How To Renovate

EP39 Design Lessons: What I Would Do Differently

• Tash South • Season 1 • Episode 39

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I’ve renovated 14 homes and built one from scratch, this episode contains the mistakes I won’t make again!

Oof! it got a bit real when I added all those up! Made me feel older than I care to admit 😂

This episode is the second part of Design Lessons, last week I talked about what really worked and what I would do again and again, and this week, I’m delving deep into all those past 14 renos and a house build to bring you 7 things that I would do differently - and definitely do differently on renovations I carry out now.

If you’re renovating soon, then I invite you in to hear about all my mistakes – so that you can avoid them! 
Come and join me to hear about some important decisions and points to ponder when renovating.

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Hi I'm your host, Tash South I'm an Interior Designer and Renovation Consultant.
Each episode of How To Renovate is short, but brimming with practical advice to help you manage your renovation project with confidence and success.

Grab some more renovation advice & free resources and become part of the South Place Studio Renovation Community at
https://www.southplacestudio.com/freebies

Everything I teach about renovation falls within my Five Pillar Process for A Successful Renovation, to learn more about the process, head to
https://www.southplacestudio.com/pillars


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Speaker 1:

Hello, hello everybody, and welcome back to the how to Renovate podcast. I'm Tash and this week is a bit of a continuation from last week. So last week I did a episode called Design Lessons what I would do again and again, and this week I'm going to be doing design lessons what I would do differently. So last week I went over all the things that I found I keep doing again and again in renovations that really work for me and work for my clients, and this week I'm going to be going through some design lessons I've learned to save you a bit of a headache things I really don't think I would do again. So let's get into the episode. I hope these are useful for you and that you can learn from some of my mistakes from renovations gone by. Okay, so let's get into the episode.

Speaker 1:

Number one is kitchen island obsession. So I remember in the second property that I renovated, or that my husband and I renovated for ourselves. It was a very exciting project. The whole apartment needed redoing. We were adding a ground floor extension onto the rear which meant we could have a kitchen onto the garden with bifold doors, and at that point in time I was obsessed with having a kitchen island and I really, really wanted to include one in this kitchen, which I did, but it really, I think, was too small to have a kitchen island in there. The kitchen itself was about three meters by four meters and we had a back wall of cabinetry and then the kitchen island and that was the main part of the kitchen. But what I really missed in that kitchen was having somewhere to sit, so having the space for a dining table and chairs in the kitchen as well, because it wasn't really big enough for an island and a table and chairs to be in there. But I became so obsessed with wanting an island that I didn't quite think that through. And then, once the project was finished and the kitchen island was in place and we'd moved into the property, I then discovered that I much rather would have had somewhere we could entertain better, so be able to invite friends around, family around, and have an actual dining table and chairs, rather than this fixed kitchen island in the middle of the room, and I just think the space wasn't big enough to have both. So we settled on the island.

Speaker 1:

But I do think that was a mistake and so I think really think carefully about your projects. It's lovely to have an island. I really love having an island. I have one now, but we have enough space to have an island. I really love having an island. I have one now, but we have enough space to have a dining table and chairs as well. So I think, when it comes to one or the other in the same room, in the same space, really think about your needs and how you want to use the kitchen and if you love entertaining because I think if you love entertaining, go for a dining table and chair if you love cooking, if you love having people around for a meal, choose the dining table and chairs over the kitchen island. If I had to go back to that project, I would have removed the island completely and placed a lovely round or rectangular dining table in the middle of the room with the chairs around it, and then that could have perhaps acted as a surface area or prep zone in the middle of the room as well, as then having the function of being able to have guests around and sit around it as well, rather than having the tall island where only two people could sit up. So that was my number one thing that I would do differently. I would just say really consider the space you have. Think about how you want to use your kitchen. Think about what you love doing. Do you love entertaining or would you rather have an island over having loads of people around for dinner? So just think about how you use the space. I think it's quite personal and also depending on how much space you do actually have in your kitchen, but think about that one carefully. There's definitely something I wouldn't do again choose a kitchen island over having a dining table and chairs in the kitchen, especially when there was nowhere else to have a dining table or chairs in that apartment.

Speaker 1:

Moving on to number two so actually number two here is the same property. It was that same renovation. I learned lots of lessons in that one. Number two was having a walk-in wardrobe in the main bedroom, but again it was just too small. So what had happened is I'd completely re-laid out the space. So next to the bedroom originally there was a small bathroom and that bathroom then got moved elsewhere on the floor plan and what I wanted to do was retain that small bathroom and have a door from the main bedroom right next door to it into the bathroom and then use that bathroom space as a walk-in wardrobe, but I found that even though it was a whole room before, it was a whole bathroom before it still wasn't quite big enough to have enough storage that was easily accessible from the main bedroom. And an additional issue was that there was a step up into the walking wardrobe, which made it feel not as functional.

Speaker 1:

So I think a much better use of the space would have just been to seal it off from the main bedroom and to knock it through into the room that was next door to that which was a utility room. So just think really carefully about if you're really really wanting a walk-in wardrobe. Make sure that there's enough space to store all the items you need to store in there, there's enough space for the cabinetry and that the cabinetry can sit properly, because in this small space they were overlapping, there were corners you couldn't get to, so the whole thing just didn't quite work, and even though it sounded quite luxurious to say you had a walk-in wardrobe, when it's one that doesn't quite work, it's not as great. So I think a much better use of the space would have been just to seal it off, perhaps do a complete storage wall instead and then just lose a little bit of the bedroom floor space but have much more functional storage that was much more easily accessible. So I would say, when you're looking at walk-in wardrobes, make sure you've got enough space for the cabinetry. There's not any awkward corners that can't be built out or used properly. Just make sure that there's enough room, otherwise it will be quite a frustrating situation.

Speaker 1:

Okay, moving on to number three, what I would do differently is in one of the projects, again one of my own. Luckily, I've learned most of my lessons off of my own projects, not my client projects, for the time I got to client projects, I was doing a lot better, but this one was super shiny floor tiles and I'd used these in the kitchen and I think this was because we were in a rush, so I was in a rush to make a decision. I hadn't quite learned my lesson that I needed to be super, super well organised and planned way before the builders were on site and I think I was under pressure to make a decision and we went to the tile store and I chose these tiles, which looked great. They were large formats, dark grey, super glass tiles and I was using them in the kitchen of that property and from the day we moved in. I regretted it because those tiles were so difficult to clean. Every single tiny spillage, every drop of water left a watermark. They were so shiny that even if you clean them it's. They were almost like mirror. You almost had to go to the extent of using a glass or mirror cleaner on them for them to look remotely clean. So I would just say be very, very careful when using very high gloss tiles, especially on the floor. They could probably work much better on the wall, but especially on the floor and especially in the kitchen, where spillages are happening every day almost. So that is definitely something I would not do again. That's something I would definitely do differently is not to use super high gloss tiles on a kitchen floor.

Speaker 1:

Moving on everybody to number four, which is a decking, no-no. So in the house in London that we built from scratch when the home was finished, we then started doing the back garden, so immediately out from the kitchen there are quite large bifold doors and they go out at the same level. So I wanted a even transition from the inside space into the garden space and we decided on these composite decking boards, and when they arrived they were quite wobbly, so they didn't seem very rigid, but the manufacturer told us that as long as they were properly installed and they had supports at regular intervals and they had supports at the correct distances, that they would be stable. So we had the builder install them, but about a year and a half afterwards the boards started bulging and warping to the point where we couldn't even open the bifold doors because the decking had raised up by so much, and so it turned out that we had to remove the entire decked area outside the back of the house. And then I decided then that we would replace that with something a lot more solid, which was a very thick 2cm thick porcelain tile on a concrete base, still going out at the same level.

Speaker 1:

Now, on this point I have to say perhaps it was the installation, because people do use decking boards directly out from the inside of their property, out into the garden. People do do that all the time. Perhaps it's just about the correct installation and about making sure that the decking boards you choose are very rigid, there's not much movement to them, and then making sure you get someone really, really good who knows exactly what they're doing. Perhaps that's their speciality is laying those kinds of boards. Then you can still do this. But I really learnt that doing it this way. The main lesson I learnt here was to not not do decking again, but rather to just make sure that the product and the installation is really, really suitable for the placement of that decking. And then, moving on to design, lesson number five of what I would do differently.

Speaker 1:

So this one is all to do with open plan living and this one again is in the home that I'm in now, so in the house that we built in London. So when I designed the house with the architect, we really wanted open plan living. We wanted this big space where the whole family could spend time together. At that point we had a very young daughter. She was five and we had a brand new baby. So the open plan seemed ideal. We could keep an eye on them, we could be in the kitchen, we could be in the living room, they could be in the same space. So it all made sense when the kids were younger. But we didn't think ahead far enough. So the house is not really big enough where we had extra rooms where the kids who are now older and they want to have some space away, perhaps with their friends, or perhaps they're a bit noisy when we've got lots of people over and the grown-ups want to spend some time downstairs in the kitchen having a meal, where the kids want to go off elsewhere and perhaps watch a film or be noisy, and so we're finding it really tricky.

Speaker 1:

Now that we've got this open plan space. It's lovely all being together, but we're just wanting to do different things now. So I think what I would do differently, and what I'm actually considering now, is to add some additional doors between the living area and the kitchen and the dining area, because at the moment everything is one completely open space and the only tv we have is in the living area, in that space, so of course they've got lots of people around. If the kids want to watch a movie, they're in the same space as us where we're trying to have a conversation or have dinner with friends, and it can get quite chaotic. So now, luckily, we do have the opportunity to put some doors and to make it more of a broken plan space where it could be mostly open most of the time, but when we do want the division, those doors could then be shut. So I would just say, if you're planning at the moment and you're wanting that open plan space, don't forget to think ahead. If you've got a young family, don't forget to think ahead about when they're older and you don't necessarily want to all be in the same space at the same time.

Speaker 1:

And then, moving on to number six, which is I definitely wouldn't use a light colour outdoor tiles again. So in the house we're in now again, we have this lovely modern looking home and when I imagined walking up to the front door, which is very dark, grey, almost black, and the window frames are grey and we have this beautiful light brick, I just imagined that the path would be really light. We have some glass and some windows as you walk up to the front door as well. And in my mind and in my design vision I thought wouldn't it be beautiful if we had the green of the plants, a really light path leading up to this dark front door? And so when I was choosing tiles for the front path, I went with a porcelain, very light textured tile which, as you can imagine and in London winters gets very dirty, very muddy and needs constant cleaning. So I think again, something I would be doing differently if I could change those is to go for a darker colour or maybe even a more kind of earthy tone, something that blended in with the mud perhaps. But I think that's something I definitely would do differently, because I still love what it looks like, I love the lightness of walking up to the front door, but again, the maintenance of it is really hard work and you really notice it. When you've got something that light on an outdoor surface that's being used constantly, you really notice how, how dirty and how mucky it does get. So that is definitely something I would do differently. I think I would make the compromise there. I would compromise the aesthetic for something a lot more practical. So I think if you're choosing out on materials, just keep that in mind for your renovation projects.

Speaker 1:

And then, moving on to the last one and this one's also to do with tiles, and this one might be a bit controversial. So this is using cement or encaustic tiles. So I know people absolutely love these, designers love these tiles. They are, if you don't know, they are cement tiles. They usually come in really beautiful colours. Sometimes they're handmade and they kind of the pattern is kind of cast into the tile itself, made of different colours of cement. Let's say they are really beautiful tiles but again, they need lots of maintenance and they need really really good installation.

Speaker 1:

So I've used these in one of the bathrooms at home and I've actually used them elsewhere as well, in an outdoor area, and the ones in the outdoor area seem to be holding up a lot better than the ones actually in the bathroom on the floor. I don't really know why that is. They were both installed by the same person. They were both sealed in the same way. So if you don't know cement or encaustic tiles, they need sealing. So the surface is quite porous so it can absorb stains, watermarks so on. So you need to put a seal on it so it stops it from doing that. And they need to be sealed over and over again after they're laid, before they are used, because it just gives them that protective cover. But it seems the ones in our bathroom, even just five years later they are quite stained, they are cracking now and I'm considering replacing the entire floor with different tiles. So I know people love these and I know that they can last and look amazing and we have maintained them really well, but they still seem to be cracking and staining.

Speaker 1:

So I guess if I would do that differently. In my own home I would choose something different for that bathroom. It is the family bathroom, so the children are using it all the time. But I would just warn against that. If you're willing to do the maintenance and you know the amount of maintaining, sealing, cleaning that they require to get that look, then go for it. But I think the purpose of this episode is to just let you know that these things do take maintenance and they do take care, and perhaps if you knew how much maintenance and care they took, you might consider something different. So that's the whole purpose behind this episode. It's just things I would have done differently over delving deep into my many years of renovations over the last 16, 17 years I'm losing track at the moment, but I think it's 16 or 17 years I've been renovating now for myself and for my clients. So that was the last one for this episode.

Speaker 1:

I really hope this episode has been helpful to you and also the one just before this of the design lessons and what I would do again and again. These two episodes go together. So I hope they've been helpful to you to help you make some decisions in your renovation planning, whether you're starting next month or you're starting in a year. Hopefully this episode has been helpful for you. But that nicely brings us to the end of the episode, everybody, and I hope to see you next week. Bye for now.

Speaker 1:

For more information on my five pillar process for successful renovation, you can go directly to southplacestudiocom forward slash pillars where you'll find an introduction to the process which covers each of the pillars and what they cover. We also have a number of other free renovation resources. Go now to southplacestudiocom forward slash freebies. I have created some amazing freebies for you there. There is one on the process, there is one on planning permission. There is one on planning permission. There is one on kitchen design. There is another one on lighting planning. Go and check those out. There's so much free information there to help you with your renovation.