Living Design is a small NHBRC registered company owned by Wendy and Derry Holmes specialising in the creation of beautiful homes, typically from old and ordinary houses. Whilst they also take on the building of new houses, Wendy’s passion lies in the transformation of houses from ordinary to spectacular, her main strength being her vision and ability to see potential in old buildings and to creatively convert them to suit her clients’ needs. She is also a very ‘hands on’ project manager thereby ensuring surprisingly short construction programmes but at the same time controlling quality and cost.

Derry is a civil engineer who assists with the engineering and structural requirements of building –  sometimes making sure the house remains standing after Wendy knocks the walls down!  He also does project management consulting having managed numerous large projects such as water supply schemes, office buildings and industrial developments and road projects over the years. He recently represented the architects on the airport expansion project and is currently managing a project for the investigation of sites for nuclear power stations.  

The process of renovating a house starts with meetings and interviews with clients to ascertain their needs followed by numerous iterations as the concepts grow from preliminary ideas in hand-drawn sketches through to formal drawings, submissions to council and approval. As soon as plans are approved Wendy’s team gets stuck in and transformation begins at an alarming rate, with all the various sub-contracted trades lined up to perform their functions under close supervision. Budgets are tightly managed and costs are kept as low as possible by Living Design including their management fee in the building cost and not adding a mark-up on their other subcontractors’ and suppliers’ prices, thereby passing on their builder’s discounts to the clients. 

Wendy’s involvement doesn’t end with the completion of the building as she assists clients with selection of finishes and even with advice on soft finishes and gardens if required.

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