Renovation

Renovation

Site Context: Lush Mountains and Clear Waters - Anji is a city embraced by verdant hills and meandering clear streams, renowned as China's "Bamboo Hometown" and the birthplace of the "Two Mountains" philosophy. The site is located in the core area of Anji's Liangshan Future Sci-Tech City, built on a former industrial zone at the edge of the existing urban area. This former factory district is being progressively regenerated into the heart of the Liangshan Future Sci-Tech City.

New interior renders released by Studio Sofield - the firm responsible for the interiors of SHoP Architects' ultra-thin tower at 111 West 57th Street - reveal how the triangular icon is being reshaped from office spaces into a collection of homes. While the 1903-built structure is shaped strongly by its site and steel frame, its tapering geometry guides the plan of each unit.

A spacious backyard can be a relaxing sanctuary, but turning it into a functional, beautiful space often feels expensive. With creativity and strategic planning, you can renovate your backyard on a budget, creating an inviting oasis without breaking the bank. Keep reading to explore cost-effective ways to revamp your backyard, blending practicality with charm. Plan with purpose and repurpose Start by envisioning your ideal backyard-whether it's a cozy seating area, a veggie garden, or a play space.

Beal Blanckaert + 20 Category: Cultural Architecture, Educational Architecture, Refurbishment Lead Team: Nathan Gourcerol, Justine Laberenne Design Team: Beal Blanckaert Architectes Engineering & Consulting > Environmental Sustainability: Impact Engineering & Consulting > Acoustic: Vincent Hedont Engineering & Consulting > Structural: MBA Engineering & Consulting > Other: Becquart More SpecsLess Specs Beal Blanckaert Text description provided by the architects. The project involves the redevelopment of a former building that was once part of the industrial site of the Leonard Danel printing house.

If you live in an older home, chances are you've heard of a back boiler. These were popular heating systems installed behind fireplaces. They provided hot water and heating by burning gas or solid fuel. But today, back boilers are outdated, inefficient, and even unsafe. So, if you still have one, you might be thinking about replacing it. But how much does it cost to replace a back boiler?

The best bathroom retailers help your budget go further, offering designs that look bespoke without breaking the bank. And if you're after something more luxurious, there's no shortage of places to browse handmade tiles and beautifully engineered luxury vinyl flooring. Your bathroom design deserves flooring that not only looks great but also stands up to moisture, heat and everyday use. So before you order samples or head to the checkout, take a look at our guide to the best places to buy bathroom flooring online.

You want something that looks good, fits the space, and stands up to the unpredictable British weather. But when the options online are seemingly endless, it's easy to get lost between bespoke timber builds and practical metal designs. The trick is knowing where to shop. Thankfully for you, we've rounded up the best places to buy sheds online, from trusted high-street names to quality makers, so you can elevate your garden design and find an outbuilding that truly earns its spot on the patio.

If you've woken up with itchy bites and reddish-brown marks on your mattress, you're probably wondering how to get rid of bedbugs - and fast! These tiny insects live on bedding and furniture and are often brought inside via your clothing or other belongings. Thankfully, these pests are visible to the human eye, and the signs are fairly obvious, so it shouldn't be too difficult to tell if you have them - unlike other pests, like dust mites, which are too small to see.

"Everything was blue underneath, from floor to ceiling," says vintage dealer Robert Ropertz. It's just the kind of surprise one encounters when scraping through layers of paint and wallpaper in an 1865 building. Then, there's the crooked floors, crumbling clay plaster, and leaky roofs, all of which illustrator Andrea Weber and Ropertz, who is also a painter and preservationist, took in stride.

I'll call him Bruce. He's any of the 3.1 million Australians living in a house with a pool or spa. Over my long career in hardware, listening to the woes of so many Bruces, I've discovered that owning a pool is not all fun and bubbles at cocktail hour. In the beginning, it wasn't so bad. On first viewing his bayside property, Bruce already believed the agent's claim that by far the most desirable addition to any home is a pool.

For Marian and John Nash, the dream of owning an oak-frame home began over 40 years ago - that's when they came across a brochure on homebuilding and were captivated by an open-plan bungalow that featured in it. "We always kept that and said to each other that one day we'd build an oak-frame home that felt just as special," says Marian. "The oakwork in it had been done by Carpenter Oak, so when the time came, we naturally approached them with a view to them doing the same for us." The first stage of the process was meeting up with the company's architect, Ben Hancock-Parr, and it was only when explaining their must-haves for the house, that they realised their tastes had changed since their original oak-frame infatuation.

(Image credit: Getty Images/DamianKuzdak) With winter around the corner, preparing your garden is probably high on your to-do list - but before you grab your rake and trimmer, it's important to be wary of hibernating hedgehogs who could be hiding outdoors. Hedgehogs start to hibernate in late October to mid-November and tend to nestle down in places such as leaf piles, compost heaps, and under dense bushes - common spots where we often cut back or remove before the colder months creep in.

It was the faceted pink counter tiles that first caught our attention. We also loved the cloud of flowers hovering over the café. And the lime-washed tranquility of the guest rooms crowned by century-old moldings. That was before we learned that Rotterdam's 14-room Hotel âme is beyond boutique: it's a mom-and-pop establishment owned and created by Angel Cheung-Kwok and Manfung Cheung. The couple purchased the 1867 building pre-pandemic and devoted years to shaping its new guise.

We're longtime fans of the ofuro, or Japanese soaking tub, both for its good looks and promotion of rest and relaxation at the end of the day. Here are 10 in-situ favorites, ranging from traditional hinoki cypress wood or darker teakwood baths to Western-style ceramic baths in Japanese-style wood wrapping. Above: A hinoki wood bathtub in the Rudolph Schindler-designed Hollywood Hills home of designer Pamela Shamshiri.

India's palaces and former colonial warehouses are witnessing a new kind of restoration, one that happens beneath the surface. From discreet steel supports tucked behind centuries-old masonry to digital sensors embedded in frescoed ceilings, technology is quietly reshaping how heritage buildings are protected for the future. These upgrades are more about subtle precision and less about spectacle; invisible engineering wonders.

The Barbican is a maze. A beautiful brutalist, multi-levelled maze of crisscrossing walkways in the sky - but still a maze. In a way, that's part of the cultural institution's charm, always leading visitors to discover surprising corners of the site. There are, however, a few downsides to the Barbican's labyrinthine layout. Sometimes you'll try to meet a friend before a show and find yourself at the opposite side to where you're meant to be (or worse, in the car park).

The First Unitarian Church of San Jose is one of the city's oldest and most picturesque houses of worship, with the Romanesque building overlooking St. James Park originally constructed in 1891. And today, after a $2 million renovation, the building is looking better than ever. The congregation and its church building have had a long and storied history in San Jose, with its members speaking out on social causes.

It's easy to achieve a sleek, polished look when you're working with chrome, and, thanks to its reflective nature, it can even help to brighten up your space and make it appear larger than it really is - particularly when combined with these modern lighting ideas. Pretty and practical, this durable finish is also long-lasting, making it a sensible option as well as an attractive one.

Cristobal Palma + 39 Architects: IDOM Area of this architecture project Area: 39592 m Completion year of this architecture project Year: 2025 Photographs:Cristobal Palma Brands with products used in this architecture project Manufacturers: ChileSeating Category: Stadiums, Renovation Architects Authors: Borja Gomez, Cesar Azcarate Collaborating Architects: Agostina Sambataro, Carmen Prada, Clara Guzman, Diego Rodriguez Segura, Felipe Vergara Galleguillos, Fernando Garrido, Jose Manuel Pando de Prado, Manuel Bouzas Barcala, Maria Francisca Navarro Valenzuela, Samuel Araneda, Simon Lucas Morgado, Tomas Santiago Perez.

Whenever you move into a new place, there are often unexpected little surprises in the home that you missed during your initial walk-through. That being said, Threads user @chrisxvargas probably didn't overlook this random nook. He is now asking people to help him figure out what to do with it:

In the current real estate landscape, outdoor living is no longer an optional upgrade; it's a required feature. Buyers are craving spaces where they can truly live and entertain, and few additions deliver that experience-and the corresponding increase in home value-quite like a well-designed outdoor cooking area. In fact, choosing to build a custom outdoor kitchen transforms a basic patio into a premium, functional extension of your home. It's an amenity that significantly elevates your property's standing, giving you a competitive edge when it's time

The future of Britain's green home revolution could hinge on one thing - the price of electricity. A new report from Mitsubishi Electric warns that unless power costs are reduced, millions of homeowners will be unable or unwilling to make the switch from gas boilers to low-carbon air source heat pumps. Despite growing public concern about climate change and strong interest in greener heating, electricity remains far more expensive than gas, creating a financial barrier that could derail the country's net-zero ambitions.

The deconstructed industrial kitchen is made from concrete blocks, larch plywood, and stainless steel and outfitted with an eclectic mix of Japanese kitchenware.

The Sol LeWitt piece was a gift from Beracasa Beckman's mother, Veronica Hearst. "It's a fantastic piece of art because, in reality, what you buy is a document with the IP, so you can take a paper document with instructions and execute it on a large wall in any space," she says. (Technically, the two cubic rectangles are a section of the complete 1989 LeWitt work, Wall Drawing 604H, which consists of five rectangles.) With a laugh, she adds, "It's really the easiest way to travel with very large art."

Practical and pretty: Tawashi brushes made from the fibers of the windmill palm have been used in Japan for centuries. For 70 years, Takada's artisans have been handcrafting tawashi brushes one at a time, using materials harvested from trees cultivated in Wakayama Prefecture, in southwestern Japan. "While scrubbing brushes are usually rough and thick and made of synthetic fibers," the company says, "tawashi brushes don't scratch the surface being washed.

The Studio Museum in Harlem reopens after seven years on 15 November. Its new home was created from the ground up on the museum's former footprint at 144 West 125th Street. The first purpose-built space in its 57-year history, the 82,000-sq.-ft building was designed by Adjaye Associates with Cooper Robertson as executive architect-the two teams also collaborated on the recently opened new Princeton University Art Museum. The Studio Museum's $300m price tag-fully fundraised, almost a quarter from public sources-includes construction, operating costs during closure and a $50m endowment (the institution's first).

When we renovated and extended our house, around 10 years ago now, we were on a tight budget and, given that we had no option but to stay living in the property with two children under four, wanted to get it done and dusted as quickly as possible. Having said that, building an extension while living on site with limited means meant that the whole thing still took around four years from start to finish - you'd have thought that would mean that we got everything we wanted from all our efforts, particularly given that we did most of the work ourselves. Not so.

Ahead this weekend? A dreamy, easy guest room; DIYs for the autumn table; and our undying love for both stationary shops and garden clogs. Read on: Above: Rest your eye here. Photograph by Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen courtesy of Norm Architects. Styling by Pernille Vest from Guest House No.16 in Denmark: Norm Architects' Seaside Retreat Inspired by Hammershi Paintings. Alison Roman's First Bloom popup: now open in New York City.

Their speciality came about thanks to a convergence of talents and interests: Remco worked for his uncle's camper business and has carpentry skills, and Naomi, a graduate of Design Academy Eindhoven is an experienced product and interior designer. They have three young kids and like to roam the Dutch countryside themselves in a tricked-out van. Which is how they started designing their own and offering their services.

Originally Springmount came with a cottage attached to its grounds as well as an outdoor dairy,