Gus Alexander Architects






ALDERNEY STREET SW1



alderney Street

Although this 1830's corner house had no garden at all, the pitched roof had been replaced with a rather tacky sun room some time in the mid seventies. This was absolutely not an object of beauty in its own right, but it had a small terrace on both elevations which offered a marvelous outlook over Pimlico.

The house is designed to accommodate a large number of pictures, some of which are quite heavy, so secret rails have been provided at all wall⁄ceiling junctions and virtually all the lighting is via picture lights.

The upper floors have been overlaid with 250 year old oak floor boards salvaged from a house in the Forest of Dean. The entire basement floor has been laid with 25mm thick (or thin) slate shelves salvaged from the London Record Depository, and we transplanted a fifteen year old Wisteria which is now growing through the stone slabs in the area outside. The kitchen was made from an assemblage of old furniture bought in a Paris flea market, and the bath and double basin was originally in one of the suites in the Paris Ritz.

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It proved too difficult to provide the necessary black-out conditions to make an effective home cinema on the top floor. However, with some careful planning we were able to fit a large TV on a remotely operated hydraulic piston so that it could be programmed to drop completely into the floor and rest in a sealed slot behind the shirts in the dressing cupboard below.