All posts filed under: Property

How to Connect your Rooms – Choosing a Colour Palette

Published by Karen Knox

Hello everyone, I’m back this week with a little look at how to connect your rooms at home. What does that mean exactly? One of the keys to a successful home interior is having a sense of cohesion and “flow”. The rooms and spaces between should connect with the surrounding ones. For example, let’s say you’ve got three bedrooms on a floor, like most people and you want them all to have their own identity but also not look like a patchwork quilt from the landing, it’s good to consider how these spaces connect as a whole. Often, people run the flooring throughout to make the overall space feel larger. We all know that the less breaks in a colour or pattern, the better, as the eye continues further along the space. Flooring continues on from our loft bedroom to landing with no threshold to break the line’s eye. Another way to do is is choose a colour palette, and stick to that for a floor, even better, a whole house if you’re being really clever. …

New Project – Next Door@TheOldForge

Published by Karen Knox

Sometimes a project lands, and it’s almost too good to be true. This is one. When someone contacts you to design the interiors for what will become a unique, interiors focused, two bedroom holiday let in North Yorkshire AND gives you carte blanche to push yourself with the overall design, you know you’re going to have fun. This won’t be just any old holiday let, it’s being converted and remodelled from a Victorian cottage and outbuildings, attached to what once was a forge. The Old Forge, which is next door is now the homeowners’s family home. They bought these most wonderful buildings set in a large plot and enormous gardens five years ago and it’s literally dripping in history and period features. Their 10 year plan is to renovate the main family home, which they have nearly finished (bar a large extension for a kitchen/diner family room) and to convert the rest of the attached buildings to a holiday rental. So here are the bare bones of the cottage and remaining outbuildings, soon to become: …

The Industrial Shaker Kitchen

Published by Karen Knox

When the lovely Ally of Digital Diva fame, booked me for a day’s consultation last August at their new home, I walked into a house I wasn’t quite expecting. A stunning, Grade II listed, late Georgian, early Victorian stone built property, just three or so miles away from my own home in North Leeds. This isn’t what it looked like, don’t worry. This is a photo from 2015 before it was bought by a developer. The whole place had been refurbed to a pretty good standard and whilst the developers retained the beautiful period features, some of the fixtures and fittings were not quite cutting it for the new owners, Ally and James. This was their kitchen back in August 2016, with shaker style units, range cooker, large island unit, solid oak worktop, open shelving, original Yorkshire stone floor and built in pantry by the side of the restored fireplace. So all in all, the makings of a wonderful kitchen. The layout was great. No issues with that. But these guys weren’t feeling the space and weren’t sure how …

Upper Brook Street Project – Final Reveal of the Guest Bedroom

Published by Karen Knox

Typing typing as fast as I can…. It’s final reveal time everyone! Oh how I love a final reveal. Especially when it’s as awesomesauce as this one. Eeeee!! (If you’d like to catch up on this project, pop back a few posts to this one.) First, it’s time for before pics. A large master bedroom which was to become a guest bedroom. But not just any old guest bedroom, oh no siree. The weird recessed/built in wardrobes were going and an ensuite was coming. This is how the room looked when I started working with the homeowners: The entire house had been chopped up over time, converted into flats at some point, and then back again into a house. The walls and doors were in the strangest of places and it was time to breathe life back into this beautiful Edwardian home, and put those walls back where they were originally built over 100 years ago. This was back in January. Want to see what it looks like now? After Before It’s completely unrecognisable isn’t it? In …

What we’ve learned from doing a loft conversion…

Published by Karen Knox

If you hadn’t heard about our loft conversion, you’ve obviously been away from the entire internet since last summer. It’s pretty much all i’ve talked about over here. In fact there are 18 blog posts all about the process. Just click the image below, for a peruse at your leisure. This is a bit of a round up post, looking back at all the stuff we’ve learnt since last year. Thought it might be helpful for those of you out there who have your own projects in mind at home. Here’s what we found out. Loft conversions/extensions take longer than you think. You may have read online that loft extensions/conversions take around six to eight weeks. A-hem. I don’t think so. Ours took nearly four months. Then we had several weeks afterwards where we were finishing off flooring, painting, built in storage. If we’d been told that at the time it was going to be around 15 weeks, we would have dealt with the timescales in a much more rational way, but it seems some building companies tell …

The Upper Brook Street Bedroom – Pre-Reveal

Published by Karen Knox

I can’t actually speak right now. I drove over to my Upper Brook Street project this morning, first time i’ve seen it since it’s been wallpapered. I always knew it was going to be a special room, but I never quite expected it to look this good. After measuring up for some final pieces, I was given free reign to start styling the space and take some pics. I’ve just uploaded about 56 photos to my Mac and spent the last hour almost flipping crying (happy tears, don’t worry). I’m overwhelmed by how this room has turned out so far. So forgive me, i’m just going to post pictures and some details about what’s from where and then i’m going to go and buy a bottle of something cold and fizzy to celebrate this evening. Goa Four Poster Bed from Maisons Du Monde This picture makes me soooo happy. Upper Brook Street Minuit wallpaper from Little Greene This room really wouldn’t be the same without it. Hemnes Bedside Tables from Ikea updated with Brass Drawer Pulls Futurist …

The William Morris Bedroom – Pre-reveal

Published by Karen Knox

It’s been a while since i’ve written about the William Morris project. You can read the last instalment here. Let’s just say, this one has been a slow burner. What was initially going to be one bedroom redesign, quickly turned into a complete renovation of three bedrooms, the landing and staircase. So…. things have taken considerably longer, as i’m sure you’d expect. Here was the room on my very first visit. Pretty much everything needed to go. Everything apart from the William Morris wallpaper, the beautiful Deco chairs and the antique chest of drawers. The room was stripped right back to the bare bones. The overpowering built in wardrobes were ripped out, missing coving, dado and picture rails replaced…. Carpet was ripped up and floorboards repaired, sanded and varnished, radiator moved and re-plumbed, switches and sockets rewired. Walls were then re-skimmed ready for the decorator. We’ve still got a couple of bits left to sort in this room, but I thought you’d like to see where we’re at at the mo. The floorboards now revived and full …

The Loft Landing – Final Reveal

Published by Karen Knox

There’s just one space left to reveal now from the loft extension. You guys will have seen the open plan landing/office below with the staircase leading onwards and upwards to our new second floor. Open Plan Office Space But what you may not have worked out just yet is how it all connects together. Designing individual rooms can be tough, but designing rooms and spaces that connect with one another, not just physically but aesthetically, that’s a real challenge. Especially transitional spaces like hallways and landings where walls and levels connect over several floors. How do you make these work? This is the view standing at the bottom of the staircase. Remember i’m in my office here too. The element of shared space which works so well here, the office enhancing the staircase and vice versa. Here is the floor plan of the second floor. I saw the landing as another room in itself. They’re often neglected spaces, quite narrow and can be dark. I didn’t want any of these things to be the case. …

New project. New wallpaper

Published by Karen Knox

I’m back! After a well deserved week off from all things blog, i’ve caught up with things like cleaning the house, finishing off oodles of painting at home, having conversations with my husband about things that weren’t loft related and washing my hair. Feels so good to have our home back. And a teency bit of normal life, whatever that means. So now felt about the right time to introduce a new project i’ve been working on since December. Yes, another one. If you guys remember the Drawing Room project, then you’ll know why i’m excited to introduce it… … as it’s the bedroom above this very room. So you already know these guys are going to be up for something pretty special in their “soon to be” new guest bedroom. Here’s is the room before these guys moved in. In fact, these are the estate agent piccies… “Just shove it under the bed, John. No, all of it under the bed. No, you can’t see it. No it’s fine. Honestly.” It’s a very masculine room …

The Loft Bathroom – Final Reveal

Published by Karen Knox

It’s here. It’s flipping HERE! Week 20 or something are we now? I dunno, I stopped counting after 17… My ideas for the bathroom are finally up and at ’em and I can’t wait for a sit down and a biscuit. I don’t think i’ve had a day off since September. God, I need a day off. Anywaaaay, here was the vibe I had in mind for the bathroom. Strictly monochrome, in keeping with the loft bedroom. If you haven’t seen that yet, I reckon you should have a quick pop over here so you can see how the two spaces connect. Our new bathroom was going to be 2m x 2m. So, small, but a good size for a second bathroom i’d say. These tiny spaces are certainly not easy to plan at all. And i’ve lost a fair amount of beauty sleep over this space, i’ll tell you that for free. Here’s where we were at the beginning of December. Before And here’s where we are now. After We have a bathroom! I …