Saw this in a hallway in a bar near Covent Garden.
Great idea, put old chair backs into a big log and you’ve got a bench.
It recycles the old chairs (especially if the rest of the chair is wrecked) and locks up a bit more carbon by using the tree trunk.
Robert from ra-studio and myself went to the the The Scarlet Hotel, for lunch to go over the plans progress and also to look at several aspects of the Scarlet Hotel that Robert had not seen.
As ever, a stunning lunch with amazing service and some more ideas / inspiration.
Some of which was reminding myself and showing Robert their smaller bedroom layout.
I also thought that we might consider having a central strip / floor corridor of wood from the entrance area, past and through the living area and kitchen, to the top of the 3 stairs down to the lounge. The current plan is slate or tiles for the entrance and living area (dinning, kitchen etc.) and wood for the lower living area.
I also like their stone work fire breast, but not sure this will work.
And good to see further Cornish wood cladding.
OK, there are plans for bathroom mirrors, but how about mirrors to reflect the view ?
For example 1 or more mirrors on the south side of the living area or bedrooms that have a northward view over the sea and beach, so that when you look away from the sea, you get these reflected views of the sea.
In the living area, this could be a mirror on the corner post opposite the stairs +/or on the sliding door to the boot room.
With a half height wall between the bed and bathroom area for the 2 sea side bedrooms, the idea is for mirror(s) that are in this open space:
The above photo from the SketchUp model shows how you can see from the bed, back into the bathroom areas.
The current idea is mirrors that are on supports from above and below:
The sinks and storage will probably be different from the above mockup.
From in the bedroom, these can be mirrors on the other side, so that in the bedroom area, they are mirrors of the view out to the sky and sea:
Today, Robert from ra-studio, took to visit a house in Portloe that he worked on before he set up his own practice.
Rob, post visit dropped this in an email to me:
I hope you found the trip over to Claire’s place useful yesterday – it’s sometimes good to experience spaces in a more physical sense / situation, and perhaps helps you to visualise how some of your spaces could feel. I think there are obvious parallels between Sea House and Silver Spray (connection / views / relationship with the sea), and seeing how it has been handled there, I hope was helpful for you.
Yes, well worth the visit. It was fantastic to meet such an obviously happy client (and her cool, crazy young dog, Zola).
Their project was serialised in the Telegraph:
So many things about the house, that I hope to include in Silver Spray. The feeling of space, the flow through the house, the views, the natural materials ……
The house looks over the village and was designed to fit into the slope. Without the red circle, it’d be a chunk less obvious !
You drive up the drive and see the studio on your left with the house a bit beyond.
The cladding on the studio is the same as on the house, but it hasn’t yet worn to the same more grey colour / tint.
The house has an amazing central “spine” so that as you walk up to the front door, you see through to the view.
Although the stone detail of the wall below the cladding looks stunning on this house, it’s not something I feel will work for Silver Spray. Except !!!!! maybe for the rear wall of the courtyard. Well something needs to go on that wall. Perhaps it’ll be a retaining wall held back by Gabions (steel cages of rocks). But a quick on-line search suggests the life of Gabions, which is down to the life of the steel holding them together is 50 to 60 years. I suspect less in Silver Spray site, so close to the sea. Damn, as they’d be great.
The slate flooring runs from around much of the house, straight into the house, where it’s apparently super easy to clean. The texture it gives was fantastic. The same slate was used for the external window sills.
Almost all of the windows are by Velfac, with thin profiles, nice colours etc.
This upstairs window has a piece of glass over the front to create a “Juliet Balcony”. Which will work great for the second bedroom.
I’m still not a fan of the idea of wooden decking. Here there was a mixture of slate and wooden decking.
Coat room to the left as you walk in 🙂
Lovely doors, floor and wooden stairs:
Nice detailing on this sliding door that can close over the entrance to the kitchen.
Wide, light floor boards. Interestingly, wooden floors upstairs. I was thinking carpet, but this did work well. OK they have light coloured tiles in the bathrooms upstairs. The bedrooms had good integrated storage.
The above white TV makes it less dominant on the room. Also a superb idea that it pushes against the wall, but is on an arm that can come out and so be viewed from the seating etc. This could be a great idea for in any bedrooms. Although I’m not planning TVs in the bedrooms, it’d be good to allow this future option.
Having a TV in the 2nd bedroom for guests could be a nice touch.
Pebbles in a gulley outside the door, to prevent splash up from rain onto the windows and also to drain away water flowing down the windows.
A photo from when the studio was being built:
The house has solar heating and solar electricity.
I get that lighting is going to be a key issue.
Just making a note that the Porloe project that Rob, now at ra-studio worked on, used Cornwall (Devoran) based www.illuminalighting.co.uk
Conventionally there is a mirror in front of the bathroom sink.
BUT, I’m going for a waist(ish) high wall behind the bed, with the sink(so) behind this.
So where to put any mirrors, that at some point you’ll need for shaving etc.
The Scarlet Hotel have wall to between waist and chest high. That makes sense in terms of a barrier to splashing etc. onto the bed.
– I also want the wall behind the bed to be at least a foot thick so that it can contain an alcove / cubby hole into which your normally bed side books etc. can go. That’ll mean no need for bed side tables and so more space for a wider bed +/or more space to the side of the bed.
Here’s a photo of the Scarlet Hotel mirror and then some others I’ve found:
There’s something to be said for the most simple and low-tech approach. A freestanding makeup mirror keeps this window entirely unobstructed for sunshine and the view. What a cheerful spot to start the morning.
The above photo from the SketchUp model shows how you can see from the bed, back into the bathroom areas.
The current idea is mirrors that are on supports from above and below:
The sinks and storage will probably be different from the above mockup.
From in the bedroom, these can be mirrors on the other side, so that in the bedroom area, they are mirrors of the view out to the sky and sea:
Also in Kalk Bay, Cape Town (and a few other places in Cape Town) I saw tables like this one, where beach drift wood makes up the below glass texture.
It’d be nice to slowly collect driftwood from Perranporth beach and make one.
I saw these in an art gallery in Kalk Bay, Cape Town.
I like the idea of taking an old sheet of rusting metal. Chalk (or something) drawing on some shapes, cutting them out and then ending up with the cut outs to perhaps put in the house and the sheet with it’s holes put in the garden or some such.
Maybe dolphins, fish and flying fish ?
The dominant location location location feature of Silver Spray is the view. So put the beds, in bedroosm that look at the view, so that you can sit in bed and look out at the view.
Above is a picture of the Scarlet Hotel bedrooms that have the bathrooms behind the bed.
Also see these beds that have a bathroom or other space behind the bed >>
Some more inspiration magazine tear out by Olivia:
