale, then extended into nearby South Hampstead, a charming area of mixed housing, from Fifties and Sixties high-quality flats to late-Victorian red-brick terraces.

They found a ground-floor flat with garden in a terrace house that was so large it had been converted into three big flats in the Eighties. Theirs had large front and back rooms to the left of a hall, and a smaller room on the right, plus stairs to the cellar.

The complicated hall wasted space and the ceilings in the large rooms had been lowered three feet to create crawl-storage spaces that weren’t used.

Beyond these rooms, steps went up to a small bedroom, oddly overlooking a tired Eighties conservatory through an interior window.

A low, leaky, pipe-ridden coal hole-cum-basement was reached by rickety stairs. But a considerable plus was the big back garden, so overgrown they couldn’t even assess its size. The flat had been let out, and was showing its age.

In a conservation area but not listed, there was scope to extend. They lived in it with their first baby, until Trine was expecting Oktober.

Then they called in McKenzie, because with two adults and two children they wanted better space. After rejecting the idea of digging down, it was decided to extend at the back.

The stunning result, finished in just eight months, is an enormous family room that adds 500sq ft overall and faces the still-big garden.

With four huge floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors across its width — plus a small glass-walled courtyard that absorbs the former French windows, making a sweet seating area that adds extra light — this spectacular room is lit from both sides.

The family’s experience and enjoyment of their home has completely changed. “Now, the children are always in sight, with room to run around and play,” Trine says.

The couple both wanted polished plaster, so this room has elegant grey polished plaster walls. The same finish graces two bathrooms, which retain that black floor, with smart bronze and brass fittings.

The kitchen area of the big room has pale oak bespoke cupboards, and a black Corian island. The pairing of oak and shining Corian and terrazzo is elegant.

In the rest of this 1,450sq ft apartment, the lowered ceilings were removed, creating instant grace, while the hall was reconfigured. This flat has been streamlined and smoothed throughout.

The master bedroom looks out to that cute courtyard and is smart, painted an elegant greenish black.

The boutique hotel-effect en suite bathroom off it is all dark plaster, gleaming black floor and white ceramic. Bright modern art and crisp white bed linen look good against these dark tones.

The change to a paler oak floor in some areas works very well, making those parts more homely.

With its proportions restored and promise fulfilled, this once-tricky flat has become a suave three-bedroom, two-bathroom family home with heaps of va-va-voom. It’s a great example of teamwork.