Conversion Diversion: Piano Factory By Piers Gough
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, keyboards were big business in Kentish Town, London – so much so, that in 1901 The Piano Journal described the area as “that healthful suburb dear to the heart of the piano maker.”
This amazing loft apartment can be found on the first floor of the former Alison Piano Factory on Charlton Kings Road, NW5.
(Click on pics for more images and full property details)
£824,950, 3-bed apartment, Charlton Kings Road, Kentish Town, NW5, Goldschmidt & Howland (Tel:0843 2811 641)
It was designed by architectural enfant terrible Piers Gough who, apparently, drew his inspiration for the interior from the curved lines of a grand piano (check the floor plans and it makes sense).
The highlights include timber floors, beamed double-height ceilings, tiled support columns decorated with dragons, antique hospital radiators and large industrial windows.
It’s warm, woody, and very cosy looking, but it’s roomy too: three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a funky open-plan living space that looks made for partying.
If you could put this place to music it would definitely be more Boogie Woogie than Beethoven, with maybe a dash of Theolonious Monk thrown in for good measure.
It definitely tickles our ivories: we like!
£824,950, 3-bed apartment, Charlton Kings Road, Kentish Town, NW5, Goldschmidt & Howland (Tel:0843 2811 641)
£824,950, 3-bed apartment, Charlton Kings Road, Kentish Town, NW5, Goldschmidt & Howland (Tel:0843 2811 641)
£824,950, 3-bed apartment, Charlton Kings Road, Kentish Town, NW5, Goldschmidt & Howland (Tel:0843 2811 641)
£824,950, 3-bed apartment, Charlton Kings Road, Kentish Town, NW5, Goldschmidt & Howland (Tel:0843 2811 641)
£824,950, 3-bed apartment, Charlton Kings Road, Kentish Town, NW5, Goldschmidt & Howland (Tel:0843 2811 641)
£824,950, 3-bed apartment, Charlton Kings Road, Kentish Town, NW5, Goldschmidt & Howland (Tel:0843 2811 641)
Five To View: Riverfront Flats In London
A recent report from Cluttons revealed that riverfront flats have been among the most resilient of London property types over the last couple of years.
They cite several reasons for this: the aesthetic appeal; proximity to London’s landmarks; an influx of people migrating from the suburbs back into the city centre; and the regeneration that’s taking place around the Thames area.
And then, of course, there’s the “limited edition” factor of a waterfront flat, with few opportunities left for further developments to be built along London’s famous riverbank.
With all that in mind, we’ve had a trawl through our riverfront properties in London to bring you five rather fabulous flats with wonderful views of the water:
(Click on pics for more images and full property details)
1. Vogans Mill Wharf SE1
£3,999,950
3-bed flat Vogans Mill Wharf, £3,999,950, Cluttons - 0843 2835 490 (BT 4p/min)
2. Albert Embankment SW8
£2,500,000
3-bed flat Albert Embankment, £2,500,000, Foxtons - 020 7591 9000
3. Putney Wharf Tower, SW15
£1,150,000
3-bed flat Putney Wharf Tower, £1,150,000, Hamptons - 0843 2815 501 (BT 4p/min)
4. Corbetts Wharf SE16
£875,000
2-bed flat Corbetts Wharf, £875,000, Knight Frank - 0843 2818 153 (BT 4p/min)
5. Butlers Wharf SE1
£695,000
1-bed flat Butlers Wharf, £695,000, Hamptons - 0843 2842 469 (BT 4p/min)
The Green Dollhouse
Surely the ultimate in green one-upmanship for all the Jocastas and Joshuas, is Plan Toys’ very model of a modern green dollhouse?
Plan Toys' Green Dollhouse
Gone is the Victoriana chintz, the tiny china tea-set and the traditional grandfather clock. Instead, your eco-conscious kiddies can now play with a wee wooden wind turbine, a pint sized solar panel and put their pretend (organic, of course) vegetable peelings into teeny tiny recycling bins.
I really want to like this house, I do. Why only recently I bought a Plan Toys puzzle for my nephew and it was beautifully made, plus their environmental and social policies are very admirable, but for me this has crossed the line from green chic, over to green smug.
Moreover, playing with this toy will apparently teach children “how appliances in the Green Dollhouse assist their daily life without damaging the environment. They will also learn how electricity can be generated from alternative natural sources such as the sun and wind.”
Really? I thought playing with a dollhouse should be just … playing? No?
Or maybe this is just my sour grapes because I never had such a fancy-dancy dollhouse when I was growing up. Not that I wanted one, of course. I made do with a cardboard box and a rusty nail. (Life was hard, you were lucky, etc., etc.)
(via NOTCOT.org)
Über-Tub Seeks Edgy Urbanite
Time was when a person had a bathtub in the living room because they didn’t have a bathroom in the house – who, after all, wants to sit shivering in a tub in the yard when there’s plenty of room for it in front of the fireplace?
(Click on pics for full details)
£4,116 pcm / £950 pw, King's Cross, London N1, The Modern House (Tel: 08444 157 824)
These days, however, a bathtub in the living room signifies that you’re an edgy urban loft-dweller who has little time for net-curtained conformism.
Not any old bathtub, mind. No, your über-tub should be a polished sculptural object hewn into a mighty ovoid from solid rock – if it’s mistaken for a minor Henry Moore, so much the better.
What’s that you say? It may be a bit … impractical? Fear not: while a tub in the open-plan living space is just the thing to wow the ladeez, even Masters of the Universe have mums who come to visit once in a while.
So this place – which, I have to admit, is pretty awesome – also has a guest bedroom with a wet room … which should spare everyone’s blushes.
Aside from the eye-catching tub, it also has zinc-clad sliding doors, steel girders, a concrete kitchen island, and a separate studio area.
It’s yours from The Modern House for £950 per week. Bring your own rubber duck.
£4,116 pcm / £950 pw, King's Cross, London N1, The Modern House (Tel: 08444 157 824)
£4,116 pcm / £950 pw, King's Cross, London N1, The Modern House (Tel: 08444 157 824)
£4,116 pcm / £950 pw, King's Cross, London N1, The Modern House (Tel: 08444 157 824)
£4,116 pcm / £950 pw, King's Cross, London N1, The Modern House (Tel: 08444 157 824)
£4,116 pcm / £950 pw, King's Cross, London N1, The Modern House (Tel: 08444 157 824)
TV Stars Help Shelter’s HomeTime! Campaign
Well, I never. In all the months we’ve been scribing away on Winging It, I don’t believe we’ve ever made mention of kids’ TV duo, Dick and Dom.
Until now, that is, when they’ve popped up twice in two days. Spooky.
First up, Nigel name checked their hit series Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow in his blog praising the much maligned one-storey property type.
And now I’m about you tell you all about the boys’ latest role as the faces of Shelter’s HomeTime! campaign.
Or rather, I’m going to quote the lads themselves, who know much more than I do about the ins and outs of it all. Over to you, Dick and Dom:
“Can you imagine growing up without a home to call your own? Well, for thousands of children in Britain that’s a daily reality.
“HomeTime! offers your class tons of wacky ways to raise money for Shelter’s important work to end the housing crisis – like coming to school in your slippers, or even dressed like your Mum and Dad. Go mad, and make a difference!”
If you know any kids who might want to get their school involved, more details are available on the HomeTime! page of the Shelter website.
81% of home-owners expect home values to rise in first half of 2010
This time last year, confidence in the property market was at rock bottom and the outlook was bleak. But, a year is a long time in the housing market and, whilst the recovery is still in its infancy, optimism is now back to levels not seen since the credit crunch began in 2007.
The shortage of homes for sale has prevented any improvement in transaction levels over recent months, but with increased confidence amongst owners about putting their homes on the market to match the pent-up demand from buyers, means we could see a welcome boost to the recovery of the housing market.
In our latest Zoopla.co.uk Housing Market Sentiment Survey four out of five UK homeowners believe that property values are set to rise over the first half of 2010. This is a marked turnaround from just one year ago, which marked the low point for housing market confidence, when only one in five homeowners was optimistic about the house price outlook.
Here’s a snapshot from the results above:
What will happen to values over the next 6 months?
Of the 10,732 respondents to the survey (of which 9,938 were home owners), 81% expect that home values will rise, with only 10% expecting values to fall over the next six months. The average growth predicted amongst those surveyed is for house prices in their area to increase 5.4% over the next six months whilst, somewhat unrealistically, they expect their own home value to rise by 5.7% over the same period.
Compared with 3 months ago, is it easier or harder to get a mortgage now?
Confidence alone is not enough to boost activity in the housing market and much depends on the availability of mortgage funding. 75% of those surveyed claim that it is no easier now to get a mortgage than three months ago, placing the onus on lenders to work to increase confidence and help further lift the transaction volumes.
What signs would make you think the property market is improving?
Homeowners signalled in the survey that the clearest indicator to them of a property market recovery would be evidence of greater market activity in their local area – both in terms of more properties on the market for sale and more transactions taking place.
Which of the following, if any, will you do over the next 6 months?
Homeowners also indicated an intention to improve their properties in the coming months. 42% of homeowners stated they would be embarking on home improvements over the next six months, which may signal a greater willingness to get homes ready to put on the market.
Please feel free to share and use these findings, all we ask is that you credit the source as the Zoopla.co.uk Housing Market Sentiment Survey.
Find out what your home is worth on Zoopla.co.uk
Where bungalows finally have the edge
Derided by the young, scoffed at by architects and used by comedians to raise a laugh; the bungalow has endured years of abuse despite promising beginnings as a chic but affordable ‘country home’.
The bungalow concept, imported in the late 19th century from India by ex-colonialists seeking an alternative to the drab brick of industrialised Blighty, was originally supposed to be a light, airy but single-storey dwelling.
A typical 1930s bungalow in Britain's seaside retirement capital, Eastbourne
The idea caught on. Soon whole bungalow villages and towns were being built along Britain’s coastline – the best-known being Shoreham-by-Sea in Sussex. And literary praise followed – in 1906, War of the Words author HG Wells described bungalows as “a fashion with a certain Bohemian-spirited class”.
But attitudes are very different now. Mostly regarded as a favoured home of the retired or those with little taste – John Major was sniped at for being raised in one – many comedians also now use them to score an easy laugh.
Examples include Peter Kay’s 2003 Mum Wants a Bungalow tour, the long-running Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow routine on TV and John Hegley’s derogatory Luton Bungalow song.
But a developer in Cheshire is making a last-ditch attempt – and some might say a brave one – to haul the badgered bungalow out of the fashion-free gloom and into the bright lights of architectural chic.
Hillcrest Homes is building a £1.75 million example in Alderley Edge – Cheshire’s jewel in the ‘Golden Triangle’ crown – called Chantreys.
Everything but gold taps have been added in a bid to throw off the ‘boring bungalow’ image including a luxury indoor swimming pool, a two-storey ‘wing’, Villeroy and Boch bathrooms, an upmarket Poggenpohl kitchen, sauna, as well as four bedrooms and a study.
A sizeable bill for a bungalow - Hillcrest Homes's £1.75m Alderley Edge newbuild
“Chantreys draws more parallels with the Australian or American intepretations of ‘bungalow’ than the British,” says Mike Kennedy of Hillcrest. “It is glamorous, innovative and very stylish.”
