Transforming a Neglected Garage into Industrial-style Apartments

Our #LOFT apartments continue to be one of our most successful projects in terms of social engagement, and we’re always blown away with how much love we get for them each time we share snippets of the property.

We thought it’d be fun to show some of the before and after pictures of the renovation and interior design work, and share a little bit about the backstory of the building. Brace yourself for the transformation!

➕ the before.

As you can see from the above pictures , the building was in quite poor condition before we got to work on it! It was originally an old MOT mechanics garage, so the industrial-style qualities really ring true to its heritage.

We were commissioned by Comfort Lettings to transform the large two-storey property into two self-contained rental apartments. And the overall project consisted of a complete renovation and interior design brief provided by BEESPACE and our team.

➕ the during.

We knew from the outset that we wanted to encapsulate the authentic industrial style of the building, and create a ‘New York meets England’ loft apartment vibe.

Here’s a little look at the initial inspiration behind this project and our #LOFT concept (you can see the full visual board on our Pinterest if you’re interested):

We worked with the lovely Claire @plotdesigner to help bring our ideas to life, especially with the exterior design of the old garage. I’ve always been a huge advocate for branding your property from the outside in, and it was no different with this project!

Here’s the original 3D rendering Claire created for us – it was so valuable to have this focused visual to hand, especially as we hired in Matt Wingfield to work on the large-scale branded elements.

You can see a video of our mid-way progress at the property here before dressing and final design touches were added.

➕ the after.

We absolutely love the outcome of this project, and are so happy that we managed to savour those key original industrial features. A few fun facts about the project and design choices:

• We installed a glass door in the top-floor apartment between the living space and the bedroom, as light was limited in the bedroom but flooded the main space.
• Adding a skylight above the ground-floor shower filled the previously dark corner of the bathroom with light.
• We couldn’t use brick-slips in the top-floor apartment as that section was classed as ‘new-build’ by building regulations, so we used a textured concrete effect to keep within the industrial design style
• We found the old deeds to the property and thought it would be a lovely touch, and a great talking point for tenants, if we showcased them around the building. These small things help us not to lose touch with the history of these older properties.

You can see the full #LOFT project here.