Our design process shapes beautiful period houses into wonderful homes. We begin by learning about you, your family and the way you live in a house together. Then we couple this insight to our deep knowledge of period architecture, English country house design, architectural joinery and interior design to make practical, exquisitely detailed homes that are beloved of families for generations.
Because we listen to the architectural needs of a house as well as the needs of our clients, we design spaces that are sympathetic to one and delightful to the other.
If a new space leads off a Tudor room, we will design it to blend elegantly with the more senior space.
Getting the brief right is a vital first step. Often, our experience and insight into a household and its way of living results in a brief that departs from a client’s initial expectations, better fulfilling their needs than their original plan. A good design brief adds enormous value and is the bedrock of successful period property renovation.
Our experienced design team has been working with private clients, their interior designers and architects for over 30 years. We have developed a huge database of authentic period detail and English country house design, from the Elizabethan to Edwardian periods and beyond. Our fitted furniture sits comfortably and elegantly into its surroundings. Our kitchens combine 21st Century practicality with period accuracy and charm.
Good design begins with keen observation of the everyday life of a house. Learning how our clients live in their homes, and how they want to live, allows us to analyse and alter spaces to improve how they flow, and how they shape family life. By seeing spaces in three dimensions, and assessing them in the context of a household’s needs, we’re able to design spaces that answer the essential question in every brief: how to turn a beautiful house into a superb home.
For centuries Architectural Joinery has been the heart of English country house design, and it is often the key to successful period house renovation.
Architectural joinery defines the role and status of rooms, transforming plain spaces into impressive stages for social life, more intimate spaces for family life, or functional rooms for specific, practical purposes.
Our work in wood touches every facet of the spaces it occupies: flooring, walls, windows and ceilings, plumbing, electricity, technology and appliances. Our detailed designs articulate all of these relationships, and the materials we specify take them all into account. Detailed drawings for stonemasons, builders, plasterers, electricians and decorative artists are part and parcel of our work, and essential to the smooth running – as well as the long-term success – of any period house renovation. When possible, we like to control every trade and activity on a site – this way nothing falls through the cracks.
Colours, lighting, ironmongery, materials, flooring, decorative mouldings, complimentary furniture pieces and soft furnishings are essential to period house renovation, and to English country house design.
We have our own interiors team, or we work seamlessly with our client’s interior designers to make exquisitely attractive interiors.
