With its cedar cladding, glass walls and open plan layout, Jon Doughty’s riverside home is a vision of modernist architecture. Nestled on the banks of the River Thames in Berkshire and surrounded by established trees, it’s hard to believe that this stylish property was once a neglected 1970s family home.
Here, we speak to our customer Jon – a designer and property developer – about his award-winning renovation of The Boathouse and why Minima’s aluminium sliding doors were central to his vision.
The property was in a tired state when we bought it and ready for a complete refurb. We also felt it needed a rethink in terms of design and layout. We wanted to create a sense of the outside and inside of the house being integrated, with floor-to-ceiling aluminium sliding doors throughout the ground floor. We built two large extensions and knocked things around inside to create a new open plan living space downstairs, and a large new master suite on the first floor. In all, we added 50% to 60% to the existing floor area.
I’m really picky! All the other suppliers I looked at had a downside, and then I came across Minima at a show at the NEC and the product just felt right. The design details were well considered, I liked the team, and the costs were reasonable. The only other product in Europe I found which was as good as Minima’s cost three times the price!
But the overwhelming reason for choosing Minima was that they met my brief in terms of maximising our views. It was imperative for the design to integrate the house with the garden, and only way to do that was to make the windows disappear. Minima’s minimal sightlines, the sheer size of the panels, and our use of pocket corner sliders were central to this. It means that when we’re sat on the sofa with the windows open, we feel like we’re in the garden, with all the wildlife around us and the sounds of the river bank.
Really great. Nothing was ever too much trouble. The Minima installation team were a good bunch. They arrived when they said they would, did what was needed and resolved any issues that arose. They were also great at working around the other trades.
It has to be those times when the sliders are all open and the pocket doors are pulled back to open up the house to the garden. The living space grows from 2,000 square foot to something approaching 1.5 acres! We have a 13-metre run of triple sliding doors across the rear of the living space with sliding pocket doors at each end. A cantilevered roof allowed us to remove any columns at the corners, so the outside literally becomes part of the inside. It’s allowed us to have a wonderful indoor/outdoor style of living. We’re not just looking at the view, it’s as if we’re within the view, and we love that.
Absolutely. In fact, I already have done many times. They’re my go-to windows for any project of this style, and I’ll be using Minima again myself on future projects.
Read more about Jon’s property development here.And if you need help with your own ‘Grand Designs’ type project, do give us a call to talk about Minima’s market-leading aluminium sliding doors.