Max McMurdo’s Amazing Spaces, Motors & More!

Hate the thought of throwing things away purely because you don’t have the know-how or tools? Then help is at hand, in the form of TV’s top upcycling guru Max McMurdo, who has shared the spotlight with Banksy and recently starred as George Clarke’s sidekick, as the popular Channel 4 presenters collaborated to create a very personal caravan for gifted architect George to celebrate 10 years of ‘Amazing Spaces’. 

Celebrity Journalist Angela Sara West chats with Max about his magical makes and the TV pair’s ambitious caravan construction journey, while George tells Angela about a decade of “brilliant and often bonkers builds” by small-space pioneers.

If you’re looking for some small-space project inspo, you’ve come to the right place with this issue of Improve!

Aficionados of ‘Amazing Spaces’ have been glued to globally-renowned architect George Clarke’s latest design activities on their TV sets every Monday throughout January and February, enjoying the latest brave’n’brilliant (and sometime bizarre!) builds to blow us all away.

From a ‘floating’ glass-fronted eco-lodge, upcycled vintage bus and train-turned-school library by a truly-talented teacher, to a two-storey tepee-with-a-twist and an old horse-drawn caravan transformed into an extending, accessible space. Not forgetting the shepherds’ huts created from scratch by a teen mastercraftsman and half a plane converted into the ultimate crashpad, complete with the ultimate ‘boys’ toys’, including a jet engine hot-tub…

The latest series showcased some SERIOUSLY amazing spaces from budding and pro self-builders architects and designers alike.

At Home With Max Afloat

The six-month build of Max’s own houseboat saw Max swap bricks’n’mortar for life on the water. Having sold his house, he ploughed the £50k profit into his inspirational floating abode, created out of a 40ft shipping container, its fixtures’n’fittings all made from upcycled materials.

Having set his sights on uncharted waters to live mortgage-free, the eco designer constructed his built-from-scratch houseboat, bursting with nifty space-saving wonders and inspiring gadgets a-go-go too, Max’s crafty skills and incredible imagination saw him conceptualise and create an eco treasure trove with astonishing abode afloat, moored in Bedford marina.

Sustainability isn’t just about upcycling, it’s also about reducing the items we need and consume, he says. “I was determined to build a floating home that was affordable and sustainable and my entire home is entirely upcycled, from the actual container itself, to the scaffold-board flooring, pallet-wood wall and copper pipework.”

Now boasting a bedroom, bathroom (with one tap which pivots to also serve the kitchen) and storage, the lounge comes with complete with a pop-up dining table made from a wash drum and unit made from an old suitcase, a gas canister-cleverly-turned stove/pizza oven, log burner and a much-coveted Eames chair, “Everything I need!” says uncompromising eco-master Max.

Everything’s controlled on a voice-activated app to ensure everything is switched off as much as possible. “I have an incredible infrared heated ceiling keeping me toasty while halving my heating bill, and the glass sliding doors harness the beautiful natural light which also creates heat.”

This simple solar gain concept is coupled with LED lighting throughout, while Max uses a hydroponic system outdoors.

“I love my natural surroundings, and a wall of bi-folding glass doors keeps me linked to nature. It’s my happy place!”

We’re all well aware that being eco-friendly an important way of life and for many a mindset change. Upcycling is fun, educational and saves not only the planet but your pocket, too.

Max aims to go totally solar and live completely off-grid. “Technology is now advanced enough to make this possible and affordable,” he says.

Green Benefits

It’s easier than ever to reduce your impact on the planet and Max says some of the best items he’s found have been sourced from skips. “Typically on industrial estates where businesses are paying to dispose of an item that is an upcycler’s dream!”

Turning his hand to almost anything – you name it, he’ll achieve it – this cool crafter of many-a-thing-of-beauty divulges top tips aplenty and innovative ‘make-do-and-mend’ ideas, inspiring us all to give a new lease of life to unused or broken belongings, bringing life back to old furniture, vehicles and more!

Max Bedfordshire-based small business Reestore produces phenomenal pieces for brands with a conscience, such as Marks & Spencer, for whom he created branded trolley chairs, and The Body Shop, who commissioned a bath chair called ‘Anita’ after their great, late founder, Anita Roddrick.

Transforming trash into something stylish and useful with a whole new look and feel, the fantastic fixer teaches the techniques to transform neglected items into show-stopping pieces, be it an old banger, wonky bike, leaky bathtub or something else – he’ll do his best to better it.

From Spaceships To George Clarke’s Sidekick!

A skilful mini Max started turning junk into treasure as a child, crafting washing up liquid bottles into spaceships. Growing up, his parents naturally led a non-wasteful lifestyle, so being frugal is in his DNA. “We grew our own veg, reused everything we could and tried to fix anything that broke. I guess my design style is to incorporate those core values with a stylish, contemporary twist.”

Having studied Product Design and Visualisation at uni, Max fulfilled his boyhood dream and became an automobile designer in Germany, kickstarting his career designing cars in Cologne, where he observed the country’s efficiency at reuse and recycling. This German inspiration intervened, seeing him so inspired by beautiful items of waste that he quit his job, purchased a VW camper van, and returned to the UK intent on creating a business utilising waste destined for landfill.

In 2002, Max started up his own company to design, engineer and manufacture bespoke creations from junk, transforming trash into treasure in the form of high-end furniture with the aim of proving that upcycled furniture, accessories and eco-friendly products from objects destined for landfill can be turned into contemporary, stylish and desirable objects.

Enter the Dragons’ Den…

The recycling whizz set up his Reestore upcycling company, had several design awards under his upcycled belt and had featured in gallery exhibitions galore before he rose to small-screen fame.

No stranger to our screens these days, Max’s first TV appearance saw him face the Dragons as he entered the BBC’s fiery ‘Dragons Den’, showcasing a few of his innovative products, including upcycled supermarket trolley chairs and a carrier bag recycling bin, in hand. Quickly snapped up by the BBC Two BAFTA-nominated show’s investors Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis following his perfect pitch, he coolly left ‘The Den’ £50k in backing better off. “I still keep in touch with their teams and families!”

Max x Banksy: ‘Show Me the Monet’!

The Bedford-based furniture designer was subsequently beckoned by world-famous Sotheby’s auction house client to produce some of his shopping trolley chairs for a collaboration with Banksy for an exhibition and auction, with both pieces of art provoking viewers to consider the environmental impact of our throwaway, capitalist culture.

These days, he’s a highly influential, go-to TV presenter for product design and repurposing, personifying the whole craft recycling ethos and presenting it in a way that inspires even the most eco-resistant crafter. “I love that upcycling is accessible to everyone in some form, and is a positive, fun solution to our environmental issues,” he tells me.

Working With The Stars… Sarah, Kirstie & Gok

This sensational upcyler has had several other small-screen sidekicks. Max’s amazing talents have seen him on many a TV show…

A debt-free Max also aptly co-presented C4’s show ‘How To Live Mortgage Free’, influencing canny homeowners alongside architect Damion Burrows and property expert Sarah Beeny. Other credits include co-presenting C4’s hit show ‘Shed of the Year’, while a crafty Kirstie Allsopp soon snapped up natural presenter Max, too, whisking him away to more sustainable TV stardom on C4’s ‘Fill Your House For Free’. Dubbing him ‘The Furniture Hacker’ due to his amazing ability to make “something out of nothing,” Kirstie eventually handed over the repurposing reins to Gok Wan, seeing Max continue on the show with the gifted fashion guru’s team of upcycling experts, including Jay Blades and Nessa Doran O’Reilly, encouraging Britain’s families to embrace saving the pennies, and the planet, through easy upcycling.

Celebrating 10 Years of Amazing Spaces

2023 marks a huge milestone for ‘Amazing Spaces’, with 10 years of the nation’s small-space trailblazers showcasing their skilful labours of love. From incredible treetop hideaways, to stunning stargazing observatories, proving anything is possible, even the most eccentric ideas come to fruition on ‘Amazing Spaces’.

Constructing a Caravan from Scratch

But back to the drawing board and the brand-new series of Amazing Spaces saw seasoned homes and architecture presenter, Max’s buddy George, unreservedly tearful as he recounted his fave family memories inside a much-loved family caravan he brought back to life 10 years ago.

The pioneering presenter renovated the original green 1979 “big tin can” caravan on a plot owned by the National Trust in the strikingly attractive Lake District for the very first series of the popular show.

Many a worn-out caravan has been modernised on the show, but George’s brand-new caravan would be built from scratch and one with a personal twist. Rather than simply hopping aboard the caravan conversion bandwagon, he’s been on a massive mission with Max to bring Arts & Crafts into his small-space holiday home. Above all, it was a ground-breaking build with family at its heart…

Out With Old, In With The New

Our nation’s obsession with mini homes away from home means we all need to build green in the current precarious climate, and with that in mind, George commissioned Max to max out on the eco credentials with this build.

And George’s journey from old to new saw the arty pair cook up an ambitious caravan build, with a “bonkers barrel ceiling” idea… The capable pair sure had their work cut out!

Arts & Crafts Aplenty!

George took inspiration from one of his favourite design styles – the Arts & Crafts movement of the 19th century.

“It captured EVERYTHING to do with the home,” George explains. “It was such a romantic, beautiful period of architecture, which rejected the Victorian manufacturing for the spirit of medieval craftsmanship.”

Developed in the late 1800s in the UK, this magical momentous movement was influenced by the Lake District art critic John Ruskin and much-loved world-renowned designer William Morris.

Following a downturn in public taste in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and its mass-produced banal decorative arts, before going global, the English aesthetic Arts and Craft movement of the second half of the 19th century saw reformer, poet and designer William Morris found a firm of interior decorators and manufacturers dedicated to recapturing the spirit, quality and style of medieval craftsmanship in 1861.

Stepping Back In Time at Blackwell

The new series of ‘Amazing Spaces’ saw design duo George and Max visit Blackwell House, a rare architectural gem in the heart of the Lake District which offers a perfectly preserved snapshot of the movement and early 20th-century living…

Designed by noted architect Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott and completed in 1901, this stunning Grade I-listed building is one of the UK’s finest examples of Arts and Crafts architecture, all topped off with remarkable views towards the rousing Coniston Fells.

Exploring the house and discovering the Arts & Crafts story, George showed Max and viewers an abundance of original features, furniture and objects by leading Arts & Crafts designers and studios.

Boasting cosy fireplace inglenooks and inviting window seats enjoying second-to-none views of the surrounding Lake District scenery, Blackwell retains original decorative features, including a rare hessian wall-hanging in the dining room, leaf-shaped door handles, curious window catches, spectacular plasterwork, stained glass windows and intricately carved wooden panelling.

Following a guided tour by George of all the ornate features he was keen to capture in his caravan, the presenter tried to persuade Max that many elements of arts and crafts of early 20th-century living could work well in a caravan.

“They were fantastic ideas but bringing them all together to create a caravan was kind of stressing me out!” Max divulges. “There was all the electricity and plumbing and manoeuvring it – ecology, structural design and sustainability to think about, too.”

Condensing Arts & Crafts into a Caravan

Despite Max’s concerns that the style wouldn’t work inside a caravan, after a tour of the breathtakingly beautiful Blackwell House, George convinced him that it could.

“We had to turn all the conventional ideas about a ‘cheap, boring, temporary’ caravan on their head,” George explains. “I knew we could transform it into something beautiful… Space-saving built-in furniture, fitting tightly into the corners, decorative detailing, fabrics and textures… And, excitingly, wonderful coloured stained-glass, leaded windows… all of the things that I love.”

From imagination to reality, the TV sidekicks sure had their work cut out with this crafty caravan creation! 

Making Your Mark

Whether you’re designing a caravan, garden room or something else, Max and his pal George portrayed a novel way of visualising your build…

Marking out the max space of 11 metres (30 ft long, 9-foot wide) under caravan rules, we watched in awe as the creative duo worked out where the windows would go to make the most of the incredible views.

Plotting out the blueprint by spray painting the outlines of the caravan and its rooms directly onsite, designing it from the inside out on the ground it would stand on, saw Max running around marking things out with white paint and traffic cones.

Front door here, shower room there… once all spaces were drawn up, the design specialist sent up a drone to view it from the above so they could check it out from the sky.

Both were now happy that this all-new handcrafted forever caravan would make the very most of the delightful Lake District views from the inside, while making minimal impact from the outside.

Reestore HQ

The layout sorted, it was time to get to the tangible work at Max’s Bedfordshire-based studio, Reestore Towers, where he and his talented team transform everyday waste items into beautiful home accessories and functional pieces of furniture.

Designing and manufacturing upscale handcrafted furnishings for the home, office and retail sectors, upcycled makes range from roll-top baths transformed into sofas and desks produced from aeroplane wings, to bigger bespoke builds from buses, not forgetting shipping containers, of course! Max and his top team can seamlessly effortlessly transform any small space.

Building the Foundations

While George was really fixated on the details of William Morris-esque Arts & Crafts, Max says realistically, the most important bit was the foundation. With a wood base and foil insulation board down, Max then layered the rest of the non-flammable insulation, making it as sustainable as it is cosy.

“The third and final layer of insulation was made from thousands recycled plastic bottles,” Max explains. “It’s awesome! The location of the caravan sees a lot of extreme weather conditions, and this type of insulation keeps the heat in during the winter when it’s cold outside but also keeps it cool in the summer.”

“It’s going to be one of the warmest caravans in the world,” smiled George.

With a solid, insulated floor on top of a metal chassis, “That was the easy bit!” says Max. “One of the most exciting and nerve-wracking parts of this build was that George wanted to integrate Arts & Crafts and lots of intricate-detailed heavy stuff into what is, typically, a lightweight portable caravan. William Morris didn’t make caravans for a very good reason!”

Nailing the Structure

Having beavered away on the base, Max and his top team moved smoothly to make more magic happen…

Having created and erected the first section of the metal framework on the sturdy base, both Max and George then got to work on adding the walls, using super-strong SIP panels (structurally insulated panels) which come pre-insulated, making them super ultra-sustainable and easy to install. The clever panels were also robust enough to withstand moving the completed caravan from Max’s workshop to onto its site.

Knocking it into shape, the biggest design challenge for the project was George’s innovative idea to create a dramatic barrel-vaulted ceiling inside the square-pitched roof – the most important part of the build.

At 3.6m high, the pitched roof in place allowed George to properly visualise his dream holiday home.

Having nailed it with the structure, would Max rise to the challenge of creating George’s unconventional idea cathedral-inspired barrel-vaulted ceiling?

“Conceptually, I thought it was utterly nuts!” reveals Max, to which George retorted on camera, “That’s why we should do it!”

“I really loved his vision, but the reality of turning that dream and idea into something tangible made out of wood was a big ask…” continues Max. “But I thought it would be worth a shot.”

Ahead of the Curve

After making a prototype of a mock-up of party of the barrel-vaulted ceiling, gratefully approved by its commissioner – “It’s beautiful!” George exclaimed excitedly on first sight of the model arch, making Max’s day (and year!) – the creative genius got to work big time… on all whopping 36 feet of it!

To shape the wood, Max immersed himself in the mammoth task of making a curved frame, into which he clamped thin lengths of wood, before gluing further layers on. “It’s called ‘lamination’,’” George explains. “It was a painstaking process and the whole thing could have sprung apart as Max removed the clamps.”

And there were no fewer than 12 of the huge, time-consuming curves to create, with each taking around 24hrs to make.

“It was quite a stressful process… all because George loves a curve!” adds Max. “I didn’t tell George that I’d never done glue lam before. But it worked! I was really chuffed.”

Divine Inspiration – From Cathedral to Caravan

While Max was busy building the exterior shell, George went in search of some divine inspiration for the interior at one of the jewels of the northwest, Carlisle Cathedral.

Founded during the reign of King Henry 1st, the cathedral celebrates its 900th anniversary this year. The gigantic grand building built from beautiful red sandstone adorned with saints and gargoyles boasts an outstanding roof – pitched on the outside but arched on the inside. “Its heavenly barrel-vaulted ceiling was restored and repainted in 1856 by one of the forefathers of Arts & Crafts, architect Owen Jones,” George explains.”

This awe-inspiring larger-than-life ceiling influenced his “very small, humble” caravan’s own. “There was some design method to my madness,” he explains. “I looked at that cathedral’s huge ceiling and thought, ‘How wonderful and magical and surprising would it be to have a simple caravan with a simple pitched roof structure on the outside, blending in brilliantly with the landscape, but you come inside and it’s a different world… with a BEAUTIFUL barrel-vaulted roof!’”

While George was singing its praises from the rooftop, Max creating a curved internal ceiling inside a solid pitch roof could be an engineering nightmare, seeing Max hit the roof!

“Elegantly built, it’s got to last the rest of my life…” insists green-minded George, to which Max braced himself for one of the most challenging builds of HIS life.

“So, is this your retirement caravan?”, asked Max as they filmed. “Yeah, you’re building a George Clarke OAP caravan.”

Heavy Metal Cladding

The handcrafted mobile home now boasting all four walls and a roof, neither Max nor George had attempted metal cladding before, but that’s what George wanted up next, to ensure the exterior of his holiday home was spot on… not just in colour inspired by the surrounding landscape, but also in its sustainable material, making sure it lasted him for rest of his days.

A Learning Curve

With more tools in the TV channel’s toolkit than you can shake a spanner at, Max and George still managed to pick up new skills along the way…

“A lot of people love learning new skills, working with friends and family, getting creative and being proud of their creations, too,” says Max.

Caravan cladding taught the competent pair of presenters some crafty new techniques… Crafting metal cladding is a skilled craft, usually carried out by professional standing seam metal roofers. The pair were shown how to use a profiling machine to shape the flat metal into useable cladding. “This special bit of kit adds a whole load of rigidity,” explained Max. “It was flimsy going in, but solid coming out.”

“It was actually amazing!” added George. “A bit like making pasta… I love that machine…”

With no room for error in getting the first panel vertical and perfectly aligned, it was imperative to get that initial one of the 120 accurate and straight, before securing them together with a special seam scrimping machine, which Max described as “like a Cornish pasty maker”. “It was a satisfying task!  We were told by the pro that our panels were nice and flat, the seams even and well folded, and graded a 6 out of 10 – my best grade at anything!”

Celebrity Holiday Homes In The Sun

This isn’t the first holiday home Max has made… he’s also made his green mark on hit show ‘Cash in the Spare Room’,  helping people turn their disused spaces into money-making holiday lets and kitted out fellow TV presenter Julia Bradbury’s famous ‘£10,000 Holiday Home’ in Portugal, also shown on C4.

Who did she call to give her a hand? The upcycling genius who gives junk and cast-offs a completely new and fantastic lease of life by transforming them into exceptionally useful products, of course!

Sustainability was hugely important for eco-conscious Julia when renovating her Portuguese pad in the sun, so she called on maestro Max to give her rundown cottage a makeover and junk and cast-offs a completely new lease of life by converting them into exceptionally useful products.

With designer/engineer Max’s innovative approach, Julia’s humble tumbledown cottage is now a chic, superbly functional holiday pied-à-terre, and he ensured her revamp remained within the strict £10K budget.

It’s Outlandish! Max on the Road… Blue Light, ET Bike & Other Projects

Max kept busy during the pandemic, too, making his own mobile home to enjoy exploring the UK. “I upcycled an old ambulance into a sustainable, solar-power camper van.

He’s also been creating a classroom out of two rusting shipping containers and tells me he’s currently building a flying car and the bike from ‘ET’!! Out of this world….

To top it all off, Max has also seen success as an inspiring author, releasing his successful book, ‘Upcycling: 20 Creative Projects Made from Reclaimed Materials’. Bursting with inspiring ideas and projects, and spawning a second, ‘Upcycling Outdoors’, which also flew swiftly off the shelves.

Watch out for his new TV show ‘Tool Club’ – coming soon!

The Real Street Diaires

Max also speaks at schools to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs and eco-warriors, and off-camera, the altruistic designer actively assists his local community by helping to inspire street gangs to get off the streets of his hometown of Bedford.

He’s now hoping to continue that work ON camera, with myself and pioneering Scottish TV director and former soldier Alfie McArthur. “I’m really looking forward to working on this new reality TV show!” he tells me. “It’s going to be great getting more kids fired up about designing and engineering and to introduce them to other skills, too, which they’ll hopefully then pick up and feel passionate about. Ideally, they’ll then land a great job and, consequently, a better life. Watch this space!”

Exterior & Interior Panelling

Back to Bedford and George’s brand-new caravan build, and the exterior sorted, wooden timber panelling was then installed on this the inside to give the caravan an authentic Arts & Crafts look.

He and Max brainstormed unique techniques to build the “beautifully elegant and simple” space-saving built-in writing desk on George’s wishlist for the bedroom, ensuring it integrated completely into the custom-made caravan design.

It took no time at all for multi-award-winning Max to pull a blinder of a plan. The engineering expert extraordinaire came up with a genius engineering masterplan for a fully-integrated, space-efficient desk, doubling up as a George’s required writing area under the window, resulting in a strong desk-style structure ingeniously hidden within the panelling.

“The panelling itself forms the supports. It hinges out and the panelling becomes fold-out legs to support the desk. This was a case of the panelling initially posing a problem, but it actually became the solution!”

Getting into the Groove…

As for the built-in benches, “Getting the tiny details right is SO important,” said George on screen, to which Max retorted, “It’s ‘trial and error’, George, not science!”

Eventually decrypted, “I genuinely really, really love it,” said George, “Because that’s what it’s about – testing out wood details of the armrest edging until we cracked it.”

Slating the Kitchen

To keep his caravan kitchen as Cumbrian as possible, George cooked up the cool idea of cutting a slice of slate from the landscape where his caravan is located.

Visiting his mate’s slate mine, the last working one in England, whose slate has served Buckingham Palace and St. Paul’s Cathedral, buried deep underground in the majestic hills of Honister, he cut out his bespoke kitchen worktop from a large chunka ‘clog’, a five-tonne slab located in the 11 miles of subterranean tunnels, famous for their green slate, caused by magnesium chloride.

Hammer Time

Carving out his worktop took hard hats and hardcore drilling machines, before inserting ‘plugs and feathers’ (actually metal wedges) to cause it to split, and then hammer time!

Using a chisel and swinging a hammer, George split his very own slice of slate in his carefully chosen colour from the 450 million year-old material, before cutting, polishing and fitting it into place in its new hospitable home.

“It was absolutely fantastic, and you can’t get more of the landscape than getting a piece of slate worktop directly from the mine,” he said.

Bringing Nature In

On his quest to create a one-of-a-kind Arts-and-Crafts-inspired caravan in the Lake District, George and Max included many of the movements major design elements, from wonderful wood panelling, to stained-glass windows, plus his personally patterned textile design to cover the coveted barrel-vaulted ceiling, creating a cosy feel to the caravan.

George’s caravan was also influenced by his visit to reportedly the UK’s most authentic example of a Arts-and-Crafts home, in London’s Hammersmith. which was owned by Arts and Crafts greatest designer, William Morris’ good friend, typographer and antiquary Sir Emery Walker.

Bursting at the seams with nature-influenced Morris prints, too, George was beyond inspired, taking away fabrics, wallpaper and pattern inspo aplenty.

Motif-wise for his hand-drawn Morris-inspired fabrics, George co-designed the perfect personal textile, figuratively and abstractly showcasing his love of tree canopies and butterflies in an indoor field of green.

“The secret to making it genuinely Arts and Crafts is all down to the details and bringing the fabric to life,” he says.

The Power of Paint: Making The Most of Mother Nature’s Colours

Inspired by its location, the caravan’s colour scheme was created by a very clever cutting-edge approach to nailing the exact colours that blend right in with your natural surroundings, with the inventors, Cameron Prentice, a photographer and his and multi-disciplinary designer/visual artist partner Alex Longson assisting George and Max to pinpoint the perfect colour palette for the caravan.

The crafty arty duo came up with an innovative idea of identifying the ideal colour scheme dreamed up by pioneering hi-tech service of a company which uses landscape photography and photoshop to create customised colour palettes/swatches for designers.

“It’s like adding science to art!” says Max.

Command+I Coniston Colours

The creative colour pair together run Command+i Magazine, a unique title which explores our natural world through colour combos, drawing inspo from evocative portraits of locations and curating unique palettes that can be used by designers, from graphic and interior, to products and fashion, to inform their work.

Alongside showcasing the depth of the natural colourscape, command+i also adds a rich geological context to each location. Generating customised colour palettes, the ‘Travel Guide to Colour’ at commandplusi.com personalises colour schemes to stunning swatches pinpointing specific small pixels of colours and shades in the pictures of the natural environment, resulting in colours that are completely unique to a particular landscape, inspired by its exact natural colours and hues.

The beautiful bespoke ‘Golden Summer Greens of Coniston’ palette was carefully curated by Cameron & Alex with George Clarke’s Lake District caravan in mind, seeing George and Max capturing the colours of the area’s landscape on camera before enlisting the pioneering services of Cameron & Alex, so George could perfectly blend his new caravan in with the immediate surrounding Lake District landscape.

A Cutting-edge Caravan – The Big Reveal

The final episode saw the finishing touches applied, followed by the big reveal of George and Max’s completed amazing space…

Time for the grand tour, and the series’ finale revealed every last incredible detail…

Built-in benches inspired by those George admired at Blackwell House have been beautifully crafted by Max with his cutting-edge tools… joinery perfection, teeming with tiny touches simple and elegant style giving it the edge.

Opposite the entrance in the middle, a compact shower room complete with a sink and toilet lies adjacent to the small kitchenette, boasting that worktop cut out from the Cumbrian landscape where the caravan is located.

Incorporating Lake District textural products, such as Honistor slate and brass, another Arts and  Crafts material, George had also commissioned and helped design beautiful bespoke small stain-glassed window apertures celebrating the Arts & Crafts movement, showcasing four classic, timeless and original geometric panels of seasonal change through spring, summer, autumn and winter designs.

A Heavenly Arts & Crafts Haven

The living area at the front facing the lake enjoys built-in seating which can be cleverly converted into full-size adult single beds at night – day beds for chilling and proper beds for the kids at night. While George’s perfectly panelled bedroom with Queen-size bed hides Max’s brilliant folding writing desk facing the soothing stream seen through a window at the back.

On their mission to build a brand-new caravan like you’ve never seen before and George’s unique forever home, these two didn’t just create it, they ‘smashed it’!

“That archway running all the way through the entire caravan, it doesn’t get much better than that, it’s beautiful”, says George. “A unique Arts and Crafts caravan in Cumbria…,” Max tells me. “What a way to celebrate our 10th anniversary!”