Heart Home magazine Issue 12 August 2014 | Page 17

“Pretty much everything in here has been bought
for a pittance as scrap or salvage, or picked up for
next to nothing at auction,” he explains. “In fact,
apart from the iron spiral staircase that now leads
to the mezzanine bedroom deck above the main
living space, which I bought on eBay for a couple
of hundred pounds, I don’t think there’s an item of
furniture or fitting in here that cost more than £20
or £30. The bathroom is fitted with a reclaimed
sink and the shower I made myself from old boiler
parts and clad in reclaimed tiles I’ve simply re-cut
to fit the space. It’s the same with the units I hand

made for the kitchen. There I used more of the
same tiles along with zinc reclaimed from the roof
for many of the cupboard door panels. I find a lot of
these materials in northern France and I do a tour
every year of the architectural salvage and scrap
yards there, along with the vides grenieres, which
are a particular kind of clearance sale they have,
and some of the larger car-boot sales – everything
you can see in here from the light fittings to the
cupboard handles has been sourced from one of
those places.”
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