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CKAGE

Words: Emily Henson Photographs: Catherine gratwicke

Buying three floors of a 1910 post office and sorting depot in desperate need of redevelopment was not what Karone Pack-lum and her husband, Jon, had in mind when they decided to move from their home in East London to the Kent coast.

Originally they had their sights set on a big old brick house but when that sale fell through they heard about this property by word of mouth before it was even listed. Immediately they recognised an exciting opportunity: good bones, a unique building and a creative project.

The section of the sorting depot they bought was a shell. There were no electrics, gas supply or even stairs connecting the three floors of what are now the entrance floor, upstairs and basement. The latter (reinvented as the main living area) was formerly a loading bay and had two huge openings in the walls, as big as the Crittall-style windows that fill the space today. The upstairs, where the main bedroom is, had been a warren of staff rooms and toilets, with a gaping hole in the floor where

mail dropped down a chute to the basement for collection.

The main challenge was sourcing contractors who could do the work required to convert the building into a home within the budget of £150,000. ‘The architects and builders were convinced we could not achieve our goal with the money,’ says Pack-lum. ‘What did they know!’

To cut down on costs the couple shouldered most of the manual labour themselves, working with existing features throughout: the metro tiling in the main bedroom and connecting hallway, for instance, which they modernised with simple strips of black paint; and parquet flooring, which they varnished. Many of the walls are finished with hard-wearing gypsum plaster, which add to the brutalist aesthetic and have the bonus of saving on a hefty painting bill. The kitchen was built from moisture-resistant MDF and left unpainted as a temporary cost-effective solution to tide the couple over until they built their ‘real’ one. ‘We have since grown to love the limited approach to colour paired with lots of texture,’ says Pack-lum.

She bought many of the light fittings and furnishings secondhand from salvage yards. The bathtub was an ebay find and many other items that look like designer pieces were discovered through diligent searching. ‘It is amazing the amount of stuff that is ripped out and thrown away,’ says Pack-lum. ‘Scour online auctions and Facebook Marketplace: you never know what you might find.’

This is an edited extract from Create by Emily Henson, published by Ryland Peters & Small, £25*

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2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

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