CASE STUDY / THE JUNGLE ONE
A jungle themed bedroom for two young siblings.
The brief was to design a bedroom featuring raised sleeping platforms, a night nanny bed and for a rainforest/jungle theme.
The house was a large, modern architect designed home in the exclusive, private Battledown area of Cheltenham. The house and grounds were finished to an extremely high standard.
Following a site visit and some time spent with the customer we drew up a few concept sketches.
Our customary iterative, back and forth design process honed these ideas into a coherent plan and we agreed on a scope of works.
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One of the standout features was to be 3 large wooden columns, acting as tree trunks and as focal points for the whole design. Using actual wooden posts was considered, albeit briefly, and we soon agreed that we needed another plan. We ended up building an armature onto which we fixed a layer of flexible plywood. Onto that we applied a solid wood veneer. It was a remarkably strong design and more than up to the task.
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The original design had simple wooden posts acting as railings for the top bunks. While this would have been fine we decided it needed more. The decision to use real bamboo was put forward and, despite the massive amounts of extra work we felt that the final look would be worth it.
We needed to securely bond the bamboo to the railings (these are a key safety feature of the bed and needed to be bombproof). This resulted in cutting the bamboo to length, measuring the top and bottom diameters and cutting corresponding recesses into each railing. Each piece of bamboo being a unique diameter meant we had a lot of measuring, marking and cutting to do!
We spent quite a while searching for the right door handles for the wardrobes and nothing really grabbed us.
So we decided to make our own.
Added in as a surprise freebie (who doesn't love a surprise freebie!) we 3D printed a set of custom bamboo door handles. We were nervous to reveal this aspect of the design, and we had a backup set of 'off the shelf' alternatives just in case, but the customer was absolutely delighted with the look. As were we!
Installation took place over a full week on site. The house was very much being lived in and so keeping ourselves as unobtrusive as possible was key.
We mounted the upper platforms to the studs behind the walls and bolted on the 3 'tree trunks'. The rigidity this produced was very pleasing.
The bamboo railings went up and provided even more stability to the whole and a couple of days were spent fitting the wardrobes and finishing the remaining paintwork
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And then we were done!
A really fun project and the customer was over the moon.
Arguably better than that (controversial) were the various other tradesmen working on various bits of the house all coming in to marvel at what we were up to. The highlight was the high praise bestowed upon us by half a dozen Italian marble fitters, all the way from Milan (at least we assume it was high praise - our Italian was as good as their English).
This project is still ongoing as we will be back to add in the additional staging and props. Our concept render for how this is going to look turns an already amazing room into something other worldly:
After speaking with several companies, I decided to work with the team at Dibs and Trilks for my children’s nursery, and it was absolutely the right choice.
It was important to me to find a company that would listen to my ideas and create a design that truly suited the needs of our family. From the very beginning, Bill and the team took the time to understand my vision and developed a concept that perfectly brought it to life.
Not only did they deliver exceptional craftsmanship, but they also carefully selected the right materials to achieve the exact finish I was looking for. Throughout the project, they were professional, accommodating, and considerate, working around our family routine and the children with minimal disruption.
The team also left the nursery spotless once the work was completed, which was greatly appreciated.
I would highly recommend Dibs and Trilks to anyone looking for a high-end, bespoke bedroom or nursery for their children. The quality of their work and attention to detail are second to none.