In the Spotlight - swldnhouse
Renovations

In the Spotlight – swldnhouse

Hi all! I’ve kick started my renovation and interior series with a brand new name and a new focus. It’s all about putting a beautiful home renovation in the spotlight, sharing the ins and outs of it, the highs and the lows – as there are always challenges and niggles when it comes to renovations, alongside tips and advice to help any future home renovators.

This week in the spotlight is Niamh and Jared of @swldnhouse sharing their renovation journey of fully renovating their home that they’ve lived in for years. Allowing them to understand what changes would be best to suit their lifestyle after they realised they wanted the space and open plan living. As a result they opened up the house by extending the kitchen, added a loft conversion onto the property, and added three new bathrooms. Their best purchase is their boiling hot water tap, and I must admit I couldn’t be without mine too!

Take a read below….

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tell us about your home and your renovation project. What did you do?

We took our house right back to its bare bones and almost started again while trying to keep the few original period features that hadn’t been ripped out in years of it being a rental. There was a shoddy extension on the back with a felt roof, wood panelled ceiling and no foundations which we replaced. We added a loft extension and rewired, replastered and remodelled throughout. We then put in three new bathrooms (there was one before) and a new kitchen before starting to decorate. 

In the Spotlight - swldnhouse

How would you describe your Interior Design style?

I think the chaos of the reno has made our style more minimal as we just craved that simplicity and we’re still a bit sick of making decisions! Saying that, if it isn’t gold then I don’t want to know and my answer to most things is to paint it black. Is black and gold still simple? 

The new bathroom featuring marble and blush wall tiles.

What did you enjoy the most about your house renovation?

The opportunity to build a space for us and for our future. Having lived in the house for years already we knew how we wanted the space to work and so were able to use that knowledge in our planning. Seeing the space open up last summer was incredible and part of me just wanted to leave it like that with trees for cover! Not very practical so we got on with it but it was exciting. 

In the Spotlight - swldnhouse

What was your biggest challenge? 

We’ve been really lucky to have had a largely positive experience but our biggest challenge was probably working with the architects, loads of mistakes and missed deadlines which were really frustrating. That and paying for it!

Is there anything that you would have done differently?

I wouldn’t advise renovating in the same year you’re planning on getting married! We underestimated timescales (which I think always happens) so have been left with less than three months between having finished paying for the build and now paying for a 200-250 guest wedding in London!!

In the Spotlight - swldnhouse

Share (max) three top tips to help inspire and help future home renovators?

I’d actually just give one tip which is to draw on the expertise of others. If you have family in trades, friends who work in property or even follow instagram pages who have done similar work you can avoid some nasty surprises by learning from their experiences. 

What was your best purchase?

Tough one but as a standalone item probably the hot water tap. It’s such a little luxury every day!

In the Spotlight - swldnhouse

Would you do it again?

I would, J absolutely not… So, we’ll see!

What’s next? Any future renovation plans?

No future renovation plans but plenty still to do at ours. I’d also love to help my parents renovate my grandparents old house in Ireland!

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you so much Niamh and Jared for taking the time to be part of this, it has been a pleasure to feature you.

Do go and check out @swldnhouse on Instagram where you can follow more of their renovation progress.

I’m always on the lookout for homes and renovation projects to feature, so please do drop me an email hello@thepramshed.co.uk if you are interested in finding out more.

Claire x

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Spam prevention powered by Akismet