It can cost as much, or sometimes more, to do a small residential project as a large commercial one. That’s why larger practices don’t do small work, and why so many smaller projects are either done by tiny practices with low overhead or use design details that get re-used over multiple projects – a way of aggregating the overhead.

Sometimes you feel you can’t say no to a tiny project, however. This small residential infill scheme was for a high-profile commercial developer with whom we’d worked before and hoped to work again, so we took it on with an eye to that larger commercial scheme we thought would be down the road.

The client appears delighted with the result – which you’d think would be good for us - except that they’re now spending so much time in their refurbished home that they’ve closed their London business – and their interest in those ‘larger commercial schemes’ we were hoping for.