Feast your eyes on the fabulous dwelling of Sofie Hepworth – and attempt to get your head spherical the actual fact this can be a one-room, 450sq ft backyard studio, which she shares together with her husband, Rob, and their two younger sons, Reggie and Teddy.
Inside, the superbly curated house is something however cramped as interiors stylist and digital creator Sofie has cleverly created color coordinated zones to demark dwelling, kitchen, eating and sleep areas. There’s even an workplace house for when she works from dwelling – and a tropical bathe room with an outside tub!
The Hepworths have been dwelling in what Sofie affectionately calls the ‘Sheila Shed’ for a 12 months whereas they intestine and renovate their five-bedroom Victorian coach home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
‘As an alternative of losing money on renting one other property, we thought it could be a greater funding to construct this place within the backyard so we are able to use it afterwards as visitor lodging or hire it out,’ says Sofie.
It is going to be six extra months earlier than their foremost house is full. However how have they tailored to dwelling in a tiny dwelling?
‘It has had its challenges with two children and I’m naturally fairly chaotic and messy, like many creatives,’ laughs Sofie. ‘We stay, basically, in a single giant room that has to rapidly adapt to change into a lounge, kitchen, eating room, workplace, playroom and bedrooms.
‘It was a extremely tall order, however we’ve got achieved it by making all of the furnishings multi-functional and extendable. We even put wheels on the couch so we are able to transfer it to remodel the house relying on what “room” we’d like the primary house to perform as.’
When the youngsters are at college and Sofie is WFH, she pulls out the collapsible desks and the studio turns into an workplace house. ‘If we’ve got folks spherical, we’ve got an extending eating desk and adapt the realm so the kitchen/eating space takes up a lot of the studio. I’ve additional chairs hanging flat in opposition to the wall from hooks,’ she says.
On the weekend the house is devoted to the boys. ‘We push the couch to the facet and out of the blue the studio turns into one large playroom.’ The important thing to success, Sofie believes, was to construct tall – which enabled her to make use of each inch of house for savvy storage. And the outcomes are exceptional – a lot in order that after blowing up TikTok together with her quirky dwelling tour reels, she has landed a e-book deal to share her tiny dwelling concepts.
The Sheila Shed additionally has loads of eco-credentials, making it sustainable and heat. Insulation and underfloor heating was a godsend over the bitter winter. Nevertheless, the chilly climate has not deterred the household utilizing their gorgeous pink concrete out of doors tub – one in all Sofie’s favorite options, which is accessed via the glass doorways of the tropical pink bathe room.
‘There’s nothing like mendacity in a bath of scorching water staring up on the stars with a glass of wine in your hand. When it’s freezing outdoors, it’s like being in a scorching spring – in reality we use it extra within the winter than we do in the summertime.’
The youngsters sleep in bunk beds in a comfy pod, whereas Sofie and Rob have a space-saving Murphy mattress, which they designed themselves – as an alternative of folding down, the door to the mattress swings open giving them a privateness wall and self-contained sleep house. ‘We even managed to squeeze in a king-size mattress, which is a large plus!’
So what has Sofie realized from tiny dwelling? ‘It has made us take into consideration what we’d like. I’ve pared-down my wardrobe, the identical applies to the child’s toys. However in addition to saving money on the vitality payments, we’re extra time-rich as we spend much less hours cleansing and tidying; all the time a bonus!’
Sofie’s 5 suggestions for small dwelling
Vertical top
Use all of the vertical top accessible – we’ve got a lot storage as a result of we used the house proper as much as the ceiling to create bookshelves, toy storage, garments storage and plant holes! This house usually doesn’t get used however by doing this we’ve got saved rather more ground house. (You may want some mini-steps, although!)
Wheels
Placing wheels in your couch is a recreation changer! We purchased some couch wheels from Amazon and easily drilled them into our couch legs. This permits us to maneuver the couch round, adapting the house as we’d like. Additionally, in the summertime we are able to wheel it over to the deck outdoors.
Furnishings
Adapt excessive road modular programs to make semi-bespoke furnishings, which is ideal for small-space dwelling. We used B&Q’s vary of wardrobe and desk internals/modular furnishings after which constructed our personal doorways or clad them to create a bespoke built-in look. We did this for our media and toy storage unit, our desk and our wardrobe space.
Color
One of many largest errors I see is folks making an attempt to be too matchy-matchy. I exploit not less than three shades of any color that I choose in a room; the tonal impact makes the room extra fascinating and offers off a assured look of ‘I do know what I’m doing,’ even for those who don’t. To match colors that work collectively, use a paint color card – they’ve been created by consultants who know pair based mostly on color science!
Décor
Consider your own home as an entire — by no means enhance a room or a nook in isolation. By no means soar on a development, both. You want continuity, circulation and magnificence that’s constant to make it actually highly effective. In any other case, it’ll really feel disjointed and complicated. Decide up on one factor that ties all of your rooms collectively. This might be yellow cushions – in my case it’s crops.
For extra small dwelling and color inspiration, go to @threeboysandapinkbath
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