The hard working house

A Victorian family home in London, with three or four bedrooms, used to be plenty big enough for doing the job of bringing up the children, with help. But not any more. Times have dramatically changed.

Now the house is hardworking, and has to accommodate the New Family: home-working mum and dad, computer room, sleeping space for nanny in loft conversion, basement family room or room to let, extension for small business/ storage, which also doubles up as gym. We do a lot with our houses and the Victorian house has become a machine for living. And, because the Chancellor is making it so expensive to move on, when we get desperate we squeeze out or add on another space. Selling up is expensive when stamp duty of four per cent is levied on houses worth more than £500,000; this means you have to cough up at least £20,000 for the Government.

THE WEYMOUTHS: 'NICK COULD BE HOLDING A MEETING IN THE OFFICE, WHILE PARENTS ARE COLLECTING THEIR CHILDREN FROM THE COOKERY CLASSES DOWNSTAIRS

Carola and Nick Weymouth both work from home running different businesses. They live with their two daughters, Tamara, seven and Katarina, five, in a five-bedroom, late-Victorian house in East Sheen, which they bought five years ago and which is now being stretched to accommodate much frenetic activity.

Carola's domain is the kitchen and a desk in the corner of the first-floor office, which occupies a bedroom overlooking the garden. Here she runs her business, Cookie Crumbles, which caters for children's parties as well as teaching youngsters how to cook. Meanwhile, Nick runs a textile business buying cloth in Portugal for two big UK clothing firms, from the same first-floor bedroom. "It can be very busy at times," says Carola. "Nick could be holding a meeting with one of his clients in the office, and there could be a crowd of parents coming to collect their children from one of the cookery classes downstairs."

Three years ago, the couple extended the kitchen into the side return and invested in a smart, ultra-modern Bulthaup kitchen with lots of pale wood, grey and blue laminated cupboards and granite work surfaces. At the time it was simply the family kitchen, but now that Carola has started her own business, it works equally well as her work space, and is sometimes rented out for cookery photo shoots for magazines.

"A few months ago, we realised we were running out of space," says Carola. "We are now redoing the loft room, which was there when we bought the house, but hadn't been very well designed.

"We are putting in lots of cupboards and a new bathroom. It will be the nicest bedroom in the house, and at the moment we can't decide if it should be ours or an office."

THE MONEY KYRLES: 'EVERYONE WORKING IN THE STREET SEEMED TO BE PREGNANT AND PEOPLE WERE FORCED TO EXPAND THEIR HOMES

Charles and Kit Kat Money Kyrle, their two children, four-year-old Anna and two-year-old Max, as well as their Turkish au pair, Sibel, know exactly what is meant by a hardworking home. Their typical London terrace house in north Battersea, which originally had three bedrooms, is bursting at the seams with activity.