Brief:

Revamp of a shower room in wooden house that hadn't been changed in 20 years. Needed better use of the space and creating more light.

• Removal of dated ceramic shower tray, wet walls and shower curtain.
• Changing over to tiles from wet wall so had to add stud work to improve stability and allowing for new imprved building products to be used.
• Updating the plumbing to incorporate isolator valves.
• Max use of space with installation of new quadrant shower tray and screen.
• Tiles to be used to brighten room and add colour.
• Lower level of entrance to shower tray.

Challenges

• Wooden house so nothing was square or level - especially walls.
• Had to update plumbing in entire shower room to add isolator valves. This is common practice nowadays, allowing for quick turn off of water in case of emergency or repairs/replacement.
• Walls were originally large sheets of wet wall material. Stud walls had to be added to create level and strong walls ready to take weight of new tile backer board and tiles.

Brief:

Create a classic style Victorian black and red tiled pathway along the side of a Victorian house in Southampton. This is more inkeeping with the style of the house than the existing gravel path. It will be along the side of the house connecting the front gate to the garden gate, emcompassing the front door area.

Challenges:

• Removal of the old gravel path
• Setting out where the path will go- allowing for the rise and fall of the ground.
• Including 3 manhole covers into the path.
• Allowing for the movement of rain water and making sure it will flow off the path and not sit and stay on it.
• Path had to be parallel to the house and wide enough to accommodate the symetrical pattern of the tiles.
• Concreting the path ready for the tiles- has to be level and smooth.
• Path has to widen to emcompass the manhole covers.
• Incorporating the width at the start of the path from the front gate which narrows to continue along the side of the house. 

Brief.

Facelift to existing kitchen, new floor, wall tiles, worktops and cupboard doors. Changing from dark wooden doors to cream gloss doors, new cream tiles, lighter coloured flooring and black worktops.

Challenges.

• Remove old work tops and sink. Measure and cutting new worktops to fit with new sized sink and taps.
• Replace worktop on other side of kitchen and replace with new to give a better fit up to Range cooker.
• Had to plaster some of the walls to bring them to level for new tiles.
• Change the height of some of the carcases to bring all the counter tops to the same height on both sides of the cooker.
• Remove old wine racks and replace with cream gloss ones. Fitting them in properly and hiding the supports. The old ones had been secured up with strips of wood on tops and bottoms, which didn't look great.
• The original choice for the new floor product had to be changed we suspected their might be a risk of damp. House is close to the river. Upon taking up the old floor tiles we found evidence of water droplets under the floor. In a case like this the floor must be allowed to breath and release the moisture. Hence tiles were chosen. In looks and colour they are very similar to the material first choisen but tiles are able to breathe.
• The family have a 10 month old who was very curious (and quick to move!)so I had to keep an eye on his movement when they were home. Keeping tools out of his way and trying to restrict his access to the kitchen when I was working.
• Cleaning up at the end of each day and placing tools and equipment out of reach. This made it safe for their child and allowed the family to use parts of the kitchen in the evening and weekends.