Big plans, small space: Khoollect HQ is getting a face lift

It’s a new year with new plans, and plenty of them.

It’s been a bit of a mad start to the new year. The Khoollect team has been homeless for most of the month (BIG thank you to RE-UP who housed us) due to a mouse problem…and unfortunately not the cute Minnie Mouse kind. The whole place has now been exterminated and scrubbed clean, and the team are back at their desks. Earlier last year we did a little redecorating and re-organising to make the space workable, but now it’s time to get serious.

In 2017, the plan is for the team to move out again (and not because of some unwanted furry guests this time) but because Khoollect HQ is getting one serious makeover.

Our previous office in East London was my home (catch the kitchen on my YouTube channel) and this place also needs to be a multi functional space: a home, an office and a photo/film studio.

Current Khoollect HQ floorplan

If you read my post about my dream Khoollect HQ you’ll know that this has been in the works for a long time coming. The space I have to work with is fairly limited. It’s a 52-square-meter ground floor flat in a Victorian terrace house with a small garden. The focus is not necessarily the outside or making some grand architectual statement (I neither have the budget or the vision to do that) but really to maximise the interior space.

Proposed Khoollect HQ floorplan

This project is on a street-smart budget, so a standard side return extension seemed to be the most cost-effective and simplest way to minimise the planning permission paperwork (just got that through). Swapping the bathroom from the end of the flat to the middle and extending to the side will create one large space to house the kitchen/living space that opens out to the garden. The ornamental fireplaces are coming out too, giving me the option of one long wall space in both the front and the back.

The space inside has to work really hard. The question is how to arrange the space to make sure it works for all of these requirements. Our new space must have:

• a desk space for five people (ideally five individual spaces rather than one communal table)
• a quiet space for meetings
• a kitchen that is perfectly functional for recipe development and filming
• a white studio space suitable for filming/shooting
• the flexibility to function as a home (two bedrooms with storage space for my private belongings)
• plenty of storage space for all purposes

Follow Khoollect’s board The new Khoollect HQ on Pinterest.

Pinterest has been a great help for inspiration so far; but, in true Khoollect manner, I’m now searching for inspiration in unlikely places.

Do you know of a cool designer, carpenter or interior architect? Or, maybe you’ve done an extension or similar project and have some wise words from the experience. Either way let me know, I would love to hear from you!