Hale and Hale Barns are a few minutes from the showroom, and between them they hold some of the most varied housing in this part of Cheshire: 1930s detached houses, substantial post-war properties, and a steady amount of new build and full replacement.
Newer and rebuilt houses tend to arrive as generous but blank spaces, and the interesting work is usually in giving them structure: zoning an open-plan ground floor with rugs and lighting rather than walls, and designing fitted joinery for kitchens, dressing rooms and media walls so the storage takes the shape of the room. Older Hale houses more often need the opposite: period detail kept, and a contemporary scheme built to sit comfortably alongside it.
Where a Hale project is a new build or a full replacement, it is worth involving us before the joinery is ordered rather than after. Wardrobes, media walls and dressing rooms are far cheaper to get right at the drawing stage than to adjust once they have been made.
The showroom is at York House, Vicarage Lane, Bowdon WA14 3BA, open Monday to Saturday 9am to 5pm. More about the showroom.
Giving a blank house structure
Newer and rebuilt houses in Hale and Hale Barns often arrive as generous but featureless volumes. The interesting work is putting structure back: zoning a long open-plan ground floor so it reads as several places rather than one, and giving flat walls some depth with joinery, texture or artwork.
Lighting does most of that work. A large open room needs several independent circuits rather than one, or it is lit as a single space all evening regardless of what is happening in it.
Older Hale houses
The 1930s and post-war houses want the opposite approach. The proportions are already good, so the aim is to keep the period detail and build a contemporary scheme that sits comfortably with it rather than fighting it or pastiching it.
In practice that usually means restraint in the architecture and confidence in the fabric, lighting and artwork. See the design service.
Questions we get asked
Which rooms do people in Hale usually start with?
Living rooms and open-plan kitchen areas, most often, followed by principal bedrooms.
Can you design around building work?
Yes, and it is better to be involved before the work finishes than after, while positions can still be changed.
Do you do fitted joinery?
It is designed here and built and installed by our partner workshops. See fitted furniture.