Architecture and interior design thread

We are trying to work out the best use of this space to the left side of our built in fridge bit.

Thought I'd pick the brains of you guys as you've probably got some great ideas that we haven't thought about.

We don't need extra storage but if we had some open storage here it would give us more flexibility in the current drawer space.

Otherwise we have thought about a mirror or putting up a picture.

If I did it again I would probably have bumped the door over but 25cm and extending the run on the left from 40cm to full standard size.

The size of the space is H:237cm/W:88cm/D:25cm

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Util Plié would look good to me..

I'll suggest grandfather clock before someone else does.

Given the velux above a picture would look good on that wall and a mirror might widen the space.

I'd be tempted by a couple of Muuto folded shelves because I like their colours and versatility or the VG&P wedge shelf and/or rail system. Don' think you want anything bulky

@dbr might have some thoughts, he's made some nice shelves

What do you use the worktop for - tea duty and baking?

Kettle and KitchenAid plus a Sonos. We've got a lot of worktop spade so we don't need it for prep at all.

Mirror would be nice but I will check out those shelves. Main thing is we don't want it looking cluttered.

If light is an issue at all I’d vote for a mirror. Otherwise, a nice print. I don’t see the point of a shelf that isn’t actually required, just another thing to bump into and clean.

If you don’t need storage then a nice mirror would be my suggestion

If that was us, I'd say mirror/picture. Wife would use it for another full height bookshelf. She loves bookshelves.

Thanks everyone, as always useful to see other people's thoughts. Think we will probably go with a picture rather than storage options.

Hi folks - I need to do a huge amount of work on a new house including electrics and lighting.

Specifically on lighting, has anyone gone spotlights in every room and are there any negative aspects?

Wife is unsure as she likes the feature of a nice lighting option but I just see them as dust collectors.

Just wondering if there are any issues I am missing.

Don't do a grid system - get directional spots and light things (pictures or features) instead of rooms generally.

Get dimmers.

Get baffled downlights (they produce a nicer light).

We just did a whole house renovation and this is the advice we were given by a lighting designer friend of mine.

Our house previously had grid system spots in certain rooms and we never turned them on as the light was awful.

Thanks - useful feedback. I suspect the electrician will be able to provide some guidance but it's early days in the process - complete the purchase next week.

Electrician will most probably want to do what he normally does, and he might try and convince you that his way is right.

Indeed, probably right. As every ceiling will probably coming down and walls re-skimmed its a great opportunity to get lighting sorted.

Not whole house but the place I bought has a lot of spots.

First thing is you're very limited if you want to change them, you've a load of holes in your ceiling and a limited number of options of what to put in them, it's not like changing a lampshade. This goes double if you go LED spots because you can't even switch the bulbs.

Definitely go for dimmers, the light is just glaring otherwise. Bear in mind that if they're LEDs you need dimmable LEDs and drivers, two different components. Also not all dimmer switches play nicely with all lights.

Also have a think about whether you may want any smart home integrations. You're a bit more limited with spots on what you can do.

I would treat them as one half of your lighting. Downlights are good for supplementing light levels but ideally should be used with other lighting types in the home (wall, pendant, table etc). Other than the kitchen you'll rarely want the amount of light you get from a row/grid of downlights in the evening. Even when dimmed they create very flat lighting which is fairly unappealing at night.

Remember you can light most rooms with a couple table or floor lamps at night but the downlights are very useful for the daytime when you do not have masses of daylight. I would caveat the use of daylights in the day with home offices though. Pending the glare rating they can be uncomfortable to work under.

Thanks all - useful perspectives.

Anyone used fusion 360 for designing a garden or room?

Any obvious initial tips or suggestions?

Cheers.

Probably not useful input, but I've been blown away with the usability and quality of home.by.me so if you haven't already discounted would certainly recommend.

I design retail interiors/fixtures with it.

Basic tips:

• Save the shell/base as a component
  
• Model all other items as individual components
  
• Make sure all components have the Origin set at the base floor level (eg nothing floating above or below the origin in the Y axis)
  
• Create an assembly with the base component grounded and set it to 'Do not capture design history', this means you can then drag things round easily without having to 'capture position' and creating a massive feature timeline
  

Cheers that's really helpful.

I'll also check out home.by.me as f360 is quite technical and my laptop doesn't have great graphics. That said it can run it and even for my infant level ability I am always impressed by f360.

F360 can get pretty laggy when updating components in large assemblies. Moving components around in an assembly can also cause it to get a bit slow (it recovers most of the time though).

If you want to add decals (eg for a picture on the wall) keep the file size as small as possible and don't let it exceed 1000px wide/tall, it might have been fixed but there was a bug which caused rendering issues if there was a decal larger than 1000px in the model.

Cheers.

It will be for the garden, but mainly to create a basic shape with the sheds and outbuilding. Currently trying to convince my OH of having a decking walkway* to run around the shed. But the space and angle make it really hard to draw on paper.

Plus I like the idea of crowd sourcing the design.

*would also be plants either side not just all the decking everywhere

Anyone else bought and a robot vacuum and then obsessively redesigned there home interior to maximise it's usefulness?

Everything in my home is going to be on 100mm stilts soon enough.