After renting for years, first-time buyers Emma and Adam Gritt have given their new build a colourful makeover with an industrial meets mid-century modern feel
Feature Karen Wilson Photos Katie Lee
INDUSTRIAL CHIC UPDATE
Welcome to my home
A BIT ABOUT ME
I’m Emma Gritt, 38, a university lecturer. I live with my husband Adam, 38, a graphic designer, and our French bulldog, Monty. You can see more of my home @style_the_hawthorns on Instagram.
WHERE I LIVE
Our home is a detached, four-bedroom new-build house in Leeds. We reserved the plot in June 2018 and moved in just before Christmas the same year.
WHAT I WANTED TO CHANGE
We didn’t choose many upgrades from the developer as they didn’t reflect our style and tended to be more expensive, so we picked the basic options with the intent to upgrade them later on. When we moved in three days before Christmas, there were concrete floors until we could get the flooring fitted!
HOW I MADE IT MY OWN
We’ve used bold shades of green, blue, yellow and pink alongside typography prints and scaffold board shelves.
Gradually, we’ve replaced our old furniture with new industrial and mid-century style pieces that suit our style better.
MY FAVOURITE PART
I love the office but it’s where I work, so that might be an odd favourite room! Instead, I’d say the kitchen diner as we spend a lot of time in there and it’s such a lovely space to walk into.
My story
When a new Redrow Homes development was launched near our rented home in Leeds, we put down a deposit straight away as it ticked all our boxes. I really wanted a detached property, as we had issues with noise in a previous home, and it was handy for the city centre and Adam’s job in Wetherby. We particularly loved the open-plan kitchen diner and I’d always wanted a separate utility room. Our only reservation was the lack of a hallway, but after viewing the same house type at another Redrow development in Huddersfield, we realised it wasn’t an issue.
We’d been saving up for four years to buy a property, but in this part of Leeds the older homes within our budget were wrecks and we’d have nothing left to do it up. With a new-build we could take advantage of the Help to
