Trying to find Aperture House on a residential street in north-west London, I walk past the address several times. The door number matches the one I have been given, but the kerb appeal is… not what I am expecting from the big-budget, architect-led renovation I have been sent images of. Nonetheless, not discovering a parallel house with the same door number, I try my luck and ring the bell.

“When people come over for the first time they often ask if we’re planning to leave the front like this to deter burglars,” laughs Tom Boland, as he opens the undeniably decrepit front door onto a scene far more in line with what I was expecting. “It’s more that we’re lazy, and also we want to take the whole thing back to brick and so, again, you’ve got to find £20,000 and it is just not top of our mission.”

This trade-off is emblematic of Tom, a journalist and his psychiatrist husband Billy’s entire approach to renovating the house they now share with their 18-month-old daughter. A reluctance to compromise on finishes and specification meant they had to approach the work in two phases (with more to come) in order to manage their budget, something Studio McW, the architecture practice they enlisted to help them, says has become more common with rising construction costs.

The couple bought the Edwardian end-of-terrace house in 2019 and lived in it in a state of some disrepair through the first Covid lockdown, planning all the ways they wanted to change it. When builders upped tools again, the couple jumped in at the deep end, opting to tackle the most overwhelming part of their home makeover first. “The kitchen was in the worst shape and was the least liveable part of the house,” explains Tom. The pair wanted to extend, rather than just refurbish the existing decrepit 1970s layout, so they felt free to make bolder architectural choices than in the rest of the house, where they were planning to respect the period bones. The north-facing room was very dark so introducing as much light as possible was a priority. They built out at the back with fairly standard floor-to-ceiling glazing. Studio McW also designed them a less conventional, chapel-like, pyramidal-roofed side extension with an oculus allowing light to enter from above.

A small internal courtyard, bordered on three sides by the extension, the living room and a small shower room, draws light into all three spaces and offers a green outlook. Tom says adding the courtyard was a “challenging decision. It’s not really used, we don’t go out and sit there and mentally we had to give up square footage but actually I find it really pleasing. It is a focal point and that tends to be a more quiet, reflective part of the house now. We’re lucky that the proportions and size of the house allow us to have moments like this.”

A large oak storage wall partitions the kitchen and the living dining area. A large opening is carved through the centre of the structure providing a very child-friendly climbing nook, soon to have cushions added for more seating overlooking the courtyard. It also provides another through sight line to the house. “The entire design principle for Studio McW was that you could stand in the front of the house and just about see through to the garden. That was always the kind of driving principle of the design,” says Tom.

The couple thought the kitchen was going to be the most expensive part of the refurb and so hoped to get their significant spending out of the way. “I wildly underestimated what this was going to cost, partly because I realised throughout the process that I wasn’t really willing to compromise on what I wanted to do. You’re meant to add 20 per cent contingency but I think we were well over that,” says Tom. Suggestions that a door could hinge rather than pivot, or that adding a shadow gap between the tiled skirting and the wall might be too complex only crystallised for Tom just how much he cared about the finish and materiality.

There was a planning objection to the height of the extension, so they dug down a metre into the ground rather than compromise on ceiling height. “Those are all the things that make a massive difference,” says Tom. “We were more worried about building a home that we wanted to live in and less worried about the resale value.” Enter arguably the standout feature of the house, which also happens to be its centrepiece, a cocooning study/library.

This was part of the second phase, which Tom says they went into with “more sober, open eyes about what it was going to cost”. The entire room is lined with bespoke joinery except for the fireplace, where a 1970s brick wall has been replaced by elegant grey gloss tiles. A corner window can swing right open and nestles in a dedicated niche. There are pocket doors between the study and the living room, which Tom says are rarely closed, but are framed by a bookshelf arch. On the living room side, the timber of the door frame is set on a slope in a subtle echo of the pyramid ceiling on the kitchen extension. Dedicated niches offer homes to various objects, artworks and books, part of the couple’s growing collection.

“Both Bill and I come from working-class families where there wasn’t art to pass down the generations. I find it really exciting that we’re starting to build a collection that our daughter might get one day,” says Tom. How do all these lovely things work with having a toddler in the house right now though? “She’s only been walking for about two months but things have been moving a little higher up. The living room coffee table used to have various things on it, now it’s bare,” says Tom. Now that the bulk of the renovation has been completed, Tom is adding to the couple’s collection of art and design. He sources pieces from all over the world — ceramics from Francis Gallery in Los Angeles, a painting by Sally Kindberg recently shipped over from a New York gallery, a 1970s bronze horse bought at an auction in Italy that was “quite heavy to ship”, and pieces from 8 Holland Street in London. “My husband plays violin, does meditation, all that, I just browse the internet all the time,” says Tom.

Taking their time and learning lessons as they go has had benefits beyond the budgetary, helping the couple create a more timeless, less trend-led scheme that they hope will be slower to date. “It’s funny how your design tastes change and there are a couple of finishes I would choose differently if I were doing it now, mainly the black hardware in the bathroom,” says Tom. “But on the whole I still like most things about the house. That’s why it is great not to do it all at once.”