MOST people’s lofts are crammed with junk – old football boots jostle for space with tatty schoolbooks, broken chairs, bent lampshades and faded photograph albums. But not so for Madeleine Mitchell. The professional violinist has converted the attic of her flat into the London equivalent of a “Paris salon” – a spacious room in which she can perform in front of a select gathering.

The transformation of her rafters has created not only a light-filled, airy private space but has also added up to 20 per cent to the value of the property, according to one expert.

Mitchell bought her two-bedroom, fourth-floor flat in a garden square of Grade II listed terraced houses in Central London in the 1980s. “The flat was at the top of a fairly dilapidated 1850s house with lots of stairs, but I loved it as soon as I saw it. It had real character and I really liked the chunky porticos.”

After a few years, Mitchell – who is a professor at the Royal College of Music – started to wonder about the unused attic space above her head. “I had always been in love with the idea of holding Paris salon concerts,” she says, “and thought it might be the perfect space.

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“It took years and years getting consent and agreeing it with the other inhabitants of the house, and I basically had to wait until we could all get together and renovate the whole house and share the scaffolding. For years the roof leaked, so eventually we agreed that I would pay for the new roof and thereby get my loft space.”

When she at last obtained consent, Mitchell worked closely with an architect friend, Mark Willingdale, of Willingdale Associates. “There were certain things I had to have,” she explains, “such as the highest possible ceilings. I also had to have a mansard set back from the parapet, as it’s a listed building.” This turned out to be an unexpected benefit, as the flat now has a small terrace garden. Mitchell is one of the UK’s foremost violinists, giving masterclasses worldwide and performing in more than 40 countries. She was a Fulbright scholar and is now the artistic director of the Red Violin Festival in Cardiff. She has performed concertos with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic, the Polish and Czech Radio Symphony, the Württemberg Chamber and for the BBC, and was leader of Peter Maxwell Davies’s ensemble The Fires of London.

For Mitchell, as for every musician, good acoustics are key. The high ceilings – 11½ft at the apex – and solid oak floor make it perfect for practice and performance. The walls are white-painted plaster, bare apart from a 6ft-square painting by the artist Gerald Marks. A couple of artfully placed musical instruments make the scene, and two rugs and a simple sofa bed mean that the room is easily transformed into a guest room when necessary.

Skylights let in as much light as possible and, Mitchell says, “because it’s so light and spacious I have deliberately not filled it with much. The peace and the space are very conducive to creativity. It’s a very inspiring place.”

Mitchell’s flat is in W2, where two-bedroom flats sell for an average of £452,190 compared with a national average of £187,894 (Land Registry data). House prices have risen in the area in the past five years at an average annual rate of 15.4 per cent compared with a national average of 12.5 per cent. Sale prices in Mitchell’s street in the past year have reached £880,000, and a flat in the same building sold for £400,000 in July.

Louisa Fletcher, founder of www.propertypriceadvice.co.uk, says: “There is no doubt that a loft conversion like this will add value, but to gain the maximum value when you sell you need to ‘dress’ the space as a proper bedroom.

“By adding a third bedroom to a two-bedroom listed flat, particularly if you manage to maintain the character of the property, as Madeleine appears to have done, you should add, in the right market, up to 20 per cent to the value of the property. By selling it with a studio, it’s not as obviously attractive to a buyer, however. Buyers literally need to be shown how to utilise space in a property.”

One of the property’s strongest points, Fletcher says, is the terrace garden: “That will make the property, particularly in that area, more unusual and desirable than the loft conversion. Apartments in the capital with outside space are hugely covetable and can fetch a premium, regardless of market conditions.”

Building work finished in 2002 and Mitchell held her first concert for 25 seated guests in February that year. “For me it’s a really good way to try out repertoire before recording,” she says.

So far she has held ten concerts in the studio and also occasionally holds lessons there with students. Her latest CD, Violin Songs, is a direct result of the salon concerts: “The songs weren’t written for large concert halls – they were written for spaces like this.”

Extending your home? Read expert tips from Naomi Cleaver and Kevin McCloud at timesonline.co.uk/propertyexperts

TOPROOMS

You will need planning permission if the conversion changes the outside appearance of your property, if the area exceeds 50 sq m, if it’s converted into more than two habitable rooms, if you you live in a conservation area or if the building is listed. Your loft design must meet building regulations in terms of ventilation, fire escapes and, if the property is attached, sound insulation.

The owner of any adjoining wall needs at least two months’ notice before work commences.

There are three main types of loft conversion: rooflight/Velux, which involves converting the existing space and adding rooflights flush to the roof; dormer, which creates extra headroom using a dormer extension; and mansard, where the roof is extended into a square brick-sided space.

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