Interior design mood board with mid-century style including green sofa, patterned rug, wooden armchair, floor lamp, round ottoman, textured bench, striped fabric, and decorative light fixture.

DIY | CHILDREN

Create this cosy art corner for your little ones

When we started house hunting in 2023, we’d just had our daughter and were by no means anticipating starting a huge renovation project. I think my words were ‘I’ll paint and do flooring but I don’t want to be ripping out a kitchen.’ Little did I know, after months of browsing Rightmove and scrolling straight past our house thinking ‘no way,’ we’d eventually view it and both immediately see it’s potential.

Join us as we learn new skills, rope in family and friends to help, get creative and turn this old house into our family home - on a budget!

Image of a dark, cluttered interior space with exposed brick and concrete walls. It contains construction materials, a ladder, and boxes, suggesting an unfinished or storage area. The phrase "dark and disused space" is written on the image.
Construction site showing new subfloor installation and exterior brickwork with scaffolding.
A wooden floor lamp with a beaded design and beige lampshade is displayed next to a smartphone showing an online shopping page for the same lamp. The lamp is called Habitat Bobbin Mango Wood Floor Lamp Base - Walnut, priced at £65.00.

The garage was a space that we quite quickly decided we would convert, after seeing that our next door neighbour had done so and that it was a great use of an otherwise dead space. Some of my family were dubious about the size and how it would work as a living room, as it’s quite a narrow space, but we were sure it could work. (Although halfway through the build I was anxiously thinking - is this a really stupid idea?!)

The garage floor was lower than the rest of the house so we had to create a new sub floor structure, which was then boarded.

The old garage door was boarded up and a new window installed.

We opened up the ceiling (which I was nervous about) as it’s a small room and we wanted to maximise the space where possible. We also installed a skylight as it’s a north facing room, so this added extra light and interest

thought that opening up the ceiling with a skylight would be a great way to add height, make the room feel bigger and add some extra light.

Architectural drawing showing original rear elevation and proposed plans for a building. Includes dimensions and descriptions of modifications, such as relocating the front door and window adjustments.
Room under construction with skylight and painting supplies, including Farrow & Ball paint can and open lid.