The owner of this ground-floor apartment in Central London, was a graphic designer with an eye-for-detail and a clear vision for the property’s makeover. This involved creating an open-plan living space and renovating throughout for our client, who had visited our stand at Grand Designs Live.
The works
We began by stripping out the existing flooring, skirting, doors and four internal walls that separated the living room, bedroom and hallway/lobby.
A complete rewire was required, and we also relocated the distribution board to a more inconspicuous position in the lobby area. Walls and ceiling were re-plastered before installing white Schneider flat-plate switches and sockets, and new lighting throughout. The lighting included:
- Luceplan Lane wall lights and Robus fire-rated ceiling spot lights in the living room.
- In the main hall and bedrooms, Modernica Bubble Crisscross Saucer pendant lamps.
- Terence Woodgate Natural Wood (oak) Lamps/spots lights in the entrance lobby.
- and in the master bedroom, AJ SAS Royal wall lamp with a Louis Poulsen AJ Eklipta Wall Light over the dressing area and mirror.
We also replaced the fire alarm with a Nest system.
Bathroom & en suite
Both the bathroom and en suite walls were stripped back to their metal studwork frames. Their entrance walls had to be dismantled to install Eclisse sliding pocket doors.
The bathroom wall was also brought forward to create space for a Calyx Deep Japanese-style tub. We lined the walls with Wedi Board, taping all joints and corners to prevent water penetration. These were then tiled with beige (1200x600mm) Pico porcelain tiles applied vertically from floor to ceiling. Other fittings included a large mirror with anti-steam pads and a Majestic shower screen with an aluminium bead system countersunk into the wall to finish flush with the tiles to create a seamless appearance.
All copper pipework was renewed and we changed the waste pipe layout, before installing the tub, sanitary ware and fitting Hansgrobe brassware from the Axor Citterio Range.
In the en suite, as the previous layout was allowing water beyond the finished surfaces, we re-screeded and insulated this floor, also installing under-floor heating. The shower area was equipped with a Fired Earth shower tray in grey from the St Vincent range and enclosed with Majestic glazed screens. Their chrome glazing beads again were countersunk to finish flush with the wall tiles to create a seamless appearance
Part of the enclosure was built from a timber studwork frame to incorporate pockets in the tiled wall. As the client preferred to have no bead on the corner tiles, we specified CNC Water jet cut tiles to form 45-degree bevelled edges. These were partly manufactured off-site and the larger elements assembled on-site by our tiling contractor.
