“First investment flat, not forever home. Top budget of £30k for all renovations. Willing/capable to do much DIY work ourselves.” So began the brief that Celeste Bolte and Peter Fisher presented to London architecture firm Loader Monteith. They were not exaggerating about the latter.
Celeste runs her own public relations firm Salt, which specializes in architecture and design (and happens to represent Loader Monteith) and Pete is a mechanical engineer—they’re both Australian and moved to London together from Melbourne. After spending six months getting to know their place, they took on the majority of the labor on their one-bedroom apartment remodel themselves, working on weekends for a year—without moving out.
The couple’s place is just under 500 square feet and situated on the ground floor of a low-rise structure in the Haddo House Estate, a complex built in the 1960s and ’70s as public housing in London’s Kentish Town in Camden. And though their budget was modest, they envisioned a “full gut refurb”: overhauled floor plan, new kitchen and bath, streamlined bedroom and an added work from home space, among other things. “None of the internal walls were structural, so we had freedom to redo the layout,” says Celeste. She and Pete recorded their progress along the way: join us for a tour of their results and scroll to the end to see their Before, During, and After captures —and to hear their final tally of costs.
Photography by Jim Stephenson, courtesy of Celeste Bolte (@salt_press) and Peter Fisher.
The sofa has several pet-friendly slipcovers and is a custom design by Fallen & Felled, a London lumber mill and furniture company that makes use of felled urban trees. Celeste and Peter named their place after their beloved dog, Percy.
Celeste says she and Pete “leveled the floors, rebuilt walls, and installed new architraveless pocket door systems. Very fiddly!” They hired pros to plaster the flat, and to tackle the electrical system and some of the plumbing.
The arrival of the stainless counter, Celeste says, was a game changer: “We had installed the kitchen the weekend before and it was quite amazing to see the space in its real scale, not just a bare room.” The fridge stands opposite the stove and there’s a half-size dishwasher. Because drawer space is limited, flatware is kept neatly on the counter in a restaurant stainless-steel utensil organizer. In lieu of an exhaust fan, they open the windows at either end of the apartment.
Above: Early sketches of the project Loader Monteith are framed over the bed. As for the final tally of costs, not surprisingly Celeste and Pete went over their initial £30K budget—all told they say the renovation ran them €38,500, so still impressive given all they were able to do.Before, During, After
Shown here, the installation of the under-floor heating system kit.
Go to Never Too Small for a full video tour of the apartment.
More inspirational DIY remodels:
- Resurrecting a 1908 Worker’s Cottage in the Netherlands: A Young Couple’s Weekend Project
- Interior Designer Suzanne Pardij’s Tiny, Lovely Home Studio
- George and Willy’s DIY Urban Cabin on New Zealand’s North Island
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