A home with personality - Telegraph Meanwhile, the couple's basement bedroom, with its fuchsia pink carpet and shiny purple Perspex-clad walk-in wardrobes, overlooks an indoor fish pond which divides bedroom from dance floor. "I love to dance and I am too old for a nightclub, so I thought why not have a dance floor at home," Claire explains, as though this were the most normal thing in the world. She insists the idea isn't just something which sounded fun on paper: she takes weekly dance lessons there, and with two children, Gil , 16, and Tilly, 12, it is also a fantastic party space. The house does, of course, have some areas of calm practicality. The kitchen is glossy white, with a nifty central island with a work surface that slides away to reveal the hob and create a breakfast bar in one swift move. There is also an air source heat pump and solar panels, which should mean no heating bills. The project began around two years ago, at which time the family were living in a flat in Earl's Court, west London. After what felt like an endless search they had found a perfect building site in nearby west Kensington - and after some protracted negotiation, they acquired an L-shaped plot for £410,000 in January 2010. There was already planning permission for a traditional house, but the couple spent the next eight months persuading Kensington and Chelsea Council to give consent for a much more ambitious four-bedroom, four-storey alternative. Permission was granted in October 2010 and the family decamped to a borrowed flat for the duration of the 11-month build, which involved excavating 3m (10ft) beneath the water table. The work cost £650,000 (of which £350,000 went on the basement), bringing their total investment to £1.06million. Ian and Claire have had a valuation of between £2.5 million and £3 million, proving that even the most extreme home makeover has the potential to turn a serious profit. Luke Brady, associate director at Savills, suspects a truly avante garde design tends to work better in a big city market. "I am based in Bath and it could easily fall flat on its face out here," he said. But I must say I hate the idea of depersonalising a home. Presentation is key, it has to be in good condition, but there is definitely a value in being memorable. Ian points out that his family's decorating taste has always been uncompromising. In the past we have sold two flats at record prices for their location just by doing something that stands out from the rest of the market.