Designed From Drawings, Not After Completion
A Project By: Tanith McKenzie
Location: Wedmore, Somerset
Project Summary:
Full interior design and space planning for a 3,500 sq ft contemporary new build in Wedmore, Somerset. Working alongside the client’s builder from the earliest stages, I shaped every architectural detail from lighting and joinery to socket placement before blending the clients’ existing furniture with new pieces and styling throughout.
Project Detail:
When my clients told me they were building a 3,500 sq ft new home in Wedmore, Somerset, my first question wasn’t about paint colours, it was about the drawings. Getting an interior designer involved at build stage, not after practical completion, is what makes the difference between a house that looks finished and one that actually works within the built environment.
I joined the project early enough to work directly with the clients’ builder on the architectural detail most homeowners never think to ask about: lighting plans, joinery mockups, and the exact location of every power socket. Decisions like these are easy to overlook until you’re living with a floor lamp with nowhere to plug in, or a kitchen island lit from the wrong angle. Getting them right at drawing stage saves cost, saves rework, and saves the client years of minor irritations.
From there, the brief expanded into full interior architectural design and space planning across the whole property. I worked room by room, establishing sightlines, proportions and flow before a single piece of furniture was chosen because a beautifully specified sofa in the wrong spot is still the wrong sofa.
The clients weren’t starting from nothing. They had previously used me to source furniture for their rental property, and much of that collection had genuine character worth keeping. Rather than replace it, I built the new scheme around it pairing existing pieces with new furnishings, fixtures and styling so the finished home read as one considered whole within the built environment, not a patchwork of old and new.
Colour and material choices leaned contemporary and warm, avoiding anything that felt cold or showroom-like in a 3,500 sq ft space that needed to feel like a family home first. Every specification flooring, tiles, worktops, sanitaryware, ironmongery was chosen to support that brief rather than chase a trend.
Throughout, I pushed the clients further than they expected to go: bold colour, statement choices, furniture they wouldn’t have picked on their own. Decisions like these are far easier to commit to on paper than in a showroom, and that trust is the real deliverable on a project like this not just an interior, but the confidence to make choices that hold up long after the build is finished.
The result speaks for itself in the client’s own words: “The way she worked with our builder, creating lighting plans, joinery mockups, even locations of power sockets… Tanith constantly put us outside our comfort zone, but we couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome, and she truly created something really special for me and my family.”
For the developers and builders reading this: the lesson from Wedmore is the value of bringing a designer in at drawing stage, not snagging stage, a lesson that applies well beyond this one project across the built environment. Interior design isn’t decoration bolted on at the end it’s part of the technical build, and it works best when it’s treated that way from day one.
