Attic Conversion To Studio

Testimonial provided to About Space by Diarmuid Harte from Portmarnock, Co Dublin on 05-Nov-2008

When was the work done?
About October 2008.

What was involved?
An attic conversion. We had done quite a lot of work in the house last year with other contractors and we were still stuck for a bit of space. It struck to me that there was a lot of space in the attic we could use as an extra room. About Space looked after the entire conversion and we're very happy with it. I have it well setup now with a computer and telephone line. It'll be great for my artwork and my books.

How did you choose About Space?
My wife literally picked them off the Golden Pages. We met both Patrick and Dave. They showed us some photos of works they had done and we were impressed. The price seemed reasonable too.

Had you definite ideas in mind before you talked to Patrick O'Keefe?
We had plans and planning permission but there were still decisions up in the air. For example, I thought I wanted a little partition and Pat pointed out to me that it mightn't be the best idea. As it turned out his idea was the better one.

Did Patrick introduce new ideas?
Yes, they moved a bedroom door for instance to give a better space for the stairs going up and they did it very well. It wasn't something that had occurred to us. One of our neighbours has an attic conversion and the stairs cuts off the top of the door which visually isn't the best. Moving the door looks better and had the double benefit of giving us better wall space in the bathroom.

They also suggested fitting a handbasin as well with an under the counter heater which will be very useful for my painting.

How did the project run?
It worked out very well. They were in and out fast and they were very helpful. We found with some builders, we were afraid to make suggestions, but we didn't feel that way with About Space. They were very clean in their work and they cleaned up after themselves every day.

What was the biggest benefit to you of using About Space?
I suppose the fact that it's finished and I'm happy with how it went and with the result. There's always that element of uncertainty when you're going into a fairly major job on your home that you're going to have some problems along the way. But no, we didn't and the result is even better than we'd anticipated.

Their service was good and I found them very pleasant people as well.

Would you recommend About Space to others?
I would of course and indeed if they would like to bring anyone along to see their work here, we'd have no problem with that.

Any tips for other people?
Every case is different of course - maybe we should have thought about doing this earlier. This would have been a very useful space when our children were here. It would have been perfect for studying.