With their eminently satisfying symmetry, stucco and sash windows there’s a reason the airy elegance of Georgian properties has long been coveted. Despite their architectural beauty, improving these homes, built between about 1715 and 1830, can be a pricey prospect — canny planning is essential.
The interior designer Josie Lywood was living in a flat in Richmond, southwest London, when a Georgian fixer-upper on a handsome square in a conservation area came up for sale for £1.2 million. The townhouse, just the other side of the Thames from Kew Gardens, had carpeted bathrooms, one radiator and was in Brentford. It was not an area that she and her husband, Julian, had considered relocating to. “A lot of Brentford is modern but there are little pockets
