Honest answers, before expensive decisions.
I write about the questions clients actually ask, answering them directly rather than deferring them to a meeting. Twenty years across architecture, interiors and kitchen design, applied to the decisions that cost the most to get wrong.
The blog
Do you actually need an extension?
Often, no. Most houses that feel too small are planned wrong, not built too small — and extending is the most expensive way to find that out.
Read this piece
Where to spend and where to save in a renovation
Spend on what you touch daily and what is hard to change later. Save where nobody will ever notice.
How to renovate a period home without losing it
Work with the building’s logic. Retain what is irreplaceable, change confidently where the house has already been changed.
What to do when you don’t like your architect’s plans
Trust the instinct, then test it professionally. You are not obliged to build drawings because they exist.
Why architecture and interiors should be one decision
Every architectural choice is an interior choice. Splitting them is where houses lose their coherence.
Should an architect see a house before you buy it?
A survey tells you what is wrong today. An architect tells you what the house could become, and roughly what that takes.
More pieces are being written — on feasibility, planning, kitchens in old houses, and the customer journey behind commercial design.
Ask me directly →
The advice comes first. It always has.
Most people planning work on a substantial house are making decisions worth six figures on information worth very little. These pieces are the parts of my thinking that don’t need a fee attached — read them, use them, and call when a conversation would help.
Camilla Monk · BSc (Hons) Bath · BArch Liverpool · RIBA Part 3 · ARB 076180J
Still deciding?
My first conversation with you is free. You do not need a brief — the property and the problem are enough.
Start Your Project