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Our client had purchased a prominent site in Lilliput, Poole and he approached us directly to design him a ‘New England’ style home. The site had an existing chalet bungalow located on it which need a significant amount of upgrading. We discussed and reviewed the differences in undertaking a significant extension and remodel of the existing house versus pursuing a new build route on the site. It was concluded that extending and remodeling the existing property was the best route forward in terms of cost and timescales.
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Our client had a very clear vision for his home and was able to give us a detailed and concise brief for the project. The client’s objectives were to significantly remodel the existing house to create an authentic ‘New England’ style property. Internally there was a desire to make the spaces open plan and maximised natural light and views out to the garden.
We enjoy working in a variety of design styles but central to our approach is giving the end product a sense of authenticity. The client wished to have a ‘New England’ style home and we researched this style of property in some detail prior to developing the concept design for the scheme. The material palette for the house was very important for the outset and we recommended a traditional ‘through coloured’ timber product for the principal cladding material which would give the house an authentic ‘New England’ appearance.
The phrase ‘God is in the detail’ coined by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe is a common phrase you will often hear applied to important parts of a building. We spend a significant amount of time considering every part of a building when we are designing. Every detail of a building is important and if designed and built well, it is these details that gives the building a quality and richness. A number of details became very important in this house. The external joinery of this house was externally important to achieve to the ‘New England’ style and the covered porch and windows were key elements of the building we spent considerable time developing to get these details right.
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All of our completed projects are a source of great satisfaction, however, the level of care and attention to detail that our client and his builder lavished on this house meant that the end product was a home that surpassed all of our expectations.
‘Having known of Toby for many years and the type of projects he gets involved in, it was only a natural choice to use Empery for the build on my property.
I had a very clear picture of how I wanted the property to look, from initial meetings with Toby I felt that he understood the design concept straight away and transpired the design brief superbly onto paper,There were only very minor changes that had to be made to the design of the property from the original drawings, Toby clearly understood how I wanted the house to look and the design he produced was superb.
The whole process of working with all the members of the team at Empery from start to finish was very professional, informative and most importantly when you are doing something as big as this, enjoyable!
I would have no hesitation in recommending Empery to friends or colleagues and should I ever build another house again I would not hesitate to use Toby.’