For the last two years, alongside designing at Sister, I have been doing a very different type of design on the weekends, renovating a house. And when I say renovating a house, I mean pulling it apart to its bare bones and building from the ground up. I hadn’t quite planned the project to be quite to this scale, but that’s the thing with houses, expect the unexpected.

My skills as a designer (particularly as a tactile designer), have landed in my favour when it comes to renovating and there has not been anything I haven’t attempted to put my hand to. My most challenging and earliest task was laying a wood-engineered parquet floor in my living room, which was a painstakingly long process, but worth the outcome and perhaps only doable at the time due to my naivety of the process. Since then, I’ve learned how to tile (including cutting tiles with an angle grinder!), become quite the expert at laying herringbone floors, completed basic carpentry….and most of all furthered my project management skills.

Emma’s Top Tips

Create a visual of the space you’re designing. What you have in mind might not always work in real life and creating the visual helps to highlight any pitfalls, avoiding costly mistakes in the future! Not a designer? There are lots of free visualising resources out there such as Victorian Plumbing bathroom visualiser.

If you’re planning on tiling, check, check and check again the number of tiles you will need (including 10% for wastage)…I learned the hard way! Little did I know that tiles are made in ‘batches’ and although technically the same tile design, each batch will vary slightly in dimension and colour, hence the need to buy all the tiles you need in one go.

Utilise social media to help clue up on your renovation skills. I’ve learned so many tips and tricks from tradespeople on TikTok and Instagram who share their wealth of knowledge. I particularly like @terrythetiler, an expert in the field of tiling.

During these two years, I’ve learned not to let the unknown stop you from trying a new skill, naivety can be a good thing,- whether that be during a renovation or trying something new in design.

My renovation is now drawing to the end and I’m looking forwards to the next stage….interior design!