Selling a property has something in common with dating: hope is hard to vanquish despite past disappointments. There is a tendency to believe that the next person who comes to view your property will be the one ... who buys it.

Christian Braun entertains no such illusions. He expects that the people who look round his house in West Kensington will not be primarily motivated by the wish to own it, although it is a Grade II listed gem, good-looking inside and out.

After all, when Braun himself came to cast an eye over the place he was motivated by curiosity, although the love affair with the property did begin as soon as he got there. Driving past the house, one of a row of eight terraced homes directly alongside the busy four-lane A4, he had wondered at the sight of so much gorgeousness positioned next to so much grunge.

This fascination is widespread. Mention the house to those who travel along the A4. the main road heading west from London, and you will find that they are familiar with these buildings. They also all have a question to ask: “Can you hear the traffic inside the house?” “Does the dirt get in from the road?” “Why are the first-floor windows so huge?” “What was the purpose of the other long narrow window on that floor?” and “What's it like selling a place on a major road, especially now, when that kind of blight is a no-no for buyers?”

Blighted properties are suffering larger falls than other homes at present, but such was the interest in the house in Talgarth Road, W14, that this was an assignment on which I could have been accompanied by a retinue of inquisitive support staff. They could all have been easily accommodated, however, in the 30ft long, triple-height living room on the first floor that once served as an artist's studio. The terrace - then called St Paul's Studios - was built in 1891 (for £10,000) for bachelor artists who needed light: thus the large windows. The long, narrow window was installed to pass canvases out on to the street, then a cul-de-sac.

Braun, who is German, and Katya, his Russian wife, pictured, have turned the room into a slick space with a startlingly large contemporary chandelier. As Nikolai, their baby, quietly ate his porridge at the huge dining table, Braun explained to me that the room's splendour had been hidden by pine cladding in the 1980s.

In case you, too, are becoming curious about whether our conversation was drowned out by the rush-hour traffic noise, I can report that special double glazing fitted by the Brauns keeps out din and grime. The positioning of the windows also means that you cannot see the cars speeding by.

The removal of the pine cladding was only one of the tasks undertaken by the couple in their overhaul of the property, which they acquired for £458,700 in 2000. The bachelor artist's ground-floor sitting room has been turned into a library; his bedroom is used as an office by Braun, who runs Toycollector.com. The Brauns extended the basement, where the bachelor artist's cook toiled and slept. The Brauns now sleep there, too, in a slick modern bedroom, with a Moroccan-style ensuite bathroom. The former scullery has been turned into a utility room and workspace for Katya, who makes hats. This room opens out on to the walled garden.

You are certainly now asking why they should wish to leave a home over which they have taken so much trouble. Education is the reason behind their relocation to Germany. They have yet to choose in which German city they will make their next home, but they know that they will have some time to decide because they recognise that their buyer will also have to be enamoured of the house. The price acknowledges the drawbacks - at £1.75 million, it is substantially less than a family home on a road in Kensington without the roar of traffic.

Details: John D.Wood, 020-7731 4223

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