Family storeys :Steve and Mandie McCutcheon rescued a run-down Victorian house in Glasgow and turned it into a glamorous yet child-friendly space

WHEN IT comes to renovating a home, Steve McCutcheon knows his stuff.

Having restored two large period houses, and built a couple of extensions and a house from scratch, he wasn’t alarmed at the prospect of taking on a three-storey townhouse that was crying out to be returned to its original glory.

The late Victorian property, on Glasgow’s Holyrood Crescent, a stone’s throw from bustling Great Western Road, was in dire need of TLC when Steve bought it five years ago. He shakes his head in dismay when recalling what it was like back in 2007.

“At some point it had been a bedsit so some rooms had been subdivided, others had doors knocked through, one room had a shower in the corner and there was a kitchen on the top floor,” says Steve, who owns PRG Recruitment. “It had clearly been done to fit more people in and was just horrible. To me, part of the attraction of a house like this is original features and space.”

Looking around the five-bedroom house today, it is clear that Steve and his wife Mandie have done their utmost to maximise the space and restore the original features that had either been damaged or removed. The height of the ceilings is now emphasised by the addition of Italian crystal chandeliers, the freshly plastered walls are highlighted by neutral wall tones, while a large dining kitchen opens onto the rear garden.

The couple call the ground level, with the large living room, WC, dining kitchen and utility, the “working and entertaining” floor. The first floor is their “family” level as there are bedrooms for each of Steve’s four boys – Jack, 12, Luke, 10, Owen, 7, and Charlie, 4 – as well as a family bathroom, and the top floor is the “adult peace” space – the entire second floor has been reworked to create a master suite with bedroom, dressing room and luxurious en suite.

However, it was a long journey to get to this finished state. The house needed replumbed, rewired, a new heating system, dampproofing, plastering, and windows and shutters restored. A new oak floor was installed on the ground level, with stone floor laid in the dining kitchen, while bespoke bathrooms and kitchen were handpicked by Steve, who also oversaw installation of a home entertainment system throughout.

“We love old houses but what we wanted to create here was the blend of old rooms with easy living,” he says. “We put in a pressurised hot water tank so that we have 24/7 hot water on all three levels. With six people and three floors, and dealing with the boys doing football and rugby and so on, we need hot water all the time. We also got the whole house wired for structured cabling which means we can have music in every room, we can play DVDs through it or surf the internet on TV and so on. The boys love it. We knocked a wall down to create the dining kitchen and we reworked space to make the downstairs WC and a pantry.”

The refurbishment took 18 months to complete, though the family didn’t move in until Christmas 2008 as a planning issue delayed some of the work by seven months.

“We wanted to demolish the out-house but the council said we should keep it,” recalls Steve. “We are really pleased now that we did keep it as it is a great use of space – it was originally a horrible bathroom with a 1970s green corner bath in it but we halved it to create the utility room and an outside store for the boys’ bikes.”

The utility is just off the dining kitchen, where high gloss white units sit comfortably alongside the marble worktop and opaque glass splashback, with double ovens, coffee machine, plate warmer and wine fridge providing modern luxuries. A reminder of the property’s history is found on the original ornately detailed fireplace in the dining room – the fireplace features a hand-carved violin, thought to relate to one of the house’s original owners.

The living room is a grand affair with the black marble fireplace at its heart, a large L-shaped black leather sofa ensuring space for the whole family, and plenty of room to display a collection of artworks brought back from travels overseas. The first floor finds a mix of luxuries, from the circular bed in Luke’s bedroom to the bathroom finished with reconstituted stone.

However, it is the top floor that is the couple’s piece de resistance, with the double sinks and double-ended bath in the limestone bathroom, bespoke dressing room and boutique bedroom.

“I do love my en suite,” laughs Mandie. “It is a bit like a hotel bathroom. We shut the door and it is our own private space, a little sanctuary. Sometimes when it’s just the two of us here we finish dinner, lock up the house and go up to our room to watch TV. The layout of the house really works for us.”

Despite this, the family are moving on – with a new baby due to arrive in April, the couple have decided they need another bedroom.

“We love the house and the area and if we didn’t need more space we wouldn’t be moving,” concedes Steve. “I have offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast, and I can walk to my Glasgow office from here, I get the train to Edinburgh and am at the airport in 10 minutes for Belfast, it is a great location. We looked into the idea of creating a basement level, which we were told was possible, but we would have lost a bit of garden by doing that, which was too much of a compromise for us.”

“We are really sad to leave here. We have done everything we can to make it a family home that works.” k

4 Holyrood Crescent, Kelvinbridge, Glasgow is for sale at offers over £500,000 through Corum (0141-357 1888, www.corumproperty.co.uk)