Interior transformation

A home ready to live in

An interior transformation designed, priced and furnished during the purchase period, so the work could begin soon after the keys arrived.

The clients had an accepted offer and a long purchase ahead of them. They did not want to wait for the keys to start.

Scope: Interior design, procurement, project leadership
Began: Before completion
On site: About two months

Ready by Completion Can you start design work before you own it?

01
Before this house

The relationship began with a different house

Early design work on a property the clients were considering showed it would not do what they needed. That work was not wasted. It made reading the next one much quicker, and it is the reason the second house could be assessed and designed inside the length of a purchase.

02
The waiting

The work itself was not shortened. The waiting was used.

Access was arranged, the house was measured, and the design, the construction information, the pricing and the furniture were all settled before completion.

Furniture and key items were selected in advance and held or prepared rather than committed, so nothing substantial was at risk while the purchase was still open.

03
The exchange

The two principal rooms exchanged function

What had been the dining room became the living room and what had been the living room became the dining room. It is the kind of change that costs nothing on paper and is close to impossible to argue for once furniture has arrived.

The room that became the living room, as the house was marketed, laid out as a dining room with a butterfly-papered chimney breast — Before, the dining room The better room of the two, and it was being used for the activity that happens least. It has the bay, the cornice and the ceiling rose.

The completed living room, with a fluted panelled recess, backlit shelving and the original fireplace retained — After, the living room Same fireplace, same cornice, everything else replaced. Fluted panelling and backlit shelves fill the alcove that the sideboard used to occupy, so the storage is now part of the wall.

The room that became the dining room, as the house was marketed, laid out as a living room looking through to the rear — Before, the living room Sofas here, and the route to the back of the house running straight through the middle of them. A sitting room you cross rather than sit in.

The completed dining room, with a bar recess in fluted panelling beside the retained fireplace — After, the dining room The room you pass through is now the room you pass through to eat. The bar sits in the recess beside the chimney breast, on the route rather than off it.

The completed living room, with curved seating in the bay window, a green armchair by the fireplace and a black line mural on the walls — Living room, complete In an existing house the furniture has to answer geometry that is already there, so the curved sofa follows the bay. The dark band is wallpaper, tying the walls together and carrying the black used in the fireplace and the opening linings. The art was the client's already. The teal armchair picks up the kitchen and powder room colour.

The two principal rooms as the house was marketed, looking from one through to the other past pine double doors — Before, both rooms The pair as found, seen through the pine doors between them. Two rooms of equal quality, used in the wrong order.

The completed dining room looking through open double doors to the living room beyond — After, both rooms Same doors, stripped and painted out, now framing a view from the table into the sitting room. The two chandeliers are deliberately a matched pair, so the enfilade reads as one house rather than two rooms.

The completed dining area at night, looking through a dark-lined opening to the kitchen beyond — Dining, looking through Every new opening is lined in the same dark timber, which is what holds a swapped plan together. The original cornice runs above it untouched, so the alteration reads as an insertion into the old house rather than a replacement of it.

04
The kitchen

Brought into the language of the rest of the house

The kitchen as the house was marketed, with pale oak doors, a white island and a grid of downlights — Before A sound kitchen in the wrong register: pale oak doors, a plain white island and a grid of downlights, none of it speaking to the rooms it now opens onto.

The completed kitchen, with the existing island refaced in fluted dark panelling, new doors, a double wine fridge and pendants over the counter — After The island stays exactly where it was. Fluted dark panelling to its base, new doors on the existing carcasses, a double wine fridge worked into the tall run, and pendants in place of the downlight grid. Nothing structural, and the room now matches the rest of the ground floor.

The completed kitchen looking back along the patterned feature wall, with a rooflight above — Feature wall One long wall carries the pattern, and the rooflight above it is what makes that legible rather than dark. The colours in it set the palette used through the rest of the ground floor.

05
The media room

The one room allowed to go dark

The media room as the house was marketed, a pale front room with a television over the fireplace — Before A pale front room with a screen above the fireplace and a window straight onto it. Everything in it worked against watching anything.

The completed media room in near-black, with reclining seating, a projection screen and a desk in the alcove — After Walls, ceiling, cornice and curtains all taken to the same near-black, so the room stops reflecting and the screen becomes the only bright surface. The fireplace is left white on purpose, and a desk takes the alcove so the room is not single-use.

06
The attic bedroom

A loft room turned into the principal suite

The top of the house had the space but none of the storage a main bedroom needs. The awkward geometry under the roof is where the wardrobes and the dressing area now sit.

The attic bedroom as the house was marketed, with a red leather sofa, pine furniture and a dormer window — Before A large room with the bed against the only full-height wall and everything else pushed to the edges. The sloping ceilings were treated as a problem to work around.

The completed dressing area beside the bed, with fluted joinery, lit open shelving, a mirrored wall and a vanity — After The corner that held the pine dressing table is now built in: fluted joinery, lit open shelving and a vanity under the slope, with a mirrored wall doubling the run.

The attic bedroom before the work, looking towards the door past a run of white fitted wardrobes — Before, the storage wall Fitted wardrobes along the low side, ending in a mirror propped against the wall. Storage without a dressing area.

The completed attic bedroom, with a slatted feature panel, a long low console beneath the television and a rooflight above — After, the same wall A full-width console replaces the propped mirror and the odd chest of drawers, so nothing stands on the floor. The slatted panel at the end lights the one corner the roof makes darkest.

The completed attic bedroom seen along its length, the bed centred between dormer and rooflight with fitted wardrobes to the right — The whole room The bed centred on the room with the dressing area behind it and the wardrobe run along the low side. The same fluting used downstairs appears here, which is what makes two floors read as one project.

07
On site

Two months, in an occupied house

Everything was drawn and priced before the keys arrived, so the site work was installation rather than decision-making.

Fluted panelling being fitted around a sheeted opening, with the room protected and the cornice masked — Panelling, going in The fluted wall being set out around the opening, with the original cornice protected above it. The panels are scribed to the old plaster rather than the old plaster being made straight.

Joinery being installed in the attic bedroom, with drawings taped to the wardrobe doors — Attic joinery Drawings taped to the doors they describe. This is what pre-completion design buys: the joiner working to information that was finished months earlier.

The dark-lined opening between the front room and the kitchen during the work, the floor sheeted and the far doors open to the garden — The lined opening The dark reveal in place before the finishes arrive, with the whole depth of the ground floor visible through it. Sightlines like this one are decided on paper months before anyone can stand here and see them.

08
Furniture

Held or prepared, rather than committed

Because the selections were made months earlier, the rooms could be finished as designed rather than furnished from whatever was available when the building work stopped.

Bar nook

The bar seen from the family area through the dark-lined opening, a blue tub chair in the foreground — The kind of detail that only survives a project when it is designed early. A mirrored cabinet, two lit shelves and the glassware hung beneath them, all sized to a recess that already existed.

09
Outcome

Once the keys arrived the work took about two months, and the clients moved into a finished house rather than into a project.

Services: Interior design · Procurement · Project leadership
Key moves: Living and dining exchanged, kitchen refaced and relit around the existing island, media room darkened, attic made the principal suite, furniture pre-selected

Next project A modest extension that changed the whole house View