It's all in the detail

New from Irish interior designer Gail Wall Morris of Wall Morris Design. (See my previous post here.) A beautiful renovation and of course it's all in the detail. I'll let Gail explain.

It's my own home, a 100 year-old, renovated workman's cottage, in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland.

When I bought the house, it needed complete renovation and rebuild, in order to re-layout and optimize the space, raise ceiling heights up to the roof line. The new extension is clad in the original bricks, taken from the demolished interior walls. I allocated budget on designing an interior joinery package, so that all the detailing matched: ie - the kitchen , the external and interior doors, the trim work and architraves all tie in together. Most of the furniture I also designed. Everything is bespoke. The interior layout is built in a 'U' Shape and surrounds a courtyard, so that the sunlight comes into the house all day long. The colour scheme is tone-on tone caramel with accents in black glass, black granite and black-stained furniture.

Photography Derek Robinson.

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Reader's small kitchen remodel

Linn emailed us a little while ago with her cool kitchen remodel.

"I really just wanted to share some before and after pictures of my tiny kitchen which my husband and I spent a few weeks remodeling. Our small bungalow is from 1946 and it has a rather tiny kitchen which we wanted to preserve the integrity of, yet update and give a new fresh feel. We installed a black and white (marble and granite) checkerboard floor, refinished the old wooden cabinets and drawers, installed a stainless steel counter and tiled the walls with subway tile all the way to the ceiling. We did all of this ourselves on a budget of little over $6000 (including buying new appliances)."

Befores then afters ... obviously :) Great job Linn and Linn's other half! Check out all the details on her blog The Home Project.

Artamus Hall

As I mentioned earlier today, I had to share with you all a few photos of Priscilla Glover and Ivan Spaller's home. This is really quite astonishing, hence right up their alley. I am (on a rare occasion) rendered speechless. It is a High Tudor house that we have named Artamus Hall. Attached are pics of the facade - before - then lifted 5 ft. Then completely reworked. Now this...

wait for it....

...waaiitt for itttt....

Reader's home

Sarah emailed to share her house.

We have just finished (but not completely styled) a renovation of our 1880s workers cottage in Adelaide, South Australia . As a bit of an amateur designer, I drafted a plan and gave it to an architect whose house I'd seen at an open inspection 5 years previously. I tracked her down (Sophie Fielder) and when we met for the first time couldn't believe our eyes when we discovered we had the same photos in our scrap books! We even had photos from the internet of houses in other states! Due to budget constraints and the love of a challenge, I project managed the job with our builder and we're thrilled with the result. We wanted to create a home with a slightly industrial/warehouse/barn feel that was practical and didn't waste space.

The garden is yet to grow but already it is a sanctuary with birds and chooks (over the back fence!) waking us up each morning and we absolutely adore the  50 year old olive tree right outside our bedroom window.

I've already informed Sarah to expect me any moment, bags in hand, because I'm moving in. What a wonderful marriage of old and new.

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Mini kitchen makeover

Before

A lot of us know the problem. A new house, a perfectly serviceable but very tired kitchen, a limited budget and ... well .. you know you really can't justify a complete gut because even though those cabinets aren't really your taste they are just too good to rip out and throw away. Sydney-sider Sarah from everydaythingsetc had just that problem and being a sensible woman she decided to work around what she had. After all even though she hated those oregon cupboards she knew that whatever she got to replace them, with her budget they would be nowhere near the quality. Paint the cabinets, new tile, a new benchtop (the old one was peeling away), more paint on the walls and done. Done in stages that is :) Thanks for the pics Sarah.