Visionary Lofts London

Loft Conversions South London

(Music playing)

Emily: My name’s Emily and this is my husband Jamie, and we live in Brixton with our 3 children, Audrey, Jude and Hector.

Jamie: And when we bought the house, it was a 3 bedroomed house, and the 3 kids have all shared the same room, but we kind of knew we were going to outgrow it, but when we bought the house 6 years ago, the plan had always been we’d go up in the loft, where we hoped we’d be able to put in 2 bedrooms and turn it into a 5 bedroomed house. The boys still share a room. Audrey gets her own room – our oldest daughter. And then yet we still have some spare rooms for family and friends to come and visit.

Audrey: It feels really good to have my own room because after sleeping with the boys for ages, like having to share with them, it’s cool that I can have my own little space, you know.

Emily: When we first, um, started doing a building project on this property, which was our kitchen side return. That was when we first had experience of having builders in the house. So that’s sort of how I’m able to sort of compare directly the experience of having the team at Visionary Lofts around. They did everything they were supposed to be doing, and, um, at a really good rate. And it felt very professional – previously, when we’d had our side return, you do notice the constant stopping (laughing) for tea breaks, and um, things slowed down at certain points, and maybe sometimes because of organisation, things aren’t quite progressing at the timescale that you would like. And that is something that was just so different with Visionary Lofts, because they were so on it.

Jamie: Well, we know with JP and Kasia, that by a certain date we would have needed to have made a decision on something, and that then allowed them to order it, which meant that when they needed to build it, it was here and ready to go. Whereas, I think with the previous company that we used, um, whilst they did excellent work, um, you know, things took longer and things slowed down because you know, you would come in and the question would be “so have you got that window?” and we’d say, no, no, no, that was one of the things you were going to get. “Oh, alright, well, we haven’t got it, so we’ll order it now and we’ll go off and get it”, and then that just means that there’s 3 days when that’s not happening. And there may have been other things that could’ve been done at that time, but ultimately that project ended up in a bit of a frustration between us and the builder, where what was supposed to be maybe a 12-14 week project, ended up taking closer to 18 or 19. And I would put that down, largely, to the sort of time management, project management, that was nowhere near as good as JP and Kasia’s, where it was: “you need to order this by today or it’s going to be delayed”. And it wasn’t a… there was no kind of confrontation in that, it was…

Emily: It was surprise, because you had a lovely spreadsheet that showed you when you were supposed to have done that, and um, you know, you were always just constantly informed on what you had to do at any given time. And things like, when we came up against frustration in our last project, was that the electrical plan. There would be one day where we would turn up say, ah! So that’s where the plug sockets are going to be then! With no real, kind of consultation…

Jamie: No consultation…

Emily: …and asking us, um, whereas we had a very substantial amount of time spent on the electrical plan for this project and it’s made all the difference, you know. We’re now like: we’re never going to be short of a plug, are we? (laughing) A plug socket.

Jamie: But we’ve got them where we want them.

Audrey: It’s all worth it. It’s really worth it because well, Kasia and JP, they were both really, really nice. And I really like them. And the builders were also really nice, but they didn’t really talk a lot, they just got the work done, and they did it really quickly, but really well.

Emily: Professionally, there was no stone left unturned. They were just so brilliantly organised. Everything was presented so professionally and beautifully, and um, and with – and I’ll probably keep saying this – but with huge attention to detail …

Jamie: Yep…

Emily: … and they wanted to really, truly, sort of, understand how we used our house now and how we were looking to use our house in future…

Jamie: And there was no way that JP and Kasia were going to leave the end of the build with us not having what we wanted. Whereas, I think, there was that with our first builders, there was a sense at the very beginning that it was yes, we can do this, we can do this, we can do this… and as it went on and it was longer and longer, and it was costing more money on labour for them and potentially hitting into their profit margin…

Emily: They lost interest at that point…

Jamie: …then things. Then things stopped.

Emily: Where the opposite has been the case with Visionary Lofts because there will be things where they’ve come in and looked and said “Do you know what? That’s not absolutely perfect; I’m not really happy with that” and where JP has seen something, and I’ve been like oh, well I suppose that could maybe be a bit… “No, we’re going to do that again. That could be better” So, that’s the level of attention to detail and you know, really believing in absolutely nailing the project.