Having a designer in the family can be a boon. When Londoner Charles Maggs was selling his home of 45 years, his son-in-law, architect Neil Dusheiko, helped him find a Victorian terrace house just around the corner from his family’s own Victorian in Stoke Newington, in the city’s northwest corner. “We wanted to be able to pop in and out of each other’s homes,” says Dusheiko, who then took on the extensive renovation himself. “It was a bit dark and damp. I wanted to make it into a light and airy home where my father-in-law could live comfortably and easily in a really beautiful and very personal space.” The highlight is the family gathering spot, a sunlit eat-in kitchen with a wall of shelves for displaying prints and pottery: “Charles is a keen cook and also a collector.” The kitchen as art gallery" Come take a look. Photography courtesy of Neil Dusheiko Architects.

Above: Set in the back of the house, the new kitchen features a glazed extension that occupies part of a side alley. Large sliding windows and a glass door connect indoors to out, as do reclaimed brick tiles, which Dusheiko used to link the two spaces. The black zinc cladding on the roof is part of a new bedroom loft. Photograph by Agnes Sanvito.

Above: The addition has a framework of columns that elegantly serve as shelf dividers as well as rafters supporting the skylight. (A box gutter, Dusheiko notes, is concealed inside the thickness of the...