Natural inspiration

Seasonal sensations

When you’ve endured winter in the Hebrides without proper heating, there is real joy watching the landscape transform with funky colours as nature reawakens.

Nature always seems to find a way. It seems that even my gradually disintegrating window frames make a fertile environment for new life to form – an inadvertent window garden of sorts.

Inside invader

However, there are limits to my love of nature. Not sure that I’m a huge fan of things growing up through the floorboards!

This hardy specimen managed to grow up unnoticed behind the scrap wood challenge wonky wonder door I made. Its discovery came as a bit of a surprise, although you’ve got to admire its determination!

I needed to gain access behind the part-finished door to lift some floorboards.  Some subterranean measurements were needed to determine potential floor-to-ceiling heights moving forward.

Mind the gap

Unfortunately, a lot of the joist ends were rotten. I had suspected this was the case, as you can feel the floor is pretty spongy underfoot in places. That particular part of the room I don’t tend to walk on too much, just in case!

This means that the whole floor will need to come up and be replaced moving forward. This is going to be a pretty major operation.

Going to be kind of tricky to live in a building without any floor, but I’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it.

More measuring

The plan is to keep and reuse the existing floorboards where possible. Hopefully, there will also be some salvageable sections of the joists that can be repurposed as well in future design projects.

Having an idea is one thing; making it work is a whole different matter entirely. Measurements really do matter when things are this tight.

Doing detail

My initial idea was to try and use the existing slope of the roof to mirror the rise of any proposed staircase. In my head and with my sketchbook doodles, it all seemed a great idea, it always does on a piece of paper.

Then comes reality. Once you start factoring in real-world thickness, angles and height requirements, my initial ideas fell apart rapidly.

Staircases wouldn’t fit, mezzanine floors cut across windows, it was all going a bit Pete Tong. A new approach and inspiration were required.

Abort action

It’s easy to get stuck on a single idea and be reluctant to change. Setbacks either make you want to give up (my initial reaction) or eventually force you to look at things from a different perspective.

At least now I knew more of the details and dimensional requirements I had to work with; this was essential information.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
– Arthur Ashe

A better understanding of building regulations and insulation requirements was a key learning. It was all progress of sorts.

Pencil and paper

Instead of designing with disused carpet grippers and off-cuts of wood, things got a whole lot more serious.

Time to go back to my design roots of pencil and paper once again, but now with added cardboard and a piece of string.

Art angles

The angled mezzanine, inspired by the mission halls’ splayed window reveals (architectural detail to enhance views and enhance the interior light), was a bit of a non-negotiable design element for me.

However, how you got to access the mezzanine level was now up for reimagining.

Super spiral

Nature is often a great source of inspiration. Maybe I could combine my initial idea of a floating zig-zag style staircase made from angle iron, into a part straight, part spiral sculptural staircase? Could this be the solution?

Not so much about the spiral nature of the stairs, more in its sculptural qualities. It reminded me of my sister’s contorted willow stem. Very cool trees.

My dreamer’s head mode was re-engaged again. Yes, I can already feel eyes rolling back in people’s heads at this point. Have I learnt nothing?

Go grand

OK, so not in a million years would this ever work in my tiny little space with my pathetic shoestring budget, but it did make me think… which is dangerous.

People often think that spiral staircases are the instant space-saving solution, which is rarely true. I’m not always their biggest fan, but sometimes you see grand visions that inspire you.

Key considerations. The stairs had to maintain a minimum clear headroom whilst ascending, bringing you to a point on the mezzanine with minimum clear headroom above.

At the ground floor level, they cannot impact the accessibility clear space floor requirements. Lots of regulations to try and meet for this one design element.

Hopeful height

The existing floor will need replacing with a solid, fully insulated floor. This will be the new internal datum to see if my concept for a mezzanine floor will actually be possible or not.

I want to divide the interior through a change in levels, rather than a series of separating walls. I don’t want to waste space with internal divisions.

It’s never going to be a vast interior space, but I want it to be a flexible, free-flowing space. It just needs to work a little bit harder for its keep.