Argyle Street

The brief was to convert the existing very grand Victorian residential property with 4 bedrooms into a 6 bedroom fully licensed co-living house share with every room provided with it’s own en-suite.

It is situated in a previously uninvested area of Reading that is now seeing lots of development due to Cross Rail being built that will link more parts of London with Reading directly.

We were chosen to work on this property due to our experience and reputation for working on period properties where a certain amount of attention to detail was needed.

It was also our experience of working on commercial properties, and our interior design skills that were needed in order to develop a bespoke high end rental that could achieve maximum rents and stand out in the market place.

A contemporary interior was to be created to appeal to both male and female young professionals alike.

Kite provided a turnkey solution from the spatial planning, obtaining building agreements, through to the construction, and all interior design including procuring the furniture, installation and styling the property for marketing shots.

New floor plans were created both in 2d and 3d so the customer could get an idea of the final layout. To maximise the return on investment the internal layout was altered, to include ensuites in every room, and to create 6 bedrooms. A new partition wall was inserted between the existing 2 ground floor reception rooms to create an extra 2 bedrooms downstairs.

The layout was slightly reconfigured upstairs to make 3 large bedrooms with ensuites on the first floor and a very large bedroom with walk in wardrobe and ensuite on the 2nd floor.

Building regulations and a party wall agreement were obtained. All fire regulations were adhered to as part of commercial guidelines, such as 30 minute fire doors, and intumescent strips on the doors.

The property contained many original features including grand feature fireplaces, original coving, and an internal stained glass window so we had to redesign the house sympathetically to work around retaining as many of these original features as possible. It was to be future proofed to safeguard against maintenance issues.

We managed to retain some of the original feature fire places as part of the design. A new larger kitchen/communal area was created by removing a large chimney breast, installing gallows brackets for strength and creating a new large open space full of light. In the three bedrooms on the 1st floor we removed the chimney breasts to ceiling height as no original fire places were in place, incorporated ensuites within every bedroom and built in wardrobes. In Bedroom 03 we were able to retain and incoporate the original internal stained glass window within the en-suite. A new plant room was created within the extensive eaves space on the second floor.