Before & After: An Essex, England Renovation Focused on Restoration

If we took away all the images from Design*Sponge, you poor readers would not only be left with a lot of reading, but you’d probably be filled with dread. Without the inspiring finished homes, our minds would be left to dwell on all the daunting stories — a massive leak leaving irreparable damage on a brand new floor, living in a construction zone for five years, washing dishes in a bathtub, or, in the case of Charmaine Beaumont-Hammond, going into labor early and leaving a gutted bathroom to lay in wait.

Fortunately, the images turn the stories of misfortune into encouraging messages. We can do it! We can move forward, make mistakes, learn our lessons and then eventually, with a little hope and faith, we can sit back and enjoy the fruits of all the labor and laugh at the mild disasters. Today’s encouraging “we can do it” moment comes courtesy of Charmaine’s make-under of her Essex, England home.

Charmaine, owner of Weald Store, and her husband Chris, an art gallery technical manager, moved from a small, one-bedroom flat in the center of London to their Essex house in 2013. The home was outdated, but the couple could see the potential, and they did some investigating. “When we first viewed the house, we knocked on the next door neighbor’s door and were invited in by a couple who had lived there for 25 years. They had renovated their home and uncovered their original features, so we knew it would be possible to do the same with this house.”

They started renovating as soon as they moved in, stripping everything out of the house — old double glazing, carpet and layers upon layers of wallpaper and paint, until the house was a shell. From there, they worked to bring the features back to their original condition, giving the house the calming and classic country home feel they had envisioned from the start. —Quelcy

Photography by Charmaine Beaumont-Hammond

Image Above: Charmaine and Chris were fortunate to discover so many of the old home’s original features still intact, albeit under many layers of paint. They took the doors to a reclamation yard to be sandblasted, and they soaked the original hardware in detergent to reveal their refined beauty.

from Design*Sponge http://www.designsponge.com/2017/10/before-after-an-essex-england-renovation-focused-on-restoration.html

from Home Improvment http://notelocreesnitu.tumblr.com/post/166289122454