Ireland’s #1 Spatial Interior Designer Eleanor Clarke, Reconfigures The Existing Space Of Entire Houses To Save The Homeowner Building An Unnecessary Extension And Still Achieves A Home They Need
Why Extend When You Can Amend!™
Design Smarter Not Bigger
Cobelis Design Studio is owned and run by BA Interior Designer Eleanor Clarke based in Dublin, Ireland. As Ireland’s #1 spatial interior designer, Eleanor specialises in reconfiguring the existing spaces of entire houses, making better use of the space to save the homeowner building an unnecessary extension. A huge part of this is prioritising where and what to concentrate your budget on, to ensure you are spending your money wisely.
Eleanor focuses on making better use of your existing space first to save you hundreds of thousands on the cost of building an unnecessary extension, transforming your poorly designed house so you can feel comfortable and content in a home you are proud of.
Why Eleanor?
The problem is many architects and design & build firms over prescribe designs because they make big money telling homeowners they need to extend to achieve the home they want, but in many cases reconfiguring your existing space is all that is required to do achieve the home you need.
While most architects and designers look to build you a new space at a greater expense, Eleanor uses her expertise in space planning to unlock the full potential of your misconfigured home, correcting the four space planning design fundamentals: the flow, functionality, circulation and connection, to reconfigure the existing space of your entire house for home to work smarter for you. You don’t always need to built space.
The Importance Of Space Planning?
It doesn’t matter how luxurious and fabulous your finishes and furnishes are or how amazing your home looks from the outside, none of these can compensate if the interior space planning of your home does not work. This is because space planning is the most important step within the interior design process, it is the foundation of what your interior design is built on, you can not afford to get it wrong. Just like the skeleton of your body, space planning are the bones of your design, you don’t notice either when they work but you know all about it when you a break a leg. It is about defining how the space will be used based on what will suit your needs. Space planning influences how you will move around your home comfortably and with ease, it considers the relationship between you and each room through the four design fundamental elements, the flow, function, circulation and connection.
“For me, design is not about the ‘pretty picture’, it is about how your home works for you, the bones of it, the structure, how it makes you feel and ultimately how you feel in your home.” – Eleanor Clarke
Why Does It Go Wrong?
The #1 cause of budget over runs when renovating your home is when homeowners rush into the design phase before completing their research and analysis. This research benefits both the homeowner and designer as each get a better understanding of eachother before decisions have to made. When this upfront research is not completed, communication is lost and assumptions are made, resulting in a misdiagnosis and resulting in the most costly long term mistake people can make, having to settle for the wrong design. This reconfiguration outlines the danger of how you can be misdiagnosed the wrong design when you do not understand how your layout will work for you.
Is Your Home Working For You?
Eleanor has worked with clients throughout Ireland who have gone from feeling overwhelmed, frustrated and living in complete disarray, to gaining clarity on their options and enjoying a home they are proud of.
If your home is not working for you, let’s have a chat. Book a free ‘Clarity Call’ with Eleanor, to discover how you can save thousands on your renovation and still achieve a home you need.
What People Are Saying
We approached Eleanor in Cobelis with feelings of frustration, annoyance and becoming over whelmed with our design process, in the hope we would receive new found direction. The background of our story is we have an old cottage where we approached an architect, which designed a fabulous design but was out of budget. We felt we were not listened to, it got us excited but it wasn’t possible and also the design wasn’t suited to our site, which was hard to get our head around. In a moment of despair we found Cobelis, Eleanor just got us, we had a long consult and Eleanor came back to me with what I could only call the lightbulb moment. Our design finally made sense, a smaller footprint that was more manageable saving us thousands.
Eleanor’s design just made sense and we were almost annoyed we hadn’t done this earlier. We will be forever grateful to her and would highly recommend her for reconfiguring your spatial needs.
Aine O’Sullivan
‘While we loved our house we knew it could be better, the house just wasn’t working for us. We had plenty of space, but it wasn’t being well utilised. A small dark kitchen at the back with barely enough space for two people in it and a sunroom that altered between freezing cold in the winter and sweltering hot in the summer. We knew there was a huge amount of potential in the house, but we couldn’t see a way to make it work for us. We weren’t sure whether we could get what we needed from the house, or whether we should start looking for something bigger.
We had spoken to an architect previously, but the project cost which we had gotten back was a multiple of our budget and while it gave more space, it still left us with questions, but we could see that we didn’t need an additional 40msq of space to the house. Our problem wasn’t really about how much area there was in the house, it was that it wasn’t been used in a way that met our needs.
We had heard from a friend of what service Eleanor provided, and the idea of getting more from what we had appealed to us. After looking at her website and the initial chat we were really excited about the possibilities. Eleanor was very engaging from the start of the process. She seemed excited by the opportunities that the redevelopment represented, which in turn filled us with optimism of what we could get from the project. Eleanor teased out the details of exactly what we really needed from the house, offering insight and guidance as to what could and couldn’t work, to designing (and redesigning) the plans to achieve the design we needed. We are super happy with the result of the project, and nearly three years of living with the new design we feel it really gives us what we need.
Before our redesign we were unsure whether we should stay in the house, now we are definitely at home here, for many years to come!
We absolutely love the house since the refurbishment, and we couldn’t have achieved it without Eleanor.’
Alisa Timis
We knew we wanted to change the layout of our house. We have a lot of space but are not using it to its maximum potential and kept going around in circles about the best way to improve our living space. We weren’t sure whether we were better off speaking to an architect, an interior designer, or simply a builder. We were daunted by the whole process and really didn’t know where to start. We had engaged with an architect previously but weren’t blown away with the ideas they came up with. We needed ideas and guidance that took all of our needs into consideration – space, budget, family dynamic, what we wanted to use each space for etc . We came across the Cobelis website and what Eleanor offered ticked all of the boxes of what we were looking for.
From our first meeting, Eleanor clearly laid out the service she provides, the steps involved, the input she needed from us and what she would provide us with. That in itself eased some of the stress we were feeling. Eleanor asked things that we hadn’t even considered could impact on our decisions, taking into consideration what we want for ourselves, for the children, the flow of traffic through the house, how the changes we make now would suit our lives in the future. Her approach of providing plans that wouldn’t work is a brilliant way to eliminate the “what if” feeling and confirm that the final plan is the one we definitely want. And the 3D imagery brought it all to life in a way we didn’t expect and provided a visual of what could be which was amazing. Eleanor also provides the option to revisit the plans one more time to make any changes which is essential as it is good to have time to reflect on them and make sure it’s exactly what we want.
We are now in the process of receiving quotes from builders (who were very impressed by the plans Eleanor provided) and we can’t wait to start making Eleanor’s plans our reality.
John Howlin
After being through a number of consultations with various companies, we were still unsatisfied with the solutions being proposed. However, after our consultations with Eleanor and going through the process with her, we have a much clearer understanding of what our needs actually are and what solutions make sense. Eleanor ensured that we really thought about what we wanted and why, and her proposals really make us feel confident that the design is right for us now and into the future as our family grows.
Catriona Addie