You have some lovely ideas Jane, you definitely have an eye for design. I love your log burner, perfect for those cosy winter evenings. In terms of the wall colour I think a nice deep blue - the Little Greene paint company do a great Royal Navy colour I believe it’s colour 257,which would look fabulous. I personally think the blue would work on a feature wall with the remaining walls in a more subtle tone, like an off white or very light grey as darker tones can make the space look smaller. I like the idea of combining two types of chairs, I think this concept truly works - Vitra have been doing this within their lifestyle shots for a long time. I have had the pleasure of visiting the Vitra factory and campus based in Basel, Switzerland as part of my Vitra training and the love and craftsmanship put into each piece is truly phenomenal. A super addition to any home. I love your choice of using the Vitra DSW and DAW chairs, they are super comfortable and durable, a true classic that deserves your investment. With regards to dining tables, I think an Oak table will work brilliantly alongside the items you are working towards, I especially think it will tie in with your floor and kitchen area. Have you seen the Vitra EM Dining Table? The EM table was designed by Jean Prouvé at the beginning of the 1950s for the 'Maison-Tropique' project. With every single detail governed by its construction, the table follows the aesthetics of necessity. It illustrates the force vectors and static connections more commonly seen in the context of civil engineering works. EM = Entretroise Métallique. This table will sit perfectly within your space and work fabulously with the chairs you have been looking at. Like I have previously said you cannot go far wrong with Vitra; their brand ethics and the lifespan of the products are truly second to none. We have the EM table online if you wish to look at this in further detail. https://www.nest.co.uk/product/vitra-em-table There is also another company which manufacture some wonderful Oak extending Dining Tables, called Case furniture. They are a London based furniture brand and they work alongside designers like Matthew Hilton and Shin Azumi. An in-particular table that springs to mind for your home is the Cross extending table. The Cross extending table has received an Elle Decoration Award for Best in Furniture, won the Homes & Gardens Classic Design Award and was awarded the Design Guild Mark in 2008. Made from solid wood with a veneered chamfered edged top, it has two extendable leaves to fit the entire family. https://www.nest.co.uk/product/case-furniture-cross-extending-dining-table We currently have a sale on the entire Vitra & Case furniture collections at the moment. Our Summer sale ends in 6 days to make sure you don’t miss out! Check out our site for some great inspiration. Alternatively I am always an email away. My email is Ashlee@nest.co.uk, I am more than happy to help you with any further interior advise or product specification. I hope my input and advice is helpful to you Jane. Have a wonderful day, Hope to speak to you again soon. Ashlee

I like both white limestone and carrera! I had a similar dilemma a couple of years ago, and ended up getting neither - I found a stonemason in Wiltshire who does Bath Stone. It’s a rougher and creamier stone - but I went with the Bolection design, and it looks stunning. I realise it’s not for everyone, however it’s another option, and I think it could look great with the red! http://www.curtisfireplaces.co.uk/

I live in a converted church so a bit different but love our high ceilings and exposed beams, gives a wonderful feeling of space. We also went up into the beams in our utility which for a small footprint gave us room for a ceiling drying rack. You might want to look at a Doca pole if you decide to go for the vaulted design (an extendable dusting pole) some of our ceilings are 6 meters high and the spiders will have a party if not regularly disturbed, the pole makes it easy.

Hi belz2000, I’m no expert on acoustics, as we normally work with acoustic consultants on larger projects with acoustics requirements, but I write here things I know from my previous experience dealing with acoustics issues in residential and educational buildings. The Building Regulations requires ‘internal floors provide reasonable resistance to sound’. It could be complied if the performance is as defined in the Approved Document Part E ‘Resistance to the passage of sound’. The performance is defined as follows. New-builds: 45dB minimum for airborne sound insulation and 62dB maximum for impact sound insulation. Conversions: 43dB minimum for airborne sound insulation and 64dB maximum for impact sound insulation. It might well be the case that your school conversion housing doesn’t meet this requirement, so the first question would be that if you could take a legal route to rectify the problem. Again, I’m no legal expert, so you need to speak to a legal professional for this. Assuming you and the owner of the flat above are leaseholders, if the party floor structure is defective, is it really your neighbour’s fault? You wrote that your neighbour upstairs had been to court over this (on what basis?), and also wrote about ‘useless’ freehold and ‘the company who fitted it are complete crooks.’ So is it the case that a recent internal renovation work by the upstair resident caused the impact sound issue and you have already pursued routes negotiating with these parties with no luck? I’m not really getting the whole picture of what’s happening from your post above. You seem to be trying to reduce the impact sound by adding more materials on your side only, but as far as I know it’s not effective in principle because Air-borne sound and impact sound behave differently. Air-borne sound could be reduced well with dense and heavy materials separating two spaces, but impact (solid-borne) sounds would pass through these materials without much reduction. The two standard remedies for impact sound is to deal with the sound source floor from above. The first is to change the floor material to something softer. Carpet finish would reduce the energy of the impact sound, for example. The second way is to make a floating floor. Even the floor finish of your upstair flat is something harder than carpet, like timber flooring or some harder sheet materials, if there is a shock absorbing material under separating the floor structure below from the finish material without any bridging then it is effective. There are several products available for achieving this depending on the floor finishes. Unfortunately, both of these methods need to be done from above the floor in your neighbour’s flat. We had several cases where there was no access to existing flats below, as these were extensions upwards. We had to design non-standard floor buildups much thicker than usual. We have no previous cases where acoustic treatment needed to be applied from floor below only, but we could help you to investigate it. It would probably be a combination of insulation, resilient bars and acoustic boards. From here it’s a case by case basis to propose an appropriate construction buildup and details depending on the specific details of the current floor. You could contact us if you would like to discuss this further.