Isabel & Henry’s remodelled Norfolk property is unrecognisable, transformed into a family home offering the combined benefits of plenty of extra living space, Passivhaus-standard low-energy costs and a timeless character and charisma.

TEXT JESS UNWIN IMAGES ISABEL BADGER

With the search to find that perfect empty plot often turning into a long and frustrating challenge, there are plenty of self-builders who eventually decide that reconfiguring an existing property is the way forward.

Isabel and Henry Badger have done just that with great success, completing the retrofit and remodelling of a 1970s chalet bungalow to conjure up in its stead a remarkable Passivhaus-standard Georgian-style family home.

The reborn property now has double its predecessor’s available floorspace – up from 193m² to 410m² – but without drastically increasing the footprint. How? Well, while there is a small side extension, the majority of the project involved incorporating the existing structure and building upwards.

Whereas the bungalow once had four bedrooms, the new home now boasts six on the first floor, including an ensuite master bedroom with a walk-in wardrobe, three children’s bedrooms (two of which are also ensuite) and two guest bedrooms (one ensuite). A family bathroom is the final room leading off the generous landing.

Downstairs, on the left-hand side of the house as you look at it from the south east-facing front elevation, there’s kitchen/dining and living space that stretches right through to the doors that open onto a large patio at the back. 

The front door leads to an impressive hallway and lobby, where the standout feature is without doubt the stunning two-storey lightwell that’s capped by a glass skylight. However, this central section of the retrofit also accommodates a boot room, larder, plant room, storeroom, a toilet and a utility room. 

On the right-hand side of the house, which upstairs hosts the aforementioned children’s bedrooms, the space downstairs has been laid out to provide a study, playroom and drawing room.

Recent valuations of The Willows, which is located just a 10-minute drive from the centre of Norwich and yet is also close to the Norfolk Broads, have come in at prices between about £1.25m and £1.5m.

But more importantly, how do the couple who created it feel? “We’re delighted that we’ve got what we set out to achieve,” says Isabel. “We’re in a beautiful location and we have a home that combines low-energy Passivhaus credentials with a Georgian-style look.”

The couple’s journey to this point began back in March 2020 when Isabel and Henry decided they wanted to leave London for more space in a countryside setting. A spell renting a “cold and drafty” Victorian house and experiences of being outbid in a fiercely competitive property market prompted a rethink and the couple started looking for houses they could retrofit to combine modern comforts with a traditional exterior design. 

By September 2021 they’d found the bungalow through an estate agent and purchased it and surrounding land for £650,000. The couple’s plans were submitted almost immediately, and permission was granted in December. 

Isabel believes planning permission was quick for a number of reasons: “The green credentials of Passivhaus, the fact we weren’t drastically increasing the footprint and the Georgian-style exterior all probably ticked the right boxes with the planning authority.” 

Using the existing structure, foundations and services helped make it a simpler planning application and brought welcome cost savings too. Isabel explains: “We believe the cost of demolishing the bungalow and starting again, even on a very cheap budget, would probably be near £1m. The retrofit approach cost around £450,000 – less than half the price.”

The couple put together the overall design themselves but then had the plans drawn up by design and technology company Beattie, which was the main contractor and Passivhaus consultant on the project. Choosing Beattie was one of the easier decisions to make as Isabel is a Beattie director and also the daughter of the company’s founder.

Construction got underway in January 2022 using a clever system that Beattie has developed for this sort of project. In essence, and greatly simplified, it involved constructing a timber shell that surrounds the existing bungalow and also provides the framework for the new first floor and side extension. 

The panels of this shell, which of course includes openings to accommodate Passivhaus-standard triple-glazed windows and doors, are filled with a high-performance insulation material creating a continuous and airtight, thermal-bridge-free envelope.

The insulating material used is expanded polystyrene (EPS) beads made up of small round balls stuck together with a water-based additive. They are mostly full of air, typically composed of approximately 98% air and only 2% actual polystyrene plastic.

While the bungalow’s external walls have been retained as an integral part of the new building, all the old internal walls, the original ground floor ceiling and the bungalow’s roof were removed at different stages of the work. A new roof, using Spanish slate, was installed.

Isabel recalls that at one point a special purple paint was applied to help create the new building’s airtight envelope. She jokes: “I think our neighbours did worry for a while because they could see this purple-coloured house across the field!”

Inevitably, as with any build project, there were some adjustments as work progressed. Isabel says: “About two months in we realised we hadn’t factored in the sun’s path during the day. So, we moved the kitchen, dining and living space to the other side of the house to get the best light. Fortunately, the timber framework system is very easy to change.”

Removal of the bungalow’s ground floor ceiling also wasn’t part of the original plan, but the couple decided it was worth the extra cost to ensure the same extra room height was consistent throughout the new building. 

The main structural works, plus all external finishes and internal works up to plasterboard finish, were completed by July 2022. “After that,” says Isabel, “it was basically down to my husband and I to finish the property inside – although it was pretty much Henry because I was caring for the children. In January 2023 we moved in with just three bedrooms, one bathroom and the kitchen ready. The rest of it has taken a further three years to finish.”

She is full of praise for husband Henry, a banker by trade, who has set about tackling a dizzying range of tasks including plumbing, carpentry, kitchen installation, floor-laying, painting and tiling. Plastering and electrics, however, were left to professionals. “We have worked on other properties before – this is our fourth project – and Henry’s a quick learner. My dad’s guidance has obviously been invaluable too, but it’s been many, many hours of work – a lot of weekends.”

With fixtures and fittings, the couple have been imaginatively inventive and mixed and matched. “We have bought new items,” says Isabel, “but Henry and my father built a lot of the furniture, which at the same time makes it very special as well as more affordable, while the bungalow’s old kitchen has been repainted and repurposed as our utility room.”

To meet the requirements of Passivhaus standards, the couple’s new home includes a substantial built-in mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) system to provide fresh, filtered air and help cut energy demand.

Playing an important role in this is an underground REHAU pipe that’s been installed to help regulate incoming air temperature. As Isabel explains: “Outside air is taken in and travels along 25m of pipe at a depth where the underground temperature is a consistent 15°C. This has the effect of changing the air’s temperature by about 7°.

“So, in winter, if it’s 4°C outside, the air will come into the house at 11°C, meaning the MVHR has less to do to heat the air. In the summer, this effect works in reverse so outside hot air is cooled in the same way.”

She adds: “We do have an electric combi boiler for supplemental heating – towel rails in the bathrooms and a few radiators – but we’ve plans in place to eventually heat water using solar panels.”

While the green credentials of this retrofit project are very much of the 21st century, the property’s exterior is designed to look much older. Isabel says: “We not only wanted a Georgian-style look, but we also wanted to use materials that would help the house age and appear as if it’s been here a long time. 

“Lots of construction materials, rightly, are made so that properties don’t need maintenance – we went the opposite way. For example, we opted for traditional lime render and then painted the walls rather than a modern silicone-based product.

“For the same reasons the windows are all wooden, which will definitely make for extra work when they need repainting, but we didn’t want windows that were aluminium-clad or PVC.”

The couple wanted Georgian-style windowsills but knew stone, the material traditionally used, would be too heavy for the retrofitted timber frame of their house. “We experimented with lots of alternative materials,” says Isabel, “but eventually settled on vermiculite insulation mixed with sharp sand and cement and then painted it. It’s lightweight and has a rough texture along the edges that was the sort of thing we were looking for.”

A stylish Georgian-inspired finishing touch, which was only added in 2025, is the porch covering the main entrance to the property. A steel structure with a zinc roof, it took just a day to put up.

“It has transformed the look at the front of the house, which was a little stark previously with quite a lot of white wall. This has made a big difference and, of course, we will continue to soften the appearance with wisteria and other appropriate planting too.”

The retrofit is now all but complete. Isabel says: “The final room, in 2026, will be the drawing room, which Henry has been using as his woodwork room up until now, and the installation of solar panels is also scheduled for 2026.”

She is clearly delighted with the family’s new house: “We’ve very much been building our dream home here and we now have all we need – enough space for three young children and also to have guests. 

“The house’s heating performance is already great, and once we have solar panels, our bills will be a fraction of those of a house of similar size that’s not Passivhaus. As to the look of the house, I think it’s already the case that people who drive past don’t realise it’s a new build – and that’s exactly what we wanted.”