Designing and Building A Garden Office

2020: the year none of us could have predicted in our crystal balls on the 31st of December.  Life as we once knew it has been turned on its head.  Our morning commute has shrunk from taking a train into the city to walking across the landing to the makeshift office in the spare room.   Although we are now being encouraged to get back to the office by Boris, with every fresh headline it seems less and less likely we will be returning to the 9 to five of old.   And, in truth, having had a taste for working from home and the flexibility it allows, do we even want to go back to the old way of working?

With all of this in mind, an item that was on our “Maybe one day it would be nice to have” list has made it’s way to the forefront of our renovation priorities: a garden office.  This had always been in our long term plans as one of the attractions of this house was that it came with a garden that was longer and wider with the ideal space at the bottom for a studio. As the kids get older we were anticipating a time when we might want to have a separate space where they could hang out (or we could hide from teenagers).  Lockdown has made us realise we may need that extra space sooner than originally anticipated.    

Forgive the slightly messy photo with B&Q’s finest extension cable taking centre stage but the area to the right of this picture at the bottom of the garden is where we thought would be a good spot for a garden studio.

Having decided to get our “Shoffice” on sooner than expected, last month we started to scope out our options.  There are lots of different companies out there offering studios of all shapes and sizes and catering to every budget. It all depends what you want to use the building for and how much you have to spend.  The more traditional log cabin style tend to be cheaper and the more contemporary tend to the more expensive but there are also good options in the middle and many ways to pimp a log cabin to give it a more modern feel . 

Cabu create a range of modular buildings including garden studios with a modern farmhouse aesthetic

Koto have some really cool contemporary home office designs

We wanted something fairly big so that we would have space for both an office and a storage element (otherwise known as a shed). We actually came very close to buying an ex display Hanley Heritage model from Malvern, having discovered this great British company through @design_at_nineteen (go check out his feed for Garden Office Goals) but we ran into difficulties in terms of side access to get it into the garden without having to call in a crane and it didn’t have an integrated shed so we had to go back to the drawing board. All of the other options we looked at in the size we wanted from garden studio companies were, unfortunately, out of our current budget.  So, instead, armed only with a rough drawing I had done after a glass of vino (that frankly looked like something a five year old had knocked out after an exhausting day at softplay) we decided to ask our builder if he would be able to knock us up something bespoke in budget falling within permitted development rules.

Ok so my art work will never be displayed in the National Gallery but hopefully you get the idea

You are probably none the wiser as to the design having looked at my rudimentary drawing (Neil Buchanan I am not) so I have pulled together a moodboard that captures the key elements. The idea is to have one building with a apex roof that includes two separate spaces: an office and storage shed. Working within permitted development means that it can have a max height of 2.5m but I still like the idea of having an element of slope even if it is not going to rival Notre Dame for ceiling height. The top left image on the moodboard is major inspiration for the whole design and belongs to an instagram account I think you would love to follow called @barnhousecabin. It is the forest cabin that two Copenhageners have built on preserved lakeside land in Denmark and if our Shoffice (on a much small scale) turns out 5% as cool in our non lakeside North London suburban setting I will be happy. In terms of the glazing I am hoping to include a set of crittal style aluminium doors that will span much of the width of the office space to bring lots of light into the space. With the cladding I want to keep things feeling contemporary by opting for vertical planks and I have been investigating composite alternatives to timber as that may prove to be a more cost effective option in the longer term when it comes to maintenance.

Top left image is of Barnhouse Cabin, middle image from Pinterest, Top Right image from the Local Project, bottom left image of Cabu Cabins, middle bottom image from Chatsworth Road project completed by Shakadelic and bottom right image is via Remodelista and of David Kohn’s Stable Acre Project.

Excitingly after a couple of days of mulling it over (and probably trying to decipher my drawing with a cold towel around his head) the builder came back to say he could deliver what we wanted within our budget so Project Scandi Shoffice is go! I can’t want to share the progress with you as it takes shapes over the next few weeks and hopefully inspire a few of you to maybe try something similar.  In the meantime I am off to pitch a TV Series called #PimpMyLogCabin to MTV.

My Hallway Transformation

In a straw poll of reasons why people move house I reckon the most common answers would be: up sizing or down sizing; change of location; moving closer to family; school catchment; taking on a renovation. I would possibly be one of the only people to respond with: to gain a girthier entrance.  There were of course other drivers behind our recent move but it really was a close of love at first sight of spacious vestibule for me.

The skinny hallway in our old house (I miss those tiles!)

Our old house was an Edwardian Semi with the stairs located in the middle of the house meaning much of the hallway was a long thin corridor.  When the boys were smaller manoeuvring a buggy and bulging nappy bag out of the front door was like a challenge from the Krypton Factor.  On at least one occasion I became an unwitting hallway hostage after the zip of my coat got caught on a rogue radiator valve leaving me effectively manacled to the wall for a good 15 minutes.

The radiator upon which I got impaled and ended up a #hallwayhostage

In contrast, in our new house when you walk in the door the stairs are directly in front of you and there is double the width to play with so my days of corridor struggle are over. We also have a separate utility room with an extra set of pegs where a platoon of the army of anoraks can be kettled slashing the likelihood of being hit in the face by a smalls boys anorak as you take your shoes off.

It might not look like much but this was the #vestibuleview that won me over to our new house

My Hallway Makeover Plans

The extra space and high ceilings alone are hallway heaven for me and it was all pretty neutrally decorated but this month I have undertaken a mini hallway makeover, in partnership with Cox & Cox to further “enhance my entrance” so to speak.

The main things on my hallway hitlist were: 1) finding a solution to the soviet sized radiator and accompanying cover that dominated the space to the left of the door; 2) changing the mirror for something with a more contemporary, clean feel; 3) finding a way to de-anagylpta that didn’t involve replastering the walls; 4) fitting in some more storage; and 5) lightening up the look and feel in particular of the floors.

Overall the look and feel that I wanted to achieve with the makeover is what I would describe as 1930s Scandi Rustic Chic.  Am thinking Neville Chamberlain was a huge fan of the relaxed Ibiza beach club look.

The decor is all light and pretty neutral it is just not quite Malmo so I will be looking to downgrade the orange factor on the floors and take things more 1930s Scandi Rustic

The anaglypta wallpaper is on my hallway hitlist even though I know it is coming back into fashion!

One of my go to brands when I am searching for Scandi/Rustic furniture, lighting and home accessories has always been Cox & Cox.  I have been shopping with them since right back in 2007 when I bought vintage table place holders from them for my wedding.  14 years and 3 kids later they still tick all my design boxes so I was over the moon when they said they wanted to collaborate with me on the revamp.

Adding Panelling

The first step in the makeover was to call Darren, my long suffering carpenter (who did the kitchen cupboards in my old house) and see if he would take on #Project Panelling aka my solution to “The Anaglypta Issue” (which, by the way, I think makes a great title for a Robert Ludlum Thriller!).  My plan was to remove the dado rail and just panel over the anglypta to avoid a lengthy battle with a wallpaper steamer. 

Panelling dilemmas: to stick below the dado or go above?

I deliberated long and hard about what height to go for.  The safe option was to stick below the dado rail whilst more adventurous option would be to go all the way to the celling.  In the end I went for a halfway (well ¾ way) house and panelled just under line of the doorway. 

I would love to show you an inspiring DIY tutorial of me doing the panelling but the reality was Darren doing battle with several large sheets of MDF in his garden shed and then attaching them to the wall with a mix of nails and glue with quite a bit of swearing along the way.  I am pretty sure he will be ghosting my calls in future. 

Despite a few doubts along the way I am thrilled with the 3/4 height of the panelling

Radiator Solutions

Once the panelling was on the next big decisions was what to do about the radiator and what colour to paint the panelling. The radiator cover that was on the left hand side of the hallway as you walked in was my no means hideous but it pretty much dominated the whole space and precluded us having any storage on that wall.

The before with a large radiator on the left hand wall which took up lots of space

The after with the radiator dropped in height beneath a bench. The woven fringed cushion and black and white chevron cushion are both Cox & Cox

It no longer dominates the space and I actually love the look of the column one

The solution I came up with  was to go for a much shorter radiator that would sit much lower on the wall and build a  seating bench over the top thus ensuring the radiator was no longer the dominant feature in the hallway and we had somewhere to sit to put our shoes on. The bench was to be built out of reclaimed scaffold planks which I sourced from our local salvage yard and which cost £7 a plank.  They are my number one favourite building material although I don’t think Darren shares my love of reclaimed materials judging by his reaction when I brought them home.  Sample quote “you want me to leave the paint stains on??” accompanied by the kind of look you give someone who has just told you that they would like a threesome with Eaamon Holmes and Boris Johnson.

The Scaffold Planks that I love but which baffle Darren! This natural striped runner from Cox & Cox looks great against the sanded floorboards

Paint Choices

With my radiator strategy in place it was time to make a decision about the colour of the panelling.  My first thought was to go dark after I came across this image in a Neptune catalogue.  However because the panelling was going on both sides of the hallway I was worried that it might narrow the room down so in the end I erred towards the light side.  A tester pot orgy later I had tried out every shade between bracken beige and perfect putty and arrived at my final choice: Ammonite by Farrow & Ball. 

Slightly too late for me but excitingly next year Cox & Cox are launching their own brand of paint.  There will be 16 dreamy shades and Flaxen or Landsdown would be a brilliant match for the look in my hallway.  It will be formulated by Mylands so expect a great quality consistent finish. 

Enjoying posing againg my newly Ammonite background with a rather spectacular faux string of pearls

With the panels painted it was time to install the radiator and build the bench.  I opted for a more contemporary column radiator which I bought from this website for roughly £170 which I think is pretty good value.  With the boards sanded down and installed over the top the radiator is now barely visible and it has transformed this side of the hallway. 

Malmo vs Mahogany

My final step in lightening things up before I could tackle the fun finishing touches was to tone down the mahogany factor from the floor and the door which were a good 7.5 on the David Dickinson after a week in Barbados scale.  The floorboards are actually really nice pine ones and sanded down they look so much better.  In the longer term I would like to get a new door but for now just painting it in Railings has been a bit of a game changer (don’t look too closely at slapdash Scandi Handy Andy’s paint job!).

Adding the finishing touches with Cox & Cox

With all of the structural changes complete it was time for the fun stuff: enter Cox & Cox. I have been obsessed with rattan style pendant lights ever since visiting Ibiza last year and Cox & Cox has some beauties. We are blessed with pretty high ceilings so we could afford to go for one of the bigger ones to make a bit of a statement.  I really like this one because it allows a view through it and doesn’t dominate the space too much (or hit us on the head every time we walk down the stairs.

The other big decorative item I was after to complete the makeover was a new mirror.  With the radiator dropped and the bench in place I wanted to add a circular one to break up the square lines of the panelling a little bit.  I think I lost about 1.5 days of my life to the google search large circular mirror until I hit upon this oversized thin frame beauty from Cox & Cox.  Unlike lots of the ones I looked at it has a really thin black rim and adds a really subtle crisp contemporary edge to the hallway revamp.

The Oversized Mirror of dreams

I know some people might have opted to put pegs where I have put the mirror but I think it really opens up the space and reflects light and I have, instead, added pegs further back so they are not in your face as you wanted in the door.  Oh and when I say added pegs let me introduce you to these #heavenlyhooks from Cox & Cox with a black slate base and burnished gold hook .  You can buy a set of three but I opted for four five individual hooks instead and think they add a nod to understated glamour. 

Obviously the insta reality of this photo is 5 primary coloured anoraks rather than an artful rattan bag and a pleasingly pale cream coat

I have four behind the door for coats and practical items and one is located next to the mirror for maximum insta faffery.  I am imagine it will play host to artfully poised baskets, bags of impractical pampas and oft be draped in fairy lights.

Let the faffing commence. I am looking forward to the styling possibilities offered by the hook!

The First Noel …..in my hallway

With the hallway revamp complete just in time for the opening of advent calendars I am super excited by all the fresh festive styling opportunities that it affords me.

First and foremost the bannister!  Our old one was boxed in by the downstairs loo totally raining on my garland parade.   This year I will be going to Scandi town on our new ones.  Cox & Cox have a great range of garlands to grace your stairs and work with a variety of different looks.  I chose this really simple but effective pre lit pine one .  It looks great even just on its own but has really nice thick branches/foliage that are perfect for adding further foliage of the faux or real variety to if you wanted to add more drama to your bannister.

The pre lit eucalyptus garland is lovely and bushy and easy to manipulate and can easily have foliage added to it for extra drama

There is also a matching pre lit wreath which fits rather perfectly on my insta faffery hook by the mirror.  Again you could leave it plain of add extra foliage if you wanted to dial up the drama. 

With thanks to Your London Florist I have added some extra eucalyptus and soft white dried grasses to complement the wreath

I have struggled for years with winding fairy lights into wreaths and trying to disguise the wires so really love the pre-lit one

The bench has not only created a handy place to sit when putting our shoes on but also lends itself to lots of great display possibilities.  I love these beautiful crackle glaze ceramic Christmas trees that Cox & Cox have introduced this year to help you achieve a pared back minimal Christmas look.  They look great on their own or in small groupings.  I would happily have a whole forest of them!

These speckle glaze trees are a lovely minimal take on Christmas

But my very favourite type of tree has to be these beautiful illuminated ones. They add such a soft pretty twinkly light to the hallway and you can either keep them plain or hang them with baubles in the same way as a normal tree. 

Welcome to Malmo’s Winter Wonderland created with a little help from these illuminated snow tipped trees from Cox & Cox

It was the night before Christmas….

I love the soft warm white light of the trees

Cox & Cox have a fantastic selection of baubles for all looks and plenty that appeal to my Scandi aesethic, I particularly like these ones which wooden cut out stars and trees in the middle of a thin gold ring which are from their New Neural Noir range.

White chevron baubles adding all the boho feels to my hallway

If you wanted to add a bit of extra twinkle to your Christmas scheme then I have to let you in on a fairy light secret.  I have had my fingers burnt in the past by fairy lights which promised to be warm white on the box only to turn up and turn out to be football stadium floodlight florescent but Cox & Cox have some naked wire cluster lights which are genuinely the warmest of whites! 

My own mini forest of illuminated snow tipped trees

To complete the warm white winter wonderland feel to my entrance I have also add a couple of great outdoor lighting products from the Cox & Cox range. I think I may love the 7ft outdoor illuminated tree more than any Christmas tree I have ever owned. Mr Malmo I fear has less fond feelings towards it after a botched erection attempted on his part saw the top section hit him on the head at 7:30am on a Monday morning! I have also given our porch a dusting of twinkle with a brilliant indoor/ourdoor star. The lights on both the star and the tree are also the warmest of warm whites #fairylightwin.

Announcing our arrival in the neighbourhood with some Christmas twinkle!

The new apple of my eye, our outdoor Christmas tree

The fairy lights along with all of the other Cox & Cox products I have used in the make over are listed below if you would like to shop my look!

Illuminated Indoor/Outdoor Star

Outdoor light up Christmas Tree

Indoor/Outdoor Magical Light Up Snow Tipped Trees

Grey and White Chevron Baubles

Speckle Glaze Tree

Indoor/Outdoor Pre-Lit Wreath and Garland

Indoor/Outdoor Naked Wire Cluster Lights

Oversized Frame Mirror

Round Rattan Pendant

Natural Striped Runner

Hanging Potted Faux String of Pearls

Black and Brass Hook

Black and White Chevron Cushion

Woven Fringed Cushion

There are a few final finishing touches I need to make to finish the makeover off like applying a stain to the newly sanded floors and deciding whether to paint the bannister or sand it down but those can wait until I have finished my figgy pudding.

 This blog post was part of a paid partnership with Cox & Cox. Many thanks also to Your London Florist for providing me with some foliage for styling my hallway and to Tia Talula for coming to my outdoor photography aid this week!

Malmo & Moss Renovation Diary: Our Loft Conversion Plans

Somehow we have been in our new house for 4 months already and with Christmas just around the corner I have been working hard with our lovely architect Reah of Detail Architects to finalise our renovation plans for 2020 (and beyond!). Apologies to Reah for misspelling the name of her architecture practice in my last blog and accidentally directing people to a Siberian architect specialising in extremely well insulated wooden huts. A key part of those renovation plans is adding a loft conversion to increase the amount of upstairs space we have.  If you look at the floorplan of the new house against the old house you will see that whilst we have gained additional reception (and most importantly utility) space, the bedrooms are actually smaller than those we left behind meaning we have lost quite a bit of storage space! If there is a world record for the number of vacuum bags one household can fit under a bed I am fairly confident we would be going home with the trophy (or the £1000 Robert Dyas voucher).  Also whilst at the moment two of the boys happily (well most of the time) share a room but we can imagine a (teenage) day when this might not always be the case!

The ground floor of our new house. It has lots more width which was a key selling point

However when compared to the bedrooms in our old house (see floor plan to the right) we have marginally less space upstairs

The upstairs layout of our old house

So whilst there are changes we would like to make to the downstairs layout our priority for next year is going to be the loft.  It is, therefore, fortitious that I had actually previously written, in paid collaboration with VELUX, a blogpost all about the secrets of designing a successful loft conversion not realising at the time that I would actually get the opportunity to put them into practice.  Whilst there may be seven deadly sins (and flavours of Magnum Icecream) there are, for me, five secrets to successful loft design and here is how I will be using them in our new house.

Perfecting My Floorplan

We inherited the loft in our old house (in the sense of the conversion having been done before we moved in rather than it having been passed down in my great Auntie Pat’s will).  That meant whilst we could change the décor we couldn’t change the layout.  There were aspects that worked really well like having generous eaves storage, 6 huge VELUX roof windows that flooded the space with natural daylight and a spacious bathroom separated out from the sleeping space. 

The loft in our old house with natural daylight flooding in through the VELUX windows

 However it was a long room and the design meant that the bed had to be positioned under the eaves rather than closer to the dormer window meaning we didn’t get to take advantage of the views out of the garden. We also had limited options for built in storage.  This time around I am eager to achieve a layout with more separation of spaces, better connection to the view from the dormer and much more built in storage (so that I don’t have to find the hoover every time I want to locate my winter jumpers!)

The loft room in our old house was spacious but quite long which broke the connection between the bed and the view

 The floor plan that I think will best achieve this is set out below.  What do you think?  The sleeping space is smaller but better connected to the view and there is a much more generous “dressing room” space.  Our plan is to build some seating into the space to the right of the VELUX windows to make the most of the daylight coming into the room and make this feel like a multi purpose relaxing space. But would you sacrifice the seating and have a dressing table instead? I am more of a do my make up on the train and dry my hair wherever there is a plug kind of gal but maybe I could be won round to being a bit more sophisticated!

Option 1: my preferred layout for the loft is broken, created by Detail Architects, is broken plan rather than open plan with three distinct areas to dress, sleep and bathe

This is Option 2 which I had discarded on the basis it would mean we had to have a skinny bed and allows for very little bedside table space. But I am now wondering whether having the bed facing the view would be better and there might be a way to make this work?? Any bright ideas?!

In trying to decide on my perfect floorplan I have found it really useful to visit  Building Inspiration, a sister site from VELUX.  There are lots of case studies of real-life loft conversion projects featured which gave me some fresh ideas about how to design the space. There are also handy how to guides to walk you through the loft design and conversion process

Letting the light in

 One of the most successful aspects of our previous loft was definitely the bank of roof windows on one side.  I didn’t know this at the time but VELUX roof windows actually let in twice as much daylight as vertical windows of the same size. And doubling the amount of daylight means boosting your metabolic processes (without wishing to sound too #StraightOuttaTomorrowsWorld) improving your mood, reducing your risk of obesity and helping you get a better night’s sleep. The windows we had were top hung meaning we could open them to get a full, open view and maximise the amount of natural daylight that can be allowed in.

Positioning your bed under VELUX windows can actually help you sleep better

So we will definitely be incorporating VELUX roof windows again in our new space.  We have some planned  in for the dressing room space but I would also love to see if we can incorporate one into the bathroom space so that we can see the stars whilst brushing our teeth or at least as much of the stars as you can see when everyone has their lights on in North London! Has anyone done this in their loft conversion?  Does the reality live up to my Pinterest dream??

I am looking forward to actually being able to choose the design and size this time around and there are some exciting new products being introduced by VELUX in 2020 hopefully just in time for our conversions. For example, I love the sound of the top hung INTEGRA windows being introduced which have tech built in that allow you to operate the roof windows at the touch of a button. I would also like to add some inbuilt blackout blinds which again can be remotely controlled.

Sadly I don’t think we will be able to go for a VELUX CABRIO pop out balcony window so I will have to keep this image on my Pinterest a while longer.

Creating Character and Zoning Like Beckham

In my last blog I spoke about the fact that lofts can easily feel a bit “Keanu” (likeable but bland) and need character injecting into them.  In our old loft I “De-Keanued” with the help of a small builders’ yard worth of reclaimed scaffold boards on the wall behind the bed.  I loved how it added texture and warmth to the space and it is very tempting to repeat the trick again. 

 However, this time I love the idea of using a crittall screen to create a focal point, acting as a divider between the bedroom and the dressing room and injecting a little bit of sophisticated industrial edge into the room.  Although I may be back down the builders’ yard if it turns out I have crittall dreams on a cardboard box budget.

Room designed by Anna Potanka

I also love the idea of having the ability to open up part of the bathroom to the bedroom with a pocket door and, with some clever layout (and waste pipe location) planning am hoping I can fit a freestanding bath into the bathroom for a bit of added wow. This is my inspo for the idea although obviously on a slightly less dramatic scale than this!

I adore these sliding doors and the bath concealed by them. Image via @viral.archi

 By having three distinct spaces divided in this way I am hoping to banish the bland and create a multifunctional space that we can sleep, bathe and relax in! If you need more ideas about how to design your space for maximum wow (and non-Keanu) factor then VELUX has a brilliant EBook available that has lots of great tips about things to bear in mind when you are designing your space.  Definitely worth looking at when you consider that 70% of people have regrets about their loft conversion and that 19% of people wish they had spent more time planning their space before starting to build.

Glaze to Amaze

 One of the key attractions of our new house is that is has a lovely mature garden with some seriously attractive trees   Because it is so mature you cannot really see the houses behind so it feels very secluded and connected to nature.

Could be New England in the fall but is actually Enfield

Concentrate on the view not the chunky UpVc windows that are definitely on my hit list to replace

One of my key design aims with the loft is to ensure that there are clear uninterrupted views to take advantage of the setting.  In my last loft blog I detailed how we removed a set of white UpVC doors to de-dentist surgery the old space and open up the view.  At the time we had a limited budget so had to install, in their place, a large fixed picture window and a small opening side window.  Whilst that definitely gave us uninterrupted views it would have been nice to have had the ability to open the window to enjoy more fresh air in the summer months.

The picture window in our old loft which created stunning uninterrupted views

This time around I am therefore hoping that we can stretch the budget enough to go for either folding or sliding doors in the dormer like this amazing loft conversion I have saved on my Pinterest boards (source unknown).  Has anyone done this in their loft?  I also love the idea of having the bath positioned in front of a big pane of glass like in this inspo picture .

I am hoping god (and the Halifax) willing that we be able to finalise the design, put it in for planning and get started in the first half of 2020. If you are planning a loft conversion and need more practical information on the timings and process then click here to read bags of useful information on just those topics complied by VELUX or contact VELUX for support. Using the VELUX Project support tools has really helped me so far and it is a great way to get to know more about the whole range of different types of windows that they offer. Did you know for example that you can open and close their INTEGRA windows with just one touch of a wall switch?

I look forward to sharing our final choices and our loft conversion journey with you over the coming months. I would love to hear from anyone else also embarking on a similar journey in 2020!

This blog post was sponsored by VELUX as part of my paid brand ambassador partnership with them

Renovating our bathroom to create my ultimate sanctuary space

It has been two months since we moved into our new house and, bar one bad wobble unpacking cardboard box 3456, we haven’t looked back.  I thought I would be longing for my metro tiles and modern rustic interiors but we have been so busy making renovation plans for the new place there hasn’t really been time to pine for the old one.

The room I am pining for the most: our old bathroom

However, there is one room that I haven’t quite got over saying goodbye to and that was my bathroom.  It wasn’t the largest room in the house but, as the only one with a lock on the door and a ready supply of scented candles, it was my sanctuary.   Apparently it is not just me that feels that way either: 43% of people in recent survey by top bathroom brand Geberit listed it as their sanctuary space.  I am guessing I am not the only mum who barricades herself in there for a bubble bath after the end of full day adulting!

The copper taps made by my builder added an industrial edge to the bathroom that I loved

It was one of the first rooms that I completely designed by myself from scratch and the combo of a vintage roll top bath, copper piping taps and hexagonal floor tiles was probably responsible for 89% of my Instagram growth!

Even managed to acheive my ultimate goal before we left and snuck an olive tree in

Candles lit, bubble bath poured ready for relaxation

So are you ready to see what my new bathroom is like and find out more about my plans for transforming it into my ultimate sensory sanctuary space with some clever tips I have picked up from working with the clever bathroom people at Geberit? Ok here she is!!

This was the bathroom when we first came to visit. All clean and tidy with strong folded towel game

Like most of the house we are lucky in that everything is in pretty good (ish) condition and fairly neutral style – we are not overwhelmed by an avocado suite or battling a beige bog.   It is more of a case of things looking a little bit dated oh and the shower running at a temperature indistinguishable from lukewarm tea. 

Up close the bath panel and unit are starting to show their age and I would like to swap them for something more contemporary

One of number one desires is to find space for a separate shower as at the moment we have a shower over the bath

As you can see from this floor plan there is a very obvious reconfiguration of the space we can do that will allow me to escape from my own personal bathroom hell: a shower over the bath.  By shifting the water tank out of the cupboard shown on this plan we will be able to separate the shower out and then I would like to switch the bath so that it sits under the window.

The current configuration is a bit awkward with an airing cupboard containing a water tank in a space that would be perfect for a standalone shower

Detail Architects have drawn up some plans to show how we could incorporate the shower into the bathroom

I love the arrangement of have the bath under the window that @the_girl_with_the_green_sofa went for in her new bathroom

By knocking through into the airing cupboard we would be able to achieve a shower space similar to @the_girl_with_the _green_sofa bathroom as well.

With those structural changes made  I can then hopefully get down to the fun part: designing a bathroom to stimulate all my senses!

It’s all about the Olafractory

Ok smell may not seem the obvious sense to start with but if there was one thing that took the edge off my old “dream bathroom” it was the fact that the toilet was positioned in the bathroom 30 cms from the tub meaning that a) 1 in 2 baths were interrupted by one or more of the boys bursting in to drop off something that smelt like it had been ejected from the bowels of a Victorian and b) when they burst back out again a smell remained that even a whole pine forest of toilet duck couldn’t shift. 

In the new house the toilet is actually separate from the bathroom an arrangement that some people view as old fashioned but which I am increasingly coming round to!  But what do you think? Would we be better bringing it into the bathroom as shown on the floorplan below?

The alternative option of bringing the toilet into the bathroom

However, if we do incorporate it into the bathroom to create more of a spacious feel, then it is reassuring to know that Geberit’s toilets actually have the latest in duo fresh odour extraction technology incorporated into them, filtering the surrounding air to diminish unpleasant smells and extracting odours directly from the loo before they have the chance to spread!

I love the fact that Geberit have developed a toilet with built in odour extraction

Coming Over All Kinesthetic

Come again Malmo I hear you say? I realise it sounds like I have got in touch with my inner Mystic Meg but your kinaesthetic senses actually relate to your awareness of the position and movement of parts of your body (in essence your sense of touch) rather than your ability to read the fortune of a reader of The Sun. 

So in designing a bathroom to stimulate your kinaesthetic side you need to pay attention to things that are tactile and nice to touch! In our last house the polished concrete sink in our ensuite totally ticked this box.

The concrete sink in our old ensuite

I would love to be bolder and introduce more concrete or micro cement into the new space this time potentially on the walls or even on the bath itself.  These are a couple of the inspo pics on my pinterest board that I keep coming back to.

I love the way in this one that the concrete sink sits against a polished concrete wall. Image via Pinterest source unknown

I love this concrete bath from @viaparissi but wonder if it might be a bit much in a family bathroom?

If I can make it work without having to take on a second mortgage I would also love to bring a reeded glass shower screen into the scheme for some additional texture.  I saw it used to great effect in this bathroom

I think I have pinned this image approximately 6788 times I love it so much! Image via Living Etc

The reeded glass shower screen is a great way of bringing texture in. Image from Living Etc

I also fell in love with a basin at the photoshoot I did with Geberit earlier in the year (click here to read all about it) that was made of a super matt, soft material called varicor.  I don’t know quite how to describe it but it felt like the basin was made out of the softest silk you can imagine. 

This Geberit basin made of a soft material called varicor is super tactile

As you can see I coulnt’t keep my hands off it!

On the techy side my derriere very much likes the idea of sitting down on an intelligent Aqua Clean  toilet that is programmed to know exactly the warmth to heat my toilet seat to for me. 

Scroll Stopping Visuals

I started with smell but obviously the other biggy when designing your ultimate sensory bathroom space has to be how it all looks!  Whilst I loved my old bathroom and the rustic vintage industrial vibes it was channelling I actually have in mind a softer slightly more minimal look for the new bathroom.  Still retaining touches of industrial edge but introducing calmer colours and softer textures.  Also shockingly even to me I am toying with the idea of bring some non neutral colours in.  Before you start imagining bright pinks and neon yellow I should probably clarify that I am more thinking of dabbling with a very light mint green.  I adore these tiles for example and how they look with brass taps.

Soft mint green is the new avocado in this bathroom by Sarah Shearman Samuel

Lighting is also a hugely important part of the visual experience.  My Malmo would happily bathe with the big light on (any other Northerners call the overhead light that?!) but for me dimmable wall lights are a massive important part of creating a relaxing bathroom experience. 

Geberit have also come up with some smart solutions to avoid dazzling your eyes when you enter you bathroom space such as soft automatic orientation lighting as part of their vanity units and mirrors.  Exposure to harsh light sources in the middle of the night can apparently negatively effect your sleep patterns so incorporating gentle orientation lighting into your bathroom design is a great way to avoid being awake all night after popping for a 3am wee!

Soft orientation lighting built into the vanity unit and mirror avoids dazzling your eyes if you pop to the loo in the night!

Turning up the tranquillity factor

Unless I at bathe at 11pm (which has been known to happen!) there is very rarely silence in our house.  The very best I can usually hope for is no-one under the age of 10 breaking through the door to enquire why there is a hairy glove floating in the bath or to ask my opinion on the Sheffield Wednesday back four.

There are some clever things you can do to maximise tranquillity and reduce noise in the bathroom though.  Geberit recommend planning features into your bathroom such as a decoupled pre-walls, opting for acoustically optimised pipework and choosing wall hung ceramics. The soft touch buttons on their flush plates also ensure a super quiet flushing action.  I can confirm I have heard louder whispers!

Geberit's soft touch flush plates ensure the tranquility of your bathroom experience is not disturbed

Also there is one person I always enjoy taking into the bathroom with me (when Ryan Gosling is too busy to pop by for a bubble bath) and that is Alexa! Being able to ask her to play Zero 7 to drown out any rows that might be happening elsewhere in the house about turning the Octonauts off is invaluable!

I look forward to sharing more details of our bathroom makeover with you as our renovation plans progress.  Hopefully soon I will be in a position to pull together a moodboard that whittles down the 3567890 bathroom images I have saved and shapes them into a coherent design incorporating the sensory design principles I have picked up from Geberit!

*This post is part of the my long term paid partnership with Geberit*

Malmo & Moss is Moving House

We moved into the Malmo & Moss house on a scorching hot day in July almost exactly nine years ago. It was just me, my husband and two cats at that point. Although the cats were lucky to survive the move after they spent the entire journey around the South Circular emitting the kind of noise that I imagine would come out of Michael Gove’s mouth if he were to get his penis trapped in a lift door. Maybe they just had feline reservations about their owners moving from South to North London having only visited the area where our new house was located twice before. However, whilst they might have liked to remain #ClaphamCats we didn’t have a budget big enough to stretch to a family home in that part of the City.

Winchmore Hill, the area of North London we alighted upon, is probably most famous for once having played host (if that is the right word) to Augustus Pinochet who was briefly exiled here in 1998. However, before you get the impression that it is some sort of haven for war criminals I should balance that fact act out by telling you that it’s other famous ex resident is Lionel Ritchie (whose crimes are mainly perm and power ballad related).

Winchmore Hill Green the pretty heart of this lesser known part of North London

We moved when I was 37 weeks pregnant with our first son who arrived just two short weeks later. Whilst the move to a little known area where we had no friends just as we were about to become first time parents was definitely risky, it is a gamble that has more than paid off. Unlike Pinochet we have stuck around, seduced by lots of green open space, great schools and a street so friendly we go on holiday with our neighbours (although not John at the end of the street who I once overheard in Tesco trying to return some chicken he had purchased in 1999) .

July 2010: just two weeks after moving in we welcomed our first son

Two tired first time parents and a very proud (and very young looking!) uncle in the days before the front room went over to the dark side!

The house has slowly but sure been transformed from a #SanitaryPadPurplePalace with a conservatory #StraightOuttaBrookside to a light, bright modern rustic home. We have knocked through, extended and renovated the kitchen, enlarged and overhauled the family bathroom, reconfigured the loft space and breathed fresh life into the ensuite, tiled the hallway and installed crittal style dividing doors and added hygge to the living room by going over to the dark side and installing a woodburner.

You can get a glimpse in the background of the very off message Kermit the Frog green conservatory we inherited when we moved in

A couple of years (and another son later) we said goodbye to #KermitsConservatory and replaced it with a modern extension. This is it just days after it was finished

6 years later we still love how it has transformed the house

My favourite view looking back into the kitchen from the garden

Knocking through from the kitchen to the dining room has also been a gamechanger

However nine years and two further sons later we are on the move once more. This time there will fortunately be no need to subject ourselves to #CatCarTorture on the South Circular as we are actually only moving five minutes up the road!

Reasons for the Move

So why are we moving? The answer can be summed up in one word really: space. Or rather a growing realisation that we could do with a bit more of it. Our existing house, unlike me, is tall but comparatively narrow. Click here to see our floorplan. We have already extended the kitchen and the loft was converted before we moved in so we have no real options left to create extra square metres we are after.

We have maximised our existing space to create a kitchen/diner

Made over and reconfigured the loft

But alas we cannot magic up enough space for another bedroom

Our two youngest currently happily share a room but we know there will come a time when that arrangement may become less harmonious. Possibly between the ages 11-16 judging by my relationship with my own sister. Apparently having your little sister pick up the phone whenever you are on the line to your first boyfriend and sing “Let’s Talk About Sex” is not as funny as I thought it was at the time.

One day we anticipate all of the boys will want a (Scandi Forest Chic) room of their own

So when I saw a girthier house on a street we have always loved come up for sale 4 months ago with a floorplan that made heart flutter we decided to go for it.

The New House

OK brace yourself, this is the back of the new house which looks like it started a fight with pebbledash and lost. Inside it is less Scandi Rustic and more Sharps Showroom circa 1996 when fitted wardrobes were all the rage. But when I saw the floorplan I was sold. It actually currently has less space upstairs than our existing house but there is scope to add a generous loft and the downstairs space, after a reconfiguration and possible further extension, will offer us the big open plan kitchen/diner we have always wanted. And, of course, most importantly of all, I will finally be able to realise my greatest dream: a separate utility room.

My new rear end is decidedly bigger. It is the width of this house that really sold us on it

As well as the lovely big garden complete with apple tree

For the boys there is a bigger garden with plenty of Wembley and Hide and Seek possibilities . Whereas the clincher for Mr Malmo was the prospect of a garage of his own. Not because he is a car nut (our family car is more likely to be quarantined by DEFRA than appear at Goodwood) but rather because he has an ever growing collection of impulse purchased power tools which will now have a home of their own. I am slightly worried I am going to come downstairs and find him jigsawing wood in his pants at 2am down there!

First on my hit list: transforming the fitted wardrobes . Decor wise everything is actually pretty neutral though and has been well cared for so it is definitely liveable if not immediately instagrammable!

We move a week tomorrow so the next seven days are going to be spent in a haze of cardboard boxes, trips to the tip and snotty hankies as I reminisce about about all the memories we have made together in this house. We arrived as a couple and will leave as a family of five. This is the house is where our son’s first steps were taken, first words spoken and first poos on the potty (and floor) were completed. We have ticked off so many milestones, celebrating birthdays, christenings, christmases, and surviving a brush with Brian the misogynist bathroom tiler. It’s going to be emotional, not least as I have to say goodbye to my greatest ever E-Bay bargain: our £25 roll top bath.

Moving will be sweet sweet sorrow in that I will have to bid farewell to my roll top bath

And my copper taps

So are you ready for Malmo & Moss: The Renovation Years?! My head is already spinning with ideas so over the coming weeks/months/possibly decades I am looking forward to sharing more pictures of the new place with you and my ideas for transforming it one fitted wardrobe at a time! I hope you enjoy coming along with me for the renovation ride.

Creating My Dream Bathroom with Geberit

When I started using Instagram two years ago I wasn’t actually posting pictures of interiors.  Shoes yes, random day trips to National Trust Properties yes, pictures of my pudding yes but interiors no.  The mists of time and mum brain mean I can’t actually pinpoint why I switched from posting cakes to kitchens but I do remember that it was a picture of my bathroom which first got likes other than from my long suffering friends who were probably tempted to block me if I posted another picture of a profiterole by that point.

One of the first shots of my bathroom I ever posted to Instagram. Yes I did like the Valencia filter a lot back in 2016!!

Having finally got my head around hashtags a picture of my bathroom was included in a midweek montage for #MyHomeVibe and it turned out that people rather liked the curve of my copper pipe taps and cut of my metro tiles.  And whilst I do feature other rooms in my house on my account (to avoid people feeling like they are trapped in some sort of Suburban Bathroom Groundhog Day) it is always pictures of my bathroom that do the best.  In fact this photo of it, when regrammed by Apartment Therapy garnered over 70K likes and was in the top ten most liked pictures on their feed last year.  Not bad for an e-bay bargain bath and a slightly dodgy 3am paint job.

The picture that got regrammed on Apartment Therapy

Aside from its Instagram popularity it is also my favourite room in the house because a) it is the only room with a lock (a not to be underrated feature when you have three boys) and b) I am pretty sure I share DNA (and a waistline) with a Walrus in that I could happily spend 23 out of 24hrs submerged in warm water.

Designing My Dream Bathroom With Geberit

So when Geberit got in touch asking if I would like to design and style my dream bathroom using their Xeno²range I didn’t need asking twice.  In fact I don’t think I even needed asking once as I said yes before they had even got to the end of the sentence!  They had me at vanity unit of my choice. 

In case you have not heard of Geberit before they are a Swiss company with a long pedigree in designing and producing innovative, high quality, long lasting bathroom products.  To use a Swiss sporting analogy, they are to bathrooms what Roger Federer is to Tennis: stylish, refined, durable and always ahead of the rest of the pack.  The only difference is they are serving up sanitary ware rather than aces.

A basin and vanity unit from the Xeno² range

The crisp, clean design aesthetic of the Xeno² range obviously tickles my Scandinavian sensibilities but what I loved about the brief was the challenge of bringing some of my signature Modern Rustic/Industrial Vintage style into play to create a bathroom which mixes Geberit products with my personality.

My Design

The building blocks of my fantasy bathroom chosen from the Xeno² range were a double vanity unit with built in basin, sleek intelligent sensor mirror, tallboy storage cupboard and a super intelligent AquaClean shower toilet.  Intelligent in the sense of its ability to leave your bits as shiny as a whistle rather than out score Steven Hawking in a Mensa test sense that is. 

The AquaClean Shower Toilet that will save you a trip to Japan

I don’t know if you have found this but if you talk to friends and family who have visited Japan the number one thing they rave about is not the splendour of the cherry blossoms or the speed of the bullet trains but the technology the Japanese use in their toilets which come with heated seats, varying wash modes and just generally more of a brain than our standard British Bogs.  Thanks to Geberit there is no need to trek to Toyko for your derriere to experience that kind of dream experience. 

More information on all of the products featured in my dream bathroom from the Xeno² bathroom range is available here. 

I actually initially found having totally freedom to design my dream bathroom left me a little stumped!  Not in the sense of having no inspiration but more in that my inspiration cup was overflowing and my mind was boggling at all the possibilities.  To marshall my inner runaway rustic I used Canva to create a mood board for my room.  This really helped me to focus on how everything would look together and create a cohesive vision for the room (without wishing to sound too  Llewelyn Bowen).

With my moodboard complete it was time to take things off the page and into the back of a sweaty battered Audi A6 estate and head up the motorway to a photographic studio in Warwick where a bathroom set, photographer, videographer and make up artist with her work cut out were awaiting me!  I was more than a little relieved to arrive without being pulled over by the police as am not sure how I would have gone about explaining the contents of the car to the boys in blue.  Yes officer that is an enormous dried flower cloud in the passenger seat and a rustic Hungarian milking stool you can see gracing the parcel shelf. 

Luckily I was not pulled over with this amount of pampa grass in the passenger seat

Having never done anything as exciting as this before I thought it would be fun to share some behind the scenes footage with you from the day so that you can get a feel for what I was up to in a Warwickshire warehouse and to then talk you through the different elements of my dream room.  Spoiler alert soft neutral colours, warm natural textures and materials will feature rather than bright colours, clashing patterns and glitzy metallic finishes!

The Day

What initially threw me when I arrived was the fact that it was not a “bathroom” in the traditional sense that was awaiting me.  It was a bathroom within a roomset (so far so Truman Show) which meant there was no ceiling and half of the room had no walls! The next thing to get my head (and generous eye bags around) was the fact that it would be me as well as my dream bathroom captured on camera because as well as photographing the bathroom, the Geberit team have also made a clever video about my roomset to help you get a better sense of the look.   Click here to take a look at the video

Eyebag and brow miracles worked ready to roll (looking a little like I am wearing my pyjamas)

So it was actually quite a busy and buzzy set with a photographer and a great videography team there to capture all the action.

As someone who has, to date, largely taken pictures on my phone, I learnt so much that day about all the tricks that professional photographers use to get the very best out of a room and space.  The positioning and strength of lighting in particular plays a huge role in how a finished photo looks.  Consequently, it will be a giant light reflecting umbrella and stage lighting rig rather than bubble bath and some new hair straighteners that will be on my Christmas list this year!  I loved seeing the shots come through on the photographer’s computer as we went along. 

So having seen glimpses are you now ready to see the end result?  I hope so because here it is!

My Rustic Scandi Dream Bathroom scheme

Creating a Cosy Corner

This may make me strange but I love a bit of company when I am in the bath. Not in the actual bath itself just someone to sit and chat to me in the bathroom as I bathe.  Although my three year old frequently misinterprets this bit and climbs in to join me in the actual bath with a large toy boat/collection of aged flannels/a whole toilet roll.

I loved how this corner worked out with the flower cloud

Having an armchair in my dream bathroom was, therefore, an essential item. The chair of my bathroom dreams is actually from Ikea.  I am a huge fan of their Soderhamn range of seating.  It has simple clean lines and a great price point whilst looking easily more expensive.  It has a lovely wide back and deep seat meaning your companion can be as relaxed on the chair as you are in the bath.  To be honest even if I wasn’t having a bath I would be tempted to sneak in and sit on it curled up with a magazine

Adding Stylish Storage

Whilst the vanity unit and tallboy cupboard from the Xeno² offer great storage (with clever features like soft close doors) I also added in some additional storage options under the sink for stowing away bulkier items like toilet rolls and towels.  To contrast with the sleek lines of the Xeno² unit I chose rougher textures such as wood and rattan to bring some warmth and texture into the room scheme.  One of my favourite places to source baskets like the ones used in these photographs is from French Brand Maisons Du Monde.  The Candian Dry box is a vintage find which I paid £10 for at Ardingly Antiques Market 3 years ago and which I could, in the interim, have sold 10 ten times over for ten times the price.  I cannot, however, bring myself to part with it!  If you are not able to find a vintage equivalent H&M Home often have a great range of vintage style/rustic storage boxes to choose from.

The Canda Dry box that is one of my most prized possessions added great towel storage

Lowering the Lighting

It goes without saying that my dream bathroom would feature candles.  In fact that tallboy storage unit would probably be predominantly filled with them.  Scented, unscented, real, battery operated I love them all! My current obsession are these hurricane lanterns from Marks & Spencer which have a lovely limewashed wooden base and speckled glass and create a lovely soft glow when filled with candles.  However, woman cannot read Living Etc by candle light alone so I also added two wall lights into my bathroom scheme from Cox & Cox.  I chose black to add a nod to the industrial into the room and they are, of course, bathroom rated.  They are actually outdoor lights which is a great trick to employ if you are struggling to find bathroom rated indoor light options!

I was really pleased with the industrial edge the black carriage lights added

The Xeno² Vanity Unit and AquaClean toilet actually also have smart motion sensor lighting built into them as well to prevent you stumbling around in the dark in the morning/middle of the night.

Turning Towels into a Feature

I know a lot of people like their towels to be neither seen or heard (a talking towel would admittedly be rather alarming) but I like mine to become a feature of my bathroom design.  They are a great way to add subtle nods to colour, pattern and texture into a room.  Using a vintage ladder to display them on is also a great way to add some height into your bathroom scheme.  There is a probably a retired builder called Dave laughing all the way to the bank after I purchased his paint splattered step ladders (possibly brought out of the back of his van by mistake/an after thought) at a car boot a couple of months ago.  The selection of towels I have featured are all from HM Home. 

H&M Home have some great towels this season including this linen striped one

Elsewhere in the bathroom I have also added soft texture and a touch of hygge in with shaggy sheepskins on the floor and bench.

 All Hail the Humble Tooth Mug

When I first met Mr Malmo he was using an aged Sheffield Wednesday Mug with a fading picture of Chris Waddle on as a toothmug.  It took me four years and two house moves to finally give Waddle the red card from our bathroom and replace him with something more Scandi than Sheffield themed.  The moral of this tale is that small details can actually make all the difference to a room and there is no reason why practical things cannot also be beautiful ones.  With this in mind, I sourced a handmade tooth mug and soap dish in earthy colours from the ceramics range stocked by socially minded small business Aerende Store.  For display rather than practical purposes I also mixed in some vintage bottles I have amassed over the years as well as some new favourite vases from the Nordic inspired range at Marks & Spencer so that I had a range of different sizes, textures and colours.

Vintage and new ceramics adding some texture to the basin area

The basin upon which they are resting from the Xeno² range is actually made from a super soft matt material called Varicor which I have never come across before but would happily now enter into a long term relationship with. 

In Praise of [dried] Plants

I have a confession to make which may make me an insta outcast by the time you finish reading this blog: I don’t really like houseplants.  Yes they have carbon dioxide absorbing life enhancing benefits to having them around but my ability to reduce a monstera to mulch in less than a month means I just don’t dig them.  However I am not an all round nature hater in my home, I do still like to bring the outdoors in and embrace plant life I just prefer, in the bathroom, for it to be in dried rather than semi biodegraded form. I think the 1970s kinda gave dried flowers a bad rap.  Pot Pourri has a lot to answer for. But the last 12 months has seen them having a major resurgence and no-one is happier about this than me.  They add soft texture, natural colours and a bit of drama to the bathroom, require zero maintenance and need never be thrown away.  I used them in two ways in my dream bathroom design.  Soft wavy pampas grass to soften the wall the toilet was hung on and then in a super size flower cloud in my cosy corner. 

The cloud is actually much easier to recreate than you might think, you just need a floristry oasis wreath (easily obtainable on Amazon) and then a selection of dried grasses and flowers.  Mine was made for me by Your London Florist and they use a mix of grasses and then dried hydrangea heads and roses to add in some (subtle) colour and drama.

Wall Art and the Wall Hung Toilet

I don’t know about you but I grew up in a house that had both a separate toilet (in a room no bigger than your average glovebox) and the cistern proudly on show.  With space now at a premium that sanitary set up is increasingly uncommon (I say this based on a survey of my friends houses rather than backed by official census data on the bathrooms of Britain).  With a toilet now more likely to be featured in the bathroom itself, the looks of your loo have become more important.  Geberit were actually one of the first companies to introduce and champion the wall hung loo in the UK:  stoying away cisterns and making flush plates a thing to covet not conceal.  When I visited their showroom in Warwick recently I was gob smacked by the range of flush plate options they offer.  My dream bathroom features one hewn from slate that looked completely unobtrusive and part of the general rustic theme.  Another great way to blend your toilet into your room scheme is to add art to the wall on which it is hung so people have something that draws their eye other than just the WC. 

So there you have it the bathroom of my dreams.  Hope it has provided you with inspiration for how to style your own Rustic/Scandi bathroom paradise and how to use the Xeno² bathroom range as part of that dream. 

One Bathroom Two Ways

If you fancy seeing how the colour loving Yin to my neutral décor Yang got on with the same challenge then head over to Come Down To the Woods Blog by clicking here.  Her dream is definitely different to mine but I still found myself seduced when I saw it.  She certainly has a way with wallpaper and I don’t mind admitting that I was tempted to nip up the motorway to Leeds and purloin the Tom Dixon marble bathroom lights she included in her scheme. 

There is also a line in her blog that made me laugh about imagining me wafting around with sheepskins, dried hydrangeas and hamman towels as I would say a solid 40 minutes of the day were spent with me either fluffing a sheepskin, positioning a hamman towel or handling a hydrangea.  You know me too well Woods….

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the work I have been doing as part of my long term paid partnership with Geberit.  It has been so much fun so far (in fact I kind of feel a fraud calling it work!) and I have more exciting content to share with you later this year so watch this space!

Creating the Perfect Floorplan for Family Living

We bought our current house nine years ago. We came to view it when I had just found out I was pregnant with our eldest son and we were living in a one bedroom flat at the time. Having put the (trouser) horse before the house cart there was a certain degree of urgency to our search. We had seen a number of other properties and all were either out of our budget or in budget but with rooms that only a hamster would describe as spacious. After 5 minutes looking around we decided to put an offer in because, to quote Clint Eastwood in ‘Bridges Over Madison County’ ', this kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime. Or put another way, within 5 minutes of a viewing when you encounter a house that has four genuinely double bedrooms.

One of the four double bedrooms (by human not hamster standards)

The previous owners did have a penchant for painting rooms sanitary pad purple but shades of Always Ultra aside it was in the kind of condition where you could move straight in. The loft had already been converted so we had all the bedroom space we needed. The two most obvious “big jobs” that needed doing were an update of the bathrooms and a reconfiguration of the downstairs space to create a more open plan kitchen diner.

One of the selling points of the house was the fact that the loft had already been converted saving us a big job

The Victorians may have given us the railways and the Royal Albert Hall but they did not bestow generously sized kitchens upon us. When we moved in we had the fairly classic Victorian lay out of a long narrow kitchen which some dude in the 1980s had then latched a conservatory on the back of. Getting out into the garden was like a challenge on the Cystal Maze involving having to shoulder barge a cheap UPVC door that often swelled shut. With son number 2 on the way we drew up plans to get rid of the conservatory and replace it with a proper extension. In an ideal world we would have liked to extend the kitchen to the side but Enfield council have an enormously annoying policy that prevents this unless your neighbours are doing it at the same time. GIven we had trouble persuading our then neighbours not to call each other mother f’ckers within earshot of our kids it was safe to say they weren’t the kind of people who would obligingly whack up an extension to their kitchen for us.

We replaced the previously unsightly 1980s conservatory with a contemporary extension at the back of the house

The extended kitchen diner

That meant we had to extend outwards at the back rather than to the side. We replaced the conservatory with a proper extension so that this space became part of the house instead of a room that you only went in during the summer if you were trying to recuperate from hyperthermia and therefore needed to sit somewhere the same temperature as Mars. We also knocked the wall down between the kitchen and the “dining room” to get more light into the kitchen and create more of an open plan layout. Those changes brought us to our current floor plan which is below.

The current floor plan of our house. It is what I think estate agents would describe as deceptively spacious

As you can see we have a separate front room and then one big L shaped open plan room which is used as kitchen diner and second, less formal familiy living space. This is where the kids watch TV, cover every surface in butter or banana and have their toys. Whilst the changes we have made (including adding a downstairs loo under the stairs) have radically improved how this house works for us as a family, there is one missing room which I can’t stop hankering for: a utility.

The utility room of my dreams in the home of @thislittlehouse

That’s right, my greatest desire these days is not to lick Nutella off Brad Pitt but to possess a room in which to process my laundry and store the hoover. Although obviously the dream would be to lick Nutella off Brad in said utility room and be able to pop his Hazelnut covered smalls straight in the washer dryer afterwards. I want to reclaim the spare room from the drying rack which is almost permanently erected in it trying to keep pace with the volumes of pants, school shirts and football kits that having three sons generates.

@hornsby_style is another one of my #UtilityIdols

Mr Malmo is unsurprisingly not as obsessed with creating a #placetoputapulley but luckily I know an interior designer with an architecture background or two (ok just one but a really bad ass one) who was willing to play around with some floorplans for me to work out how we might be able to squeeze one in. The interior deisgner in question is the wonderful Rebecca Wakefield of Studio Fortnum who has built up an instagram following of over 20,000 people who love her signature stylish, calm and unpretentious interiors as much as I do. She came up with four layouts for me which explore different potential locations for a utility.

One of Rebecca’s interior design projects

Now I want this sitting room as well as a utility room

As a person who struggles to visualize anything unless it is right in front of me, having floorplans to look at was an amazing way to get to grips with the changes we would need to make to fit a utility in and the impact it would have on how we currently use the space. It rapidly became apparent (looking at Option 3 for example) that if we squeezed one in without also extending the kitchen space to the side, we would be left with a significantly reduced second living space. However whilst we now have neighbours who are much less likely to call each other MoFos and are also open to a mutual side return situation, it would still be a fairly major investment to gain the utility of my dreams.

The four floorplans the amazing Rebecca Wakefield drew up for me

Of the three remaining options (all of which assume a side extension) I think my favourite is Option 4 as it gives the biggest /best layout of utility. But I do worry that we would still be sacrificing quite a bit of the space where the sofa currently sits in the living room and that it might potentially make that room feel cramped. A completely different plan which would preserve all of our current living space and potentially work out cheaper than adding a side return, would be to build a garden room at the end of the garden and relocate the washer dryer out there. But perhaps that is a discussion for a different blog

In the proposed layouts, the utility would be to the right of the partition doors so we would lose some of the space where the sofa sits.

The view from the kitchen would be rather different

Whilst we continue to mull it over I would love to know what you guys think? Do you have a utility room, do you understand my laundry room lust? If it were your house which one of the options would you go for? Or do you think pursuinh my utility dreams would compromise the space we have? Would love to know your thoughts! In the meantime thank you so much to the layout legend that is Rebecca Wakefield . If you have your own interior dilemma or project I cannot recommend Studio Fortnum enough.