Tag Archives: look and feel

Nice look & feel :: Fire, kitchen, stairs

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Some nice ideas, look & feel vibe etc. from Houzz.

Nice enclosed fire, with fire side storage and seating:
15 Rockledge modern
Nice look and feel to kitchen and stairs:
spruce head island additional images contemporary kitchen

Bamboo “wood” stairs:

15 Rockledge modern staircase
Which could be on just the horizontal sections like for:
spruce head island additional images contemporary kitchen

Green Roof

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The Silver Spray plan includes some flat roof areas that will have a “green roof”.

There were a wide variety of these at the  Ecobuild show. It seems there are lot of options in terms of:

  • What plants are in the green roof. All the way from tall grasses, shrubs to lower and thinner sedum matting.
  • The base system that the green roof sits on and in. These range from egg cup looking sheets to matting that the plants grow into.
The main reasons, beyond aesthetics seem to be the  biodiversity increase, sound and thermal insulation and rainwater absorption (with slow release).

I asked Robert from ra-studio about his experience with green roofs:

I have done a couple, one in Cornwall (Sea house) and one on the Lancashire moors!

Green roofs are often used to combat heavy rainfall, and stop massive water run-off into the surface water sewers.  With more and more people removing garden spaces (lawns etc) and replacing with hard paved terraces, the green roof system acts as a way holding the water back and allowing it to drain into the RW sewers far more slowly.

We used a Bauder roof at Sea House.  Bauder do basically 2 types of green roof system – an intensive and extensive system.
The intensive system is a fully blown grass roof system that allows you plant lawn, shrubs, trees etc up there, and due to the thickness of the soil (normally a min of 250mm thick), it is quite a heavy build-up.
The extensive system is basically a sedum mat that is the thin / lightweight solution.  It uses sedum / succulents in the form of a sedum mat (approx 25 – 30mm thick), and although the plants on the roof will take up some water it is far less that the full grass roof.
There is a drainage layer under the sedum mat, and any excess water that the plants don’t take up, is released into the drainage system.  See Bauder’s website http://www.bauder.co.uk/green-roofs.

Roof Insulation

Under the green roof, there will still be thermal and water insulation. This a lot of other products were at the Ecobuild expo, “Stone Wood Slabs for a flat roof”.

Scarlet Hotel inspiration

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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.

Coats, shoes etc. room

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The first post about this, was creating an area for coats, shoes etc.

I’ve put feedback on these ideas at the bottom of this post >>

The plans are evolving this to a room for coats, shoes etc.

It looks like this is called a Mudroom in the US.

Have a think of what else to add into this room:

  • A safe, as it’s where you might want to leave car keys, wallets etc ?
    • There could be an additional safe for passports, jewellery etc. elsewhere in the house.
  • Black board or other family notice board.
French Country - custom built mud room traditional entry

I like the cushion / lip, so that those who want to, can site down to put on shoes, boots etc.

kitchen eclectic kitchen

I like the lower shoes area is straight onto the floor and not a drawer. This should make it easier to clean /tidy.

 

cubbies and desk traditional hall
traditional hall design by
It’d be good to have a coats, shoes etc. area for the office. 

Carpenter Gothic Mudroom traditional entry

Having multiple slots, means you can hang coats on the back and side walls of each “slot”. There could be a per person slot (well it could start like that).

ASID Showcase House traditional entry

Or everybody uses one shared space ?

Tudor Addition Mudroom traditional entry
2011 Showcase - Hillside Retreat modern hall

Does this one nail it. Thin walls to segment the spaces and give extra hanging hooks on the separators?

Mudroom Ideas: Locker Room

Baskets for up above, so it’s easy to pull down your basket of stuff. eg wool hats and beanie’s.

mudroom storage traditional entry

Get in multi tiers for shoes. But make sure there is also space for taller boots, wellies etc. too.

 

Farmhouse Revival traditional entry

Getting lots of shoe storage here.

Chez Larsson- Shoe cubbies

and here.

 

better flow - the mudroom / laundry room eclectic laundry room

May as well build storage right to the ceiling !

Mudroom hall

Feedback on these ideas:

  • There is a danger of the ‘compartments’ being too school like. I prefer maybe 2 large ones, rather than lots of individual ones.
  • Yes to the wood panelling.
  • Should defo go up to the celing with top level shelf/ baskets
  • Keep it simple- maybe half of shoe space double height for wellies & other half 2 shelves
  • Like the sitting bench.

Utility room

  • In my view should also have hanging space for your washing- perhaps like our laundry at home, we have a hanging thing above the washing machines etc .

Mirrors to catch the view.

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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.

from lounge towards the entrance - mirror

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:

front bedrooms from outside

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:

double sided mirrors - from inside - mockup

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:

double sided mirrors - from outside

Portloe house visit

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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 like the splash of blue on white

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image

This idea and these colours could be used for both the kitchen and the coats etc. store area.

Colours wise, it seems to tie in with this property that I feel has a nice coastal look and feel through the materials and colours:

Having the kitchen island a stand out colour:

Interesting, how in this picture the white becomes the stand out item.
– I’m thinking the colour being the lower volume item(s) will work better at Silver Spray.

I must dig out the information I found on kitchen tops that are made from recycled materials.

  • Wood looks great, but you have to look after it, for it not to slowly not look as good.
  • I’m not convinced by marble. I’ll have to look at a few.
  • This kitchen with light grey floors and wooden tops seems to work well:

I’ll have to get some designer, friends and family input on something this modern or a more traditional look such as:

Layout wise, still stuck on whether the island should have the cooker +/or sink +/or water source.

If it does, then this kitchen extractor hood looks great.