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There’s something that gets to you when you’re staring at a blank page or a blank wall – without any parameters or context, our imaginations struggle to get going. So when it’s your first home, when you don’t even have a chair to sit on, how do you start coming up with how you want your home to look and feel – preferably as quickly as possible so you have somewhere to sit down?

1. Prioritise your expenses

It’s usually obvious what you want to spend the most money on – usually a bed, or the sofa, or a chair. So devote a decent portion of your budget to those things, and even if you don’t buy them first, make sure you save enough back so you don’t have to skimp on them later.

2. Be Patient

The panic of looking at an empty space can make you think you must find the right solution for everything and have it ordered next day delivery. But these are big purchases, and this is a rare time you get to choose how you shape the place where you sleep, relax, recharge – it’s something you want to get right. You will be living with the consequences of your choice longer than you will be living without a sofa/bed/rug/etc, so make sure you consider the quality, style, function and form before you commit.

3. Decide where you’re going

This is especially important if you’re not going to buy everything right away. Spend some time deciding what design style works for you – there are online quizzes like this one from Havenly, or you can use filters on Houzz or search Pinterest to see what types of keywords match up with things that you love. Then you can use this to guide your purchases – even if you don’t buy the marble coffee table right now, you know that’s what is going to really pull together your modern luxe style, so you build around it so when you do find the right one and have the budget, it slots right in.

4. Let yourself fall in love

A home that looks amazing and unique – and personal to you – comes through thoughtful design, but also from having at least a couple of items that you just love. Sometimes it’s a chair, a lamp, a cushion, a random accessory on a shelf – these things will shape your design and make your home special – if you let them. Your head needs to control the budget and make sure things fit together, but your heart needs to choose at least one thing in the home! In this image, my client fell in love with a pink chair, and then a rug, and those two elements turned a standard design into something personal and really lovely!

5. Find 2 or 3 design elements to centre around

It’s easy to get distracted and overwhelmed by all of the choices out there, so make sure you have a few things that tie your home together. For example, you may go for light wood, Scandinavian style, and pastel colours. So you probably shouldn’t buy the bright coloured rug that looks amazing in the shop but will really not fit in your home without a lot of reworking. You can have a conflict here and there, but stick to your guns and reduce the ‘noise’ by having a couple of points that guide your purchases. It’s actually really liberating when you don’t have to think about everything you see in a vacuum – decisions become a lot easier!

Before you can get an idea of the cost and scope of the work to be done, you need a drawing of the layout – based on where the walls, doors, and windows go. How much of the next part is done by you, and how much is done by an architect or builder, will depend on how much you want to spend and how much you want to be involved.

Whatever you decide, the success of the final outcome is directly related to how well the layout works for you and anyone else that lives in the house with you. If you have a young family, your priorities will be much different than if you are recently retired or single. So take the time to consider how you use your home and what spaces you need. 

Define what you want

Start by listing what works – and doesn’t work – in your current setup. Maybe you hate how there is nowhere to store your child’s toys, or the way the rooms are closed off, or how dark and gloomy one area of the home feels. One way to do this is print out a copy of the image of your layout that came with the estate agent listing for your house when you bought it, and jot down notes on each room. Even if you’re not doing anything structural to every room, you want to consider the whole house as part of the bits that you are changing.

Find Examples and Inspiration

If you’re struggling to visualise what a space might be like, try visiting some show homes, or talking to your fellow course members on our forum, or friends that have different styles of layouts that you are considering. Take inspiration from house listings on somewhere like The Modern House – these are all design-led homes where real thought and craftsmanship have gone into the layout and interior design, so you can find aspects of these homes that really speak to you, and keep a record of those. You can also use filters on Houzz to get inspiration from locations near you, and styles similar to your house and tastes. Clicking ‘more on this project’ will give more context into the flow of the rooms which goes back to helping you visualise the possibilities in your home. 

“Get multiple designs done – from different places. Ask the experts, try and stay open-minded – even if you don’t like what someone’s come up with, it’s worth getting as many ideas as you can. And ask family and friends as well, get feedback on how different things work or don’t work for them in their homes. Don’t get fixated on the first idea, make sure it really is going to work – draw out a template of the island or footprint of what you’re considering.”

~Matthew Harper, The Instant Kitchen Company

Working with an Architect

If you are working with an architect, bring as much as possible into your first meeting to maximise your time with them. One way to keep costs down is to pay for a consultation instead of a full design service. Even a rough sketch can help guide the conversation and make sure that what they come up with is the best combination of their skills, experience, creativity – and your needs as a homeowner. 

Still not sure whether an architect is for you? Here are some links to helpful articles:

Self Build-  Why Use an Architect?

RIBA – Why Use an Architect?

RIBA – downloadable PDF on working with an architect

Houzz – Why Should I Use an Architect?

Finding the right architect

Get Recommendations

Ask around from friends and neighbours, or use online sites like Houzz to find a short list of architects. Use the style you want as an initial reference to make sure your architect has experience in the type of look you want to achieve.

Get quotes

Many architects will offer an initial consultation, or flat fee services if you want to try out their services or have a lower-budget involvement. If you are going for a full-scale service, make sure you get a clear quote and understand how the relationship will work.

Look at Experience

“When looking over the company’s previous work, ask yourself whether any of it reflects your home. You want a professional that has plenty of experience in your kind of project and with your type of home. The more experience they have, the less likely they are to make mistakes.”

– Resi

Consider the type and size of firm  

This is another factor that will depend on your personal preference as well as the size of your project. You may want the personal service and likely smaller fees of a one or two-person architectural firm. Or it may be important to you to have a larger business with more capacity for the assurance that can provide. Whatever you decide, make sure you consider the pros and cons of the type of firm before you commit. 

If you want to bring some character into your renovation and save some money – all while reducing waste – here are some great resources for using reclaimed materials.

Reclaimed floors – Real wood floors can be pricey for the best quality, while reclaimed options start around £30/sqm, and you’re unlikely to get as unique a finish without paying for the top end of new wood floors.

Tiles – there’s an abundance of supply now that several companies have started shipping over reclaimed tiles from places like Spain, and finding similar examples in the UK. Tiles require a bit more creativity and planning – and patience – because the amount available will be fixed, so you can only have what is there. So know what amount you need, and be willing to figure out creative solutions! The tiles will be a particular style as their colours will have faded with age, but they are unique and beautiful and if they fit your design aesthetic – or you build your design around them – it will be a special result.

Reclaimed Kitchens – There are some great companies making whole kitchens out of reclaimed units and wood. You can also DIY this with some imagination by finding and repurposing everything from museum display cases to vintage furniture.

Reclaimed wood (general) – If you’re more of a DIY-er, there are several places to get recycled wood and furniture to find your own diamond in the rough and make it shine in your renovation.

Antique fairs – If you’ve got the time, and the eye for spotting a gem among the crowd, there are several well-stocked antique fairs throughout the year in the UK. The key with this and any salvage shopping is to know what will work in your house – from measurements to colours and design style – and what won’t. Here are some resources of fairs and recommendations from people who shop them regularly.

Antiques Atlas
IACF
Flea Market Insiders
Festival of Antiques

Luxury upcyclers – I need to do a whole post on these, but people like Jay and Co, Aiveen Daly, Boogaloo Boutique, and Adele Riley do some amazing work with high end upcycling and artwork.

The Classics – Your local charity shop, used furniture shop, Etsy, eBay, Freecycle, Gumtree, Nextdoor – all of these take more research, digging, and patience, but you can still find some pieces of furniture, discarded materials, and more that might be perfect for your space.

Further reading
House and Garden – Retrouvius Kitchen example
Real Homes – choosing reclaimed wood flooring
Living Etc – making your own furniture from reclaimed wood
Make it Moregeous – blog and Instagram account with tips and workshops on using salvage

This is the story of my ever-evolving garden, it’s not so much a Before and After, it’s more of a Before-After-After-After-After-After.

Our journey begins in 2016, when we moved into our flat in a North London terraced house and with it came this garden:

This was both my and my husband’s first home ownership experience here, and we were both working fulltime, and neither had any interest or experience in gardens. But we knew we wanted a space where we could host BBQs and outdoor parties. And I wanted to have the view from the window in the kitchen window to be something ‘pretty’.

So we decided to hire someone to design and create a solution for us. We didn’t know what our budget should be and were hoping to only spend a few thousand pounds on the whole thing. I had a landscape designer come to give some ideas and quotes, and the shock of his initial quote of £15,000 got us both thinking maybe we weren’t so enamoured with this whole home ownership/renovation thing. Surely it can’t cost THAT much…! So we put off the garden, did the bathroom, and in the process started appreciating what things cost, and also met a designer that we thought we’d use for the kitchen, and he offered to do the garden first, which seemed like a great way to make sure we could work together. Spoiler alert, we could not.

To start with, here are the initial plans. It’s a nice design, isn’t it? Room for our BBQ’s, a faux living wall over a little planter for herbs, a nice fern in the corner, plenty of storage and seating. Everything works well in the shape and placement of this garden. Problem is, it’s not our garden.

This is our garden. Something I didn’t quite realise until the work began and the builder was trying to fit the design above into the shape below.

The space for the BBQ’s got pushed out by the storage which grew to an awkward shape, and the planter for the fern was huge and out of proportion, as was the planter on the right side of the garden. The fencing panels he had ordered were much larger than I expected and we couldn’t (and didn’t want to) kick our neighbour’s lovely plants off the wall to make space for them, so they were put in a weird halfway position by the builder (who was in a huge rush the whole time and not interested in helping or doing anything but the bare minimum).

Our insistence on keeping the budget down in our discussions about the design also backfired – big time. In hindsight, I would have insisted on getting the design right first and then letting me be in charge of where the budget cuts came from. Instead, we got all the parts I least wanted (high-quality fencing that we couldn’t use properly, lots of built concrete structures), and none of what I most wanted (a nice view from the kitchen). Or even better, we could have just paid someone to patch up all the walls (instead of just one of the three) and pave the whole space to create a blank canvas. Instead, we had this. A neat, tidy space, sure – but there was nothing pretty in the corner view, lots of unusable planting space, awkwardly placed fencing, exposed brackets, and I was really unhappy. The cat liked all the new places to lie in the sun though, so not a total loss!

So the next year, we took down one of the two benches to get rid of the awful join work that the builder had done and used some of the wood to cover up the ugly brackets he had left. I moved the vertical garden wall sections over to create some greenery you could see from the window, and we moved the fencing to other spaces that made sense and replaced with much lighter trellises.

The next year we dealt with another problem with the original design – the white rendered concrete was NEVER clean. It had been built to slant into a corner which meant that water gathered when it rained, moss grew, dirt collected and stuck. So I got some lovely tiles from Bert and May and a very skilled tiler added in a slope away from the corner (as it should have been) and created a much easier-to-clean surface. I also got a table and chairs off gumtree and painted them to brighten up everything.

Finally, this year, I was ready to deal with the part I most hated of this design – the huge planter on the right of the garden, which gets NO sunlight, and dominated the garden. My husband and I took great pleasure in knocking it down with a sledgehammer!

We hired a professional for the detail work in cleaning it up and levelling it, and he also created a cover for the space remaining using the bench wood and some leftover tiles from the other side of the garden. And together we came up with the perfect use of the fencing – one panel became a door for a corner ‘shed’ with shelves and roof made from the other panels. I was determined to re-use as much of the material as possible, and it worked out really well! This also is an example of working with the odd shape of the garden (i.e. the sharp dark corner) rather than against it (forcing that corner to be seating which no one can actually use).

Since then I have painted the wood, and this week I’m getting the faux wall put in front of the door and some other fun things. You can follow along on my personal Instagram account – @j_barxon, and I’ll post an update on @therenoguide as well.

That was a rambling journey through the last 3 and a bit years with this house and garden, but here are my top tips to take away from my experience:

1. Don’t rush into starting a design. Take time to live with it, imagine it, make sure it’s really going to work in the space.
2. Understand where the sun shines – and doesn’t. Talk to a designer, gardener, or consult the internet about what plants will work in your situation. It’s not just which aspect you have (south-facing, etc) it’s what building/trees/houses block or change your light.
3. Leave room for your garden to grow. Both literally for plants to grow and change, and for it to evolve. Use materials that last, and try to avoid too many permanent, concrete structures. If keeping a low budget is a priority, consider doing the garden in stages so parts of it get added in the coming years and seasons.
4. No green thumb doesn’t have to mean No green things. You can have wildflowers and low maintenance plants. If you don’t try to have a perfectly manicured garden, you can have a much more evergreen, eco-friendly solution that is a win-win for both non-gardeners and environment.

For more on gardens, check out my podcast with Anne Schwarz from @thewildbackyard on Spotify!

Whether you are doing a full-scale extension and renovation, or simply changing around one room, it’s important to take time to decide if you want to hire someone to help you implement the transformation, or do it yourself. An interior designer can be a valuable partner – they can source items that you might not find, coordinate all the timing of orders and shipments, help find someone to do the work, and come up with a truly unique style and finished look. On the other hand, if you know what you want, you may just need some advice, and the time and budget to find everything on your own. The two biggest variables are much you care about the final result looking cohesive, well-designed and beautiful and how much time you have to dive into the world of interiors. In the infographic below, you can read through the break down of your available time and budget, balanced with how picky you are about the result, to see what is the right option for you.

I believe this is the interior design equivalent of Fan Fiction…I’ve taken Kate Watson-Smyth’s very useful checklist and adapted it to my own style for intaking information digitally, so there are pretty colours and icons and headings and a flow to it all. I hope she takes it as the sincerest form of flattery as it is intended!

Mad About the House blog post with the original checklist

Link to purchase 101 Design Answers, the book with this and many other useful checklists and design advice