Hello there, how are you all doing, I hope you’re keeping well and enjoying the glorious British summer!? Today i’m sharing some final reveal photos from a sloooow burner project; The Victorian Terrace. A house I started work on back in April 2019. Yes, that’s how long full house projects can take, especially when you’re living at the property during the works and you need to save ££ between rooms, like most of us do. The whole of this four bedroom house needed tackling (new windows, new roof, external doors, rewiring, re-plumbing, all of the floorboards restoring and finishing, plastering throughout and of course decorating and furnishing). Two and a half years on we’ve completed the Living Room, Master Bedroom, Bathroom and Guest Bedroom but today i’m sharing the Games Room and Home Office which I photographed earlier this week.

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The Home Office – completed February 2020

Now this room is small. You can see how the estate agents tried to make it look bigger here by using that big ole wide angle lens…

Before

Mr H (my client) is a university lecturer, so having a dedicated work space was high on his list of priorities. His brief for the office was:

• a large desk with good lighting
• a comfortable desk chair
• a sofa bed I said no to that one, as there wasn’t room so he opted for a very comfortable armchair with footstool instead with reading lamp
• loads of sockets (Mr H will admit to being a bit of a socket addict – if he’s not within 1m of one at all times, he gets a little discombobulated. Wait til you hear how many he had in his bathroom. No other bathroom in the world has as many as he has. Not one!)
• storage for his yoga mat
• bookshelves
• lions and or/jungle animals – basically, that’s been a request for each and every room
• a chalkboard
• the feeling of an old library/Gentlemen’s club

Here’s the room as it looked after its new window, first fix done, freshly plastered and just about to get the floorboards refurbed.

During – check out all of those sockets (still less than in the bathroom though)

The room is only 2m wide, so there wasn’t a lot of scope with the layout. It made sense to have a full width desk underneath the window with additional built in storage and an armchair at the opposite end.

After

Mr H fancied a yellow office, so I nudged him gently towards this slightly moodier ochre tone called ‘Leap of Faith’ by Benjamin Moore (which reminded me of lions) with the woodwork painted in Wenge and ceiling in Woodmont Cream. Mr H added this drinks globe to the room which is completely impractical and hints of a drinks problem, but it does look at home here doesn’t it?

The Wenge door with original fluted glass and obligatory lion detail. Mr H hated this glass, but I convinced him to keep it seeing as everyone’s paying through the nose for reeded glass at the moment. I’d go as far as to say he “doesn’t mind it” now.

The bespoke chequerboard desktop was made to fit exactly across the width of the room and sits on top of two sets of filing drawers from Barker and Stonehouse. Large (attractive) desks with storage are hard to find, so make your own I say.

Behind the desk at the opposite side of the room there’s a fitted cabinet with shelving above for books, the printer, (more booze), folders and files.

The room is north west facing so gets limited light, especially in the winter, which is why I opted for a row of directional spotlights along the entrance wall and a rise and fall light directly over the desk area. Then both study areas also have additional plug-in task lamps for reading, grading papers and contemplating the economic advantages/disadvantages of Brexit.

The view as you walk into the room (I’ve never used a giraffe to style a table before. I like it, gives good height)

This room was actually completed just before lockdown 2020 which is just as well as Mr H was working from home for most of last year and quite a lot of this year. Phee-eew!

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The Games Room – completed November 2020

Mr H is a big gamer. Not just computer games, but also table top games. He wanted a space he could invite his fellow gamers, somewhere where they could sit and roll dice to their hearts’ content. The brief was to create a room that had:

• table and seating for up to 6 gamers
• plenty of storage for board games (he has a lot!)
• bookshelves
• somewhere to keep score
• large screen for console gaming
• a comfy armchair (for sitting on when playing on his console)
• a fridge/mini bar set up
• dark and moody with an industrial vibe
• lots of sockets

Before

After

The walls, ceiling and woodwork are all painted in Benjamin Moore’s Ocean Tropic. A bold move by Mr H but one that works really well with the darker tones of the woodwork.

The six seater gaming table with stools and chalkboard scoreboard… yes, Benjamin Moore offer chalkboard paint in ANY colour you want.

Before – alcove = prime storage space

During

Here is the built-in sexy sliding door storage next to the brilliant bookshelves. You can also see we had the floorboards and beams sanded and re-stained, walls skimmed, new skirting boards fitted all ready for redecorating.

After

A little look inside

The bottom left cupboard houses the fridge with the bottles and glassware stored in the bottom right.

Games Room with Minibar

Before

You can see how orange-y tones the tones of the pine floorboards and beams were…

After

… and how they appear now after being sanded back and stained in a dark teak finish. Yum.

Apart from all that lovely timber, my favourite thing in this room is the vintage Persian rug from my local vintage dealer at Oakwood Vintage.

And one last before and after before I finish off today’s post…

Before

After

So that’s two out of the six rooms we’ve completed at the Victorian Terrace project so far. I’ll be writing up some of the others soon (ish). If you’d like a little look in advance of that, you can always jump over to my portfolio page for this project where i’ve uploaded some additional rooms. Oh and incase someone asks, all joinery designed by me and executed by Evan and Chris at Bare Joinery.