Kirstie Allsopp, co-presenter of property TV shows Location, Location, Location and Love it or List it, sparked a 'feud' with Janet Street Porter with her comments in an interview with the Daily Mail recently. She said that she would "stop the building of detached houses", leading to a storm of criticism by internet commentators on X and elsewhere who called her a hypocrite - and worse.

But honestly, Kirstie was right, with one small asterisk. I will explain why she was right and what that asterisk is in this article.

It was a conversation with the director of a local building contractor over a cup of coffee that inspired me to offer Preview Studio's new visualisation only service. He told me a story about a recent meeting with a client of his to look over a set of architect’s plans. "I was standing with the client in their kitchen with the plans out open in front of us. I looked at the drawings, and then out at the room, and said 'so that wall over there is coming down, and then we're going to create a new opening over there', pointing at different walls, and the client just looked at me blankly and said 'Are we? Is that what the drawings say?' He had no idea what was in those drawings".

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for visual inspiration, condensed summaries of our advice, and peeks behind the scenes of production here at Preview Studio. Estate agents, builders, interior designers and other industry professionals can now connect with us on LinkedIn, where we have begun re-posting our blog articles for you to read, share and comment on.

Do you own a flat that could be improved with some renovations - be that an extension or just an alteration of the existing layout - but you're just not sure what you're allowed to do because your property is leasehold?

The answers are contained within your lease.

For this guide we've teamed up with Darran Smith, a partner at Glovers Solicitors, specialists in legal matters around construction, commercial property and property finance. We will show you how to obtain your lease, what to look for in the text of the lease, and what to do next.

Retrospective planning permission is permission that is granted for development has already happened.  It's a simple idea, but there are a few important things to keep in mind if you are considering making an application for retrospective permission. In this guide we will explain how it works, when you might need it, and what to do if your application is refused.

Don't Move Improve, the annual awards for home renovations organised by NLA, is a force for good in the world of domestic architecture, alongside shows like Grand Designs and companies like The Modern House which promote the value of good design. DMI picks a handful of winning projects that spotlight issues such as sustainability and craftsmanship, but after diving deep into the most recent crop of projects I have become interested in what we can learn from looking at the 50-project longlist as a whole.

At Preview Studio we love the annual Don't Move, Improve! Awards organised by the NLA - a celebration of the newest and most innovative home improvement projects across London. While the deadline for the 2024 competition closes in a month, we look back at the 2023 submissions to pick out 24 ideas you should consider for your own extension.

The projects we've picked out from this year's awards include rear, side and wraparound extensions, loft conversions, garden rooms, and even a rare front extension!

Click on an image in the gallery for more photographs, plans, information about the architect, and our explanation of the big idea.

Embarking on a home renovation project can be both exciting and daunting. While writing our website and the other blog entries we realised how much architectural jargon we use, which could be off-putting to people don’t talk about buildings day in and day out! In this blog post, we delve into the language of home renovation, providing clear and concise definitions for important terms and phrases we use on our site, in our reports, and in our blog. We also explain why the term is important in the context of home renovation projects.

When we talk about "open plan," we're referring to a layout in which multiple functional spaces within a home, such as the living room, dining area, and kitchen, are combined into one open and interconnected area. One of the most common renovations is to take an older home with a traditional 'cellular' layout, with multiple smaller rooms, and remove walls to allow spaces to flow into one other, often combined with an extension that expands the living space. In this blog post we're going to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of changing a home in this kind of way.

When thinking of doing home renovations, creating a brief is crucial to help your architect turn your thoughts into designs. Coming from the architectural world, everyone talks about 'the brief' as if we all know what that means, but it isn't necessarily obvious. In this article we're going to first explain what a brief is and how it fits into the process of getting a renovation project done, then list five reasons why it is important, and finally give you some ideas of what you can include in the brief for your project.

An Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) is a summary of a standardised assessment of the energy efficiency and CO2 emissions of a property in the UK. Properties get a rating from A (best) to G (worst) and a score out of 100. The better the rating and score, the lower your energy bills are likely to be. Any building that is put on the market for sale or for rent in the UK must have an EPC, as do all newly constructed buildings.

Welcome to the brand new Preview Studio website!

Kirstie and I have been working on Preview Studio for many months now, and we are very proud to finally be able to launch our new website.