Butterfly House - Sussex

The Family House

Harriet and Alastair made the bold decision to move their family closer to Harriet’s parents from South East London. It was always a dream to be able to 'Design and Build' their own property and after searching for quite some time they purchased a house between Midhurst and Petersfield in Hampshire which they lived in whilst the design was being undertaken.

The neighbours were grateful for the families application as previously a developer was trying to obtain planning for two or three houses on the plot. They were very patient throughout the build. There was very tight access which meant we had to bring most of the materials down the lane on a forklift.

Internally, there is a large open plan kitchen / dining / family room opening up into the garden. A utility room with a side door from the garden, a large living room and study / reading room. Upstairs there are 5 double bedrooms, two of which have en-suites and a family bathroom.

The main feature of the property is the double height front screen, feature staircase, roof light and galleried landing.

The family are quite understated, and whilst they knew they needed to build a house that was fitting for the plot they didn’t want to be too outrageous in context to other properties along the lane.

Harriet and Alastair appointed Zakuna to design, manufacture and install a feature staircase, all timber windows, screens and doors, as well as wood engineered flooring to the entire downstairs and gallery landing.

Helical Staircase

The family did not want the feature staircase to over dominate the entrance to the house. The team at Zakuna designed a staircase that would not takeaway from the abundance of natural light coming from the roof light of the butterfly roof and also from the double height front screen. Collectively, we designed a staircase that has features from the Wayfarer Staircase and also the Sunfish. The glass balustrade allows through the natural light and sits inside a pocket of the strings.

The 2 twisted steel stringers create a double turn staircase or a Helix curved staircase. They are painted in the same Grey RAL 7015 colour as the timber windows. The thick Oak treads sit between the two strings, which are stained to match Zakuna's Jazz Wide Engineered Wood Flooring. The Oak Handrail was also stained to the same colour, to keep with colour palette of the decor.

Jazz Engineered Wood Flooring

Jazz Wide Engineered Wood Flooring was chosen by the family for the entire downstairs and landing. The colour softens the painted grey timber windows and brings the natural beauty of the timber cladding from the outside of the house in.

Timber Windows, Screens and Doors

All the windows are triple glazed timber windows painted in RAL 7015.

The house features 7 tilt and turn timber windows, 4 long floor height widows that are tilt only windows, with 2 fixed and fielded windows of the same size.

The open plan downstairs living area features 2 x sliding timber glass doors, which open out onto the back garden, meaning that Harriet and Alistair can keep a watchful eye on the boys playing football. Similarly there is also a large sliding glazed door after the room dividing fireplace.

The feature entrance is a double height screen with a traditional vertical grooved timber front door.

All the Ironmongery is matt chrome.