All posts tagged: building

The Coach House – Phase 2 – Open Plan Kitchen Diner

Hello summer 2023! (it’s raining today). You may remember a couple of years ago, I shared the completed living room at The Coach House project in Harrogate. Here it is… Before, this room, along with the rest of the house was rather dull and uninspiring. Having been recently “flipped” by  a property developer, it was presentable enough to sell, but in order to make it feel like home for its new owner, it needed a little love and inspiration. Before – 2020 And now in July 2023 Before During phase two of the project, the glazing throughout the house was upgraded to black Crittall style frames. Much more in keeping with the period of this property and newly updated interiors. After If you’d like to see more photos and read about the process behind this particular room, head over to the designated final reveal post. But to continue reading about Phase two, scroll on down… In March 2021, Niche Design Architects began working on plans for a modest extension and remodel of the rest of …

The Harrogate Master Suite

The Harrogate Master Bedroom – (very nearly) Final Reveal

Hello everyone, how’s your August going? Today I’m sharing a (very nearly) final reveal of the master bedroom at the Harrogate project. It’s the last room to be completed after a four year long renovation of a large, five bedroom Edwardian property. I’ve learned and gained so much from working with Vanessa and Andy and it feels quite emotional knowing this will be one of the last rooms I share from their house on these pages. Anyway, moving along… First Floor Floor Plan – Before The first floor is the one that had the biggest layout change, with only a few walls remaining where they once were. The first floor layout as it is now. As you can see, the first floor is where the Upper Brook Street Guest bedroom is, probably one of my most shared and liked projects to date, winning the best bedroom tour on Houzz in 2017 – that was really exciting! Today’s master suite is across the landing at the back of the house in what was this space: It …

Exterior House Project

Our outdoor space – Final Reveal

When we bought our little house nearly seven years ago. It wasn’t exactly what we wanted, but in terms of its location and the surrounding area, it gave us everything we actually needed. Or should I say, it had the potential to. Our house, 2012. Estate agent’s pic Earlier this year I wrote a post showing you all of the rooms inside. What they were like when we moved in and how they look now. You can have a nosey inside here if you like. The one space we’d never tackled fully was the outdoor space. A front and rear garden with a long driveway connecting the two. Pretty standard for a 3 bed semi. Rear garden, 2012 – Estate agent pic We had done plenty to the rear garden over the past six years but never dealt with any of the building work and nitty gritty. Our driveway was a crumbling mess, drainage being a real problem, the front garden was on a slope and retained water like a sponge and the steps to our …

Georgian Apartment

The Georgian Apartment – New Project Time

Time to introduce you to a new project today. It’s a two bedroom apartment situated inside what was once one of the many impressive mansions built in Leeds, 300 years ago. This Georgian property certainly has the scale and proportion you would expect from this period. Just looking at this photo from the recent sales listing, you can see there is a real gem waiting to be loved, revived and restored. The new homeowner is VERY keen to get the works done as quickly as possible, understandably. But as ever, i’ve had to put the brakes on a little in order to give this special building what it deserves. Because, whoever fitted this kitchen was clearly high on solvents: Who on earth would fit a blue formica kitchen in a Georgian mansion? Definitely someone from the late 80’s early 90’s me thinks…. Here’s the apartment’s original floorplan to give you an idea of what rooms and spaces we are working with and how they all relate: As you can see, the floorplan suggests there would have …

DIY Garden Building

How to build your own garden building – aka ‘The Manporium’

Hello everyone, apologies for the radio silence this week, it has been a ridiculously busy week AND i’ve been waiting for my husband to pull his finger out and finish writing something. Yes, this week everyone, you will get to read the design ramblings of him indoors (or should I say, “him outdoors”). He’s finally sent in his homework…. i’ve had a good read, and actually it’s really good (she says begrudgingly). It’s about how he made his own garden workshop which is perfect if you’re someone  looking for inspiration on how to build your own garden building/workshop/man cave/she-shed/home office/garden pod…. so many names for these additional rooms. So without further ado… Iiiiiiiit’s Mr Making Spaces! **crowd goes wild** ” What’s that…you didn’t sign up for this? You didn’t. Sorry to invade this sacrosanct space of beautiful interiors, design and styling. I’m here to talk about anti-style. Yes…it’s the world of sheds. During my 39 years on this planet, I’ve learned a few things about life. Here are some: Men like a bit of solitude now …

Integral Garage Conversion - Before

Thinking of converting your integral garage?

Happy New Year everyone! Did you have a lovely festive break? I hope so. Have you taken your decorations down yet? Are you looking around the place desperately wishing you had more room? I know I am. But as buying and selling is becoming more and more costly, not to mention slightly impossible given the current climate (**coughs – Brexit**) more of us than ever are extending, expanding and increasing the square footage of our existing homes. A lot of us already have the space we need, we just don’t use it too wisely. Cue the introduction of a recent remote project i’ve been working on: A familiar sight if ever I saw one. The integral garage. The garage with the car parked outside on the drive. Who actually parks their car in garages anymore? Nobody. Apart from my father in law who swears his car will rust and explode if it’s left outside in the mizzle. Anyway – i’m sure the next picture is what a lot of you are more used to seeing in …

Garden landscaping

Time for the BIG garden overhaul – The landscaping has finally begun!

It’s time. Finally! After 6 years of being in our normal, average sized, 1960’s semi-detached, family home, we’ve done all of the big building jobs inside. Which can only mean one thing; it’s time to tackle the outside! And it couldn’t have come at a better time as our driveway was falling apart. Let me walk you through some of the garden projects we’ve done to tart up the space whilst eagerly awaiting the big overhaul. Back in 2015 You can see what a bad state the driveway was in then, another three years on and it was becoming, well, embarrassing. Summer 2015, The Chalkboard Wall The outdoor blackboard worked a treat to disguise that ugly concrete brick wall for a few years, but after the loft extension in December 2016… … our outdoor space took a hammering and was completely neglected during the epic 17 week build. I gave it a little budget revamp as part of the #UKHomeBlogHop in Summer 2017. It got us through Summer 2017, but 2018 was the year we …

Valchromat – It’s not just MDF

You guys already know all about my love of raw materials. I think half of our interior is made from plywood, OSB and bog standard MDF. Like this: Built in MDF shelves. Left bare, because I liked ’em like that. My dad, (actively) did not. Birch plywood featured heavily in our recent loft conversion. Varnished, bare and stained black. Oh and the poplar plywood floorboards. Don’t forget those. Orientated Strand Board (OSB) has been used in a few projects now too. The first being in my home office, 18 months or so ago where I made my own desk top. Still going strong and getting better with age…. ….and again in a commercial design project where it was used for bespoke wall units, a conference table, standing desk and modular display/room divide. I think it’s fair to say, if I had the choice of having something built from solid oak or walnut, you know, something proper posh and pricey or something from ply, MDF or OSB… i’d go for the underdog. You can make your …

Open plan landing and staircase

Banisters, balustrades and building regs

So where were we? That’s right, we were here. Awaiting new carpets, a banister and handrail. I did not want a banister or a handrail. But the building inspector does. And I guess it’s not that realistic to keep it like this forever. Even though is looks so purty. After mulling over several ideas (metal, glass, A.N. Other, you can check out all of my ideas here on Pinterest) we stuck with what we knew and also what we liked best. Timber. Not just any old timber though. Two 24mm sheets of birch ply laminated to form a 48mm depth board and then ripped into cross sections. These lengths would become our “spindles”. We fixed a timber baton to the ceiling to make sure the top of the spindle, once screwed in, aligned itself vertically so the bottom of the spindle attached perfectly to the side of the staircase stringer. The baton was filled and sanded back several times, then caulked and painted over in emulsion to make it appear part of the plastered ceiling. …

The Open Plan Work Space – Final Reveal

Here it was pre Loft Extension.  In our box room, which was less than 2 x 3m. It was the perfect spot for me to set up Making Spaces HQ. It really wasn’t big enough to be a bedroom. In fact it wasn’t really big enough to warrant its own door, so we took that off over a year ago anyway. Top Tip. If you’ve got a door you never ever close, get rid. Give yourself another square meter of space instead. And a better view. And more natural light. Go on. Our 1960’s, 3 bed-semi had a very traditional layout, pre-build. Our plan was to incorporate the small, box room into the landing area, so it looked something like this: If you’ve been following the build, you may remember we were sacrificing our box room in order to accommodate the staircase of our dreams. You can read more about that over here. The plan was to keep our landing open plan, light, spacious and my office would simply sit exactly where it was before. I do …