architecture

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Trust your designer – Ideal Home, December 2011

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

Ideal Home recently featured one of our projects – a bathroom we designed for the lovely Morag. Here’s a few shots of the mag and a wee slice of Morag’s comments in the article.

‘I didn’t want to employ a bathroom company to do the work but I knew I needed some help. nest had project managed a friend’s extension which was a fairly big job and I was really impressed by what they had done there so my friend suggested I contacted them.’

‘I knew I wanted it to be very plain and I wanted a big mirror but other than that my brief to nest was to make it a nice space to spend time in. After nest’s visit to The London Design Show they brought me back lots of catalogues which gave me plenty of ideas.’

‘Trust your designer. When Dene first mentioned the reclaimed wood for around the sink I couldn’t imagine what he meant but I’m glad I trusted him and went along with his idea. It’s important to have your own ideas and discuss them but if you employ a designer you should trust their instincts too. I would never have thought of that but it was a brilliant idea. It breaks up the plain-ness of the room and creates texture. I think it changes the whole look of the room.’

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Let us know what you think, we’d love to hear from you.

Posted in architecture, bathrooms, blogs, design, nest, press | No Comments »

Filini Restaurant, Radisson Blu Hotel, Chicago

Friday, November 25th, 2011

Last week, the new Radisson Blu Hotel opened up Chicago. Our sister company - Happell Products - designed and manufactured some gorgeous 3D ceramic tiles for the beautiful new Filini Restaurant in The Radisson Hotel. Working closely with the designers - Graven Images - Happell Products installed around 10,000 tiles in the restaurant. Finished in white gloss and metallic gold the tiles look amazing in Chicago’s premier destination restaurant. Here’s some shots of the tiles in situ.

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Let us know what you think, we’d love to hear from you.

Posted in 3D tiles, architecture, art, blogs, design, happell products, nest | No Comments »

Morag’s contemporary utility room

Friday, October 7th, 2011

Having recently completed her bathroom, Morag asked us to help out with the redesign of her cluttered and dated utility room. The room needed to house all the usual appliances and have lots of storage. Morag wanted it to be bright and modern and also link with the existing house.

We worked closely with Morag to develop a design and contemporary look she wanted. It’s in keeping with the modern/classic feel of the rest of the house, we chose white walls and units, oak flooring and worktops with a crisp, blue glass splashback. There’s clever laundry storage and clothes hangers and even a special wall for the kids’ drawings and family calendar.

Here’s a selection of shots during the build and of the finished utility room.

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Before – Shot of the existing utility room.

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Stage One – Downtakings

Existing utility room and floor is stripped out and walls made good for plasterer.

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Stage Two – Plasterwork, first fix plumbing & electrics

Plasterer prepares walls and applies specialist plaster bonding agent to walls. Skim coat plaster to walls and ceiling. Plumber and electrician install new pipes and cables.

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Stage Three – Kitchen installation

Our joiners start to install the kitchen units.

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Stage Four – Kitchen installation complete

All the kitchen units are installed and ready for painter to start work.

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The finished utility room

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Let us know what you think, we’d love to hear from you.

Posted in architecture, kitchens, nest | No Comments »

Merchant City Design Shows

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Had an interesting evening dodging the rain and sheltering in some great wee design shows in the merchant city on Thursday night. Openings included work by Gallacher & Warren in a Stockwell Street pop up, No Place like Home curated by the guys at Goodd and shown in the lovely Burniston studio and O and other letters, an exhibition & printshop by Edwin Pickstone at his studio in The Briggait. Here’s a few shots from the evening, ubiquitous single speeds were out in force and also saw a lovely QR code on Graphical House‘s window, just a shame it didn’t work when I was there.

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Let us know what you think, we’d love to hear from you.

Posted in architecture, art, design, exhibitions | No Comments »

Our new clothing line….

Friday, July 15th, 2011

We’ve been wearing them for months now and thought it was high time we popped a shot or two up here. You may have seen our lovely black t’s and matching shoulder bags around town and wondered, ‘Wow, where could I get one of those?’ Well now you know, right here…..

Tell us what you think, we’d love to hear from you.

Posted in architecture, art, bathrooms, blogs, Cycling, design, housing, in house, nest | No Comments »

Morag’s bathroom – revisited

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

We’ve just had Morag’s bathroom professionally shot and thought the images were so beautiful we should pop them up on our blog. The images and an article will appear in Beautiful Bathrooms magazine soon, watch this space for details.

Let us know what you think – we’d love to hear from you.

Tags: bathrooms, dene happell, nest
Posted in architecture, bathrooms, blogs, design, housing, in house, nest, press | No Comments »

We’re in Beautiful Kitchens magazine

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Here’s a few shots from Beautiful Kitchens magazine who’ve just featured a 5 page spread on one of our kitchens.

Let us know what you think – we’d love to hear from you.

Posted in architecture, design, kitchens, nest, press | No Comments »

Morag’s bathroom

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Morag asked us to help out with the redesign of her rather dated bathroom. Her house is a lovely detached property in Glasgow’s west end.

We worked closely with Morag to develop a design and look she wanted. It’s in keeping with the modern/classic feel of the rest of the house, we chose white walls, slate tiles with a couple of key or unusual pieces. We used some lovely wall hooks from james and some reclaimed timber from a secret supplier. We had a Douglas Gordon artwork framed – it now looks amazing – made sure the bath was luxurious and deep, just the thing to relax in after a hard day at work (or school).

Here’s a selection of shots during the build and of the finished bathroom.

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Stage One – Downtakings

A before shot of the bathroom and one of Des ripping out the old suite.

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Stage Two – First fix

Installation of new plumbing, lighting, timber frame for sink and wc. Plasterboard ceiling.

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Stage Three – Plasterwork

Finish plaster-boarding bulkheads. Plasterer prepares walls and applies specialist plaster bonding agent to walls. Skim coat plaster to walls and ceiling. Plywood sheets nailed to floor and pva applied before tiling.

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Stage Four – Tiling and timber

Tile floor, fit bath, hang radiator. Fix reclaimed timber to bulkhead.

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Stage Five – Painting, snagging and cleaning

Paint walls and varnish timber bulkhead. Hang mirror, artwork, sink, wall hook. Finish snagging and thoroughly clean tiles and bathroom. Make sure client is 100% happy with our work.

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The finished bathroom

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Here’s what Morag had to say - “I am absolutely delighted with my gorgeous new bathroom. Working with nest was a joy from start to finish – I had a vague idea of what I wanted but with their design input and fantastic ideas I now have a bathroom that has exceeded all of my expectations. It’s so good, I’ve now asked them to transform my utility room.“

And here’s a wee film of the build -

Let us know what you think, we’d love to hear from you.

Posted in architecture, bathrooms, blogs, design, housing, nest | No Comments »

Helen’s kitchen makeover

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

A friend of ours Helen, asked us to help out with her kitchen soon after she bought her flat. The original kitchen was badly designed with little or no storage space and cheap units and appliances. Helen’s a keen cook and excellent cake maker so she wanted a kitchen that would not only look great but be practical and great for entertaining. Helen chose the kitchen units, tiles and flooring and the result is a bold design statement.

Here’s a selection of before and after shots of the kitchen.

Here’s what Helen had to say - “I’m very happy with my new kitchen – it’s a joy to work in and a huge improvement. nest gave useful advice on layout and worked flexibly within my requirements to produce an interior that suited me. Workers were professional, friendly and finished the job with great attention to detail.”

Let us know what you think, we’d love to hear from you.

Tags: kitchens, nest
Posted in architecture, design, kitchens, nest | No Comments »

London Design Festival – Our Lowdown

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Arriving in London for the International London Design Festival is a bit daunting. With literally thousands of exhibitors and hundreds of shows spread across the length an breadth of the city, it can be difficult to know where to start and end for that matter.

After an intensive weekend of non stop exhibitions, tours and parties, here’s my round up of what’s hot in the world of furniture, lighting and interiors -

Loads of references to mid century modern design, it appears everyone is giving it a nod this year. There are angled table and chair legs and fluted arms with grey fabrics and fibre glass and teak inspired chairs.

Its great to see so much sculpture within the shows. There are precision made tables in Corian – the contemporary designers material of choice, and wonderful paper sculptural wallpapers and origami. Work that reminds me of Donald Judd and Dan Flavin and clever clocks that revolve around a laser cut city scene.

There are playful pieces which question their own function and in doing so redefine our notion of what furniture is. Unfortunately much of this work is still at prototype phase and may never see production, however, placed in shows such as 100% Design, it provides a great platform for the next generation of designers to showcase their work.

Unusual wall coverings were prevalent, whether felt, padded, metallic or paper, 3 dimensional surfaces are definitely in vogue. This is of particular interest to me given my range of 3D ceramic tiles, its great to see so much variety starting to enter the market.

I’ve included a few shots of lighting that stood out, mainly by Tom Dixon and Moooi. It was great to have a personal tour of the amazing new Moooi showroom and Tom Dixon’s fantastic superstore, both set in beautiful buildings. I also enjoyed the tour of the Established & Sons stunning showroom/office/ gallery space.

Interesting to see that single speeds also made it into the show – whether it was Tom Dixon’s fluorescent number or the wooden handle-bared effort at 100%. Nice to see that a crash helmet had also been given the midas touch – copper plated no less! There was black loo roll on one of the stands – now there’s an idea….

Theme wise there was also a large amount of nature inspired work, tables with trees growing out of them, wooden lights, twig stools, contemporary antler coat hooks and birds nests. And also the ubiquitous nod to all things Scandinavian, clean lined and blonde wooded.

So hopefully this gives you a brief overview of what to expect at The London Design Festival. Definitely worth the trip and a great cultural barometer of all things design and furniture based. Until next year……..

Let us know what you think, we’d love to hear from you.