Wunda chats to Sports broadcaster Clive Tyldesley who, along with his wife Interiors PR expert Susan, began renovations on their kitchen and dining room of their Berkshire cottage during 2021 and finally completed the eagerly awaited projected in mid-2022. Two years on, we ask Clive to report back on the project and on his and Susan’s experience with Wunda UFH.
- Could you tell us a bit more about you home renno project. What was the brief? (this sets the scene)
During the first Covid lockdown, we found ourselves marooned in our own home and inevitably using our main rooms as different kinds of living spaces. Our home had a working kitchen that opened out into a conservatory that doubled up as a dining and entertaining area with a further separate space tucked around a corner that served as a small office.
The kitchen was dated, the conservatory wasn’t quite watertight and the office desk was under-used. In the enforced absence of visitors, we were able to take a completely new look at how best to utilise this part of the house with the best views of and access to our pretty garden and patio area. The vision was to knock these three rooms into one larger fabulous space that we could then transform into a social kitchen in which we could not only entertain friends and family when restrictions were lifted but also convert into a haven for working from home or just savouring ‘down-time’.
- Did you work with an interior designer?
Yes. We knew what we wanted as an endgame, but we didn’t quite know how to create it. Susan has more than 20 years’ experience and expertise in home interiors through her successful PR company that specialises in KBB in particular. Once we consulted with a highly-recommended architect, Tony Grover, to confirm that the necessary structural alterations were possible, Susan found herself with a totally new space to indulge her imagination. But experts in one field instinctively trust experts in another and she was committed to enlisting the help of an Interior Designer.
Alessandra Rua worked closely with us to match up our wish-list with the plans and products that brought the ‘vision’ to life. Cleverly enhanced by widespread use of beautiful white quartz surfaces for walls, floating shelves and worksurfaces, Alessandra equipped the enlarged kitchen without taking away any of the airy, luxurious feel of extra space that knocking down a couple of walls had given us.
She designed an appliance suite that accommodated ‘an American fridge’ and a bank of ovens but was subtly housed to perfectly complement the large kitchen island without in any way dominating the area. Sleek and contemporary, the ‘working part’ of the room is both pleasing on the eye without taking attention away from the stylish adornments that Alessandra used to give the kitchen an eye-catching polish and elegance.
Earthy neutral colours help to create a canvas for kitchen life that is embellished with splashes of artful colour from the green plants and a most personal touch – a dazzling portrait painting of Susan – which is the boldest gift I’ve ever given!.
A glass door pantry affords a cheeky peep into cupboard life! The walk-in larder (that our youngest son calls ‘the shop’) reveals just enough of its spices and oils to give you an appetite for what might be cooking tonight! It is both practical storage and adds its own personality and character to what is, by design, a contemporary space.
Another big wish for this renovation was underfloor heating not only for the kitchen, but also through into the hallway and downstairs cloak room that are integral parts of entertaining guests. This was the double delight of cosy warmth and instant finger-tip temperature control without the unsightly, bulky radiators that framed the old space. The sheer bliss of glowing warmth drifting up from the floor onto stockinged feet is a luxury item in itself!
- What’s your fave part of your renno project aside from UFH
Susan had her heart set on an induction hob though I would be the first to admit that I thought ‘induction’ was the boozy Freshers’ Week I enjoyed at university a long, long time ago!! I am no technophobe but my idea of a cooking stove had previously been something with knobs and a blue flame of warming gas. Not anymore!
Susan is a fangirl of induction because it gives her ‘TV chef’ control of whatever she is cooking. She can melt chocolate in the pan or sizzle steak on high heat with a perfect precision. Because the timer function is state-of-the-art too, she can confidently pop a casserole on to ‘bubble’ and set it to switch itself off. It’s an essential capability for the working woman and I am certainly not complaining!
It took me a day or so to get my heavy index finger aligned to the touch controls on the hob but I soon became a convert to the uncanny accuracy of induction control. Bringing soups, sauces and pasta to the simmer and boil with a mere slide of his digit is my new computer game! Burnt bacon is just a distant student memory! The induction hob’s space-age downdraft extractor fan is (almost) redundant.
But what I love most of all about the fruits of the renovation labours is the social returns on the remodelling of the main living space. It has changed our lives! The Sonos sound system that was fitted into the kitchen ceiling and the range of lighting in the room offers as much of a varied menu of moods and uses as the food preparation utilities.
If one of us is working late at the 8-seater purpose-built quartz dining table while the other sizzles the evening meal, the whole vibe is ours to choose. If we are prepping to welcome a table-full of supper guests for the evening, we can lay places, decant wine and set the temperature for the night together. They are lucky to have a snug and comfy lounge area just through the kitchen double doors but, since the refit, the party usually stays in the kitchen. I love it because it’s ‘our’ communal area now.
- You said you love having your UFH in kitchen for entertaining – what’s your go to dish?
We are definitely a loving partnership without fixed and stereotyped parts to play but I am not slow to accept that (so far!) she is by far the superior chef. I will always try and tell anyone that I stack the double dishdrawer far better than Susan does, but only as a matter of pride, not role-playing.
During the first lockdown, we went viral with a piece of video content during which I delivered a comedic sports commentary on Susan’s preparation of a tasty lasagne. Millions of worldwide views and likes can’t be wrong, Susan is just better at providing the action for Clive to put a voice to.
But – like any man that needs to occasionally draw on his survival instincts in extremis – I do purport to make a mean Bolognese. I would say I also (apparently) brew the ‘only cup of tea worth drinking in the house’ and I supervise the wine list to Susan’s unequivocal approval!
Susan is a great believer that a cosy house is halfway to being a home. She had already experienced underfloor heating at a friend’s home. She is a self-confessed ‘beach baby’ and while she would never claim that walking across a heated floor is quite the same as strolling along a Caribbean shore, if you close your eyes tight enough it’s the next best thing. To feel like every corner of your room is at that ‘most lovely temperature’ is the definition of luxury. When that luxury is affordable, ‘heaven’ enters the vocabulary.
If you are increasingly living, eating, entertaining and working in a particular space, the idea of warming that space with a source that is efficiently controllable and heats up quickly and precisely to provide the ideal temperature when the outside numbers are suddenly falling was important to us both. UFH delivered that and more.
If it feels good AND looks good, you can ask for no more. From a pure design perspective, UFH meant we didn’t have to factor in space for radiators to the look and delivery of the project. We immediately had much more design flexibility because the essential liveable warmth of the room was coming from an invisible place. We were ticking boxes without even seeing the boxes. Magic!
- How do you prefer to use your Wunda system?
We set our UFH on a daily schedule for every day of each coming week but!… we live in a (wonderful) country where very few days of the week are the same weather-wise. Having control over your own in-house climate is particularly important in a UK where the climate is delightfully variable. If the forecasters say the next ‘named’ storm is on the way, our ‘emergency action’ is to adjust the App!
If the seasons are behaving themselves… (If!)… we can predict the ‘on’ and ‘off’ for each morning and evening. It is set it to come on first thing in the morning (7am) for a couple of hours, so when Clive comes down to the kitchen to prepare Susan’s breakfast-in-bed, he is pouring Special K into her bowl in a sultry kitchen! We usually have it on 19/20 deg C (don’t want to burn my feet 😉!).
If it is predicted to be particularly cold (or warm!!), we can simply adjust numbers not behaviour. Those adjustments are made from the controlled comfort of a toasty bed or maybe on the way home from a night out in the back of a taxi. The Wunda Smart app on our phones enables us to set the temperature for our home life quickly, accurately and efficiently. If… and it’s a big if!… the British climate decides to serve up a delayed dose of summer for a few balmy October days, we can hit ‘off’ and save money and maybe even a tiny part of the planet besides. Wunda is win/win for everyone.
- Anything else to add? Anything on energy bills?
Comparing ‘now’ with ‘then’ is a difficult and complex equation. The world is changing in front of our eyes and so it’s not easy to match up bills ‘before’ and ‘after’ we installed UFH given increases in unit costs and energy price caps etc. The only thing we know for sure is that we have more control over our energy consumption than we ever could have imagined before the heat came from under our feet.
The functionality of UFH has actually put not only the control but also the responsibility for our energy consumption in our own hands. If the room we are occupying grows a little warmer than we anticipated, we don’t need to open windows but instead we just open our phone app. If we decide we are ‘just going to watch the News before bedtime’, we don’t need to run upstairs and turn a radiator on, we can simply wait until we want ‘another 15 minutes downstairs’ and then adjust both rooms accordingly. It’s up to us, but we have much more control over the UFH. It’s present versus past.
With precision temperature selection, we should not be using any more heat that we need. It’s our bill and our planet and we can take charge of the outgoings and our little corner of the world with UFH and the 21st century technology it gives us access to. It’s down to us.
- Can you tell the difference between the rooms with UFH and rads?
There is absolutely no doubt that the UFH in our kitchen beats the radiator heat in our bedrooms for both control and cosiness. If we were forced to live in only one room of our home sweet home… it would have to the kitchen! UFH gives us the ability to micro-manage our kitchen environment precisely and completely. Every corner covered. And we’ve got the sound system and the cookie jar handy too!
Radiators have come a long way. All 21st century hardware has. But, even with timer control, our bedroom radiators can wake us up in the morning with the noise they make to engage. Occasionally, one or two will require a bit of bleeding. They are almost human in their behaviour. UFH is not. It is easy to regulate and manage. Even when we are miles away. It’s Star Trek heating. The final frontier reached. One day all homes will be like this.
- Any regrets or things you would do differently one year on (in the renno not just UFH)
We are well aware that we are lucky to live in the home we do. The choices we have made during our ‘renno’ are not choices that are available to everyone. We have tried to make the most of our particular opportunities and our circumstances. There is an irony in that it was the tragedy of Covid that probably forced us to review our way of living in our own home.
Given those opportunities and circumstances, I am most grateful for the fact that we were able to maximise them by finding expert professional input from an architect, an interior designer, a builder and UFH expert (Wunda!) that listened to our wishes and needs and then respected our budget.
Like a live sports broadcast, a home ‘renno’ needs a good deal of thought, planning and preparation before it goes ‘live’. Plan ‘A’ is not always the best plan. You need to be flexible and adaptable during the process.
We never lost sight of the principal aim of creating a ‘home’ to live in and work in together. Entertaining family and friends is something we really enjoy doing but 320-odd days of the year, this is a refuge, a sanctuary for us and only us.
You can have no regrets when you are warm and snug and comfortable and ‘at home’ within your own four walls. When the floor is warm, snug, comfortable and homely too… you have discovered the X-factor that makes UFH a treat you do not ever want to be without again.