The 2011 Feature in House & Garden

This is a throwback post - although we are more known for products than interiors, our interior practice is growing and it has been doing so since 2010 when we bought our first home, a derelict flat in Bournemouth. 

In the late summer of 2011 we had a visit from Hatta Byng, who came to see our workshop and learn all about Elvis & Kresse. We had so much to share that she missed her train back to London and came to stay with us instead. And that is when her story shifted focus, to feature everything we had done to bring our apartment to life, using only waste. Rather than summarise it, please find it here in full. We love that the article was featured in a section titled "Green By Design".

I can't believe this was 15 years ago!

Highlights of the flat? The sink I found in the woods, the scaffolding bed that hid a closet, the former roof slates that tiled our bathroom, the pallet bed, the blanket curtains, the pallet shutters, the re-imagination of a Welsh dresser, the zebra striped waste granite counter top, the floor to ceiling cupboard made of old doors, the seatbelt curtain tie-backs and the fire-hose tiles... It was essentially a museum of reinvention.

Can you spy our first iteration of the Post Bag? The Candle Holders made from damaged fire-hose couplings? The chair Elvis made for me from a Glenfiddich whiskey barrel? The painting where our artist friend used one of our rescued coffee sacks as the canvas?

 

It is like going back in time. Everything is so familiar. Don't worry, the red stools in the foreground that we found at the dump are still with us, and still used daily for dinner.

The scaffolding bed was genius (Elvis of course), can you see my shoes, tucked just behind the headboard on the left? You could walk all the way behind that bed, that was where we hid our 'walk-through' closet. The bath surround was a pallet box and all the cupboard doors in the kitchen were made from pallet wood, framing white gloss painted broken bits of ply and sterling board.

 

I forgot how cool the coffee sack lantern was! We have several tea sack ones at the farm now. The wall of doors was awesome... and yes, that is a Hudson's Bay Blanket which is still with us.