The conversion of 5 Melville is complete, and the new purchasers have moved in to make the apartments into their new homes!

Over the past year and a half, we have been working in close collaboration with our Client, Main contractor - SJS, Structural Engineer – David Narros and QS - Axiom to deliver a truly unique and beautiful conversion of an A-listed building into 5 luxury apartments including a new build portion extension and dramatic roof top terrace with 270 degree views of Edinburgh.

It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable but also testing project with complexities that are part and parcel of working on existing buildings of this sort. Expecting the unexpected, we collectively navigated the little surprises that the building yielded in the early stages of strip out and alteration – treasure was found in the form of original dumb-waiter pullies, cogs and weights along with historic newspaper articles and small objects.

Special collaborations with Kitchens International, Catalog Ltd, Hatti Pattisson and Arusha Gallery produced a distinct product which set the development apart from others on the market.

It was a pleasure working with Dixie and her team, along with Hatti, carefully choosing fabrics and art to coordinate with the overall interiors.

Elegant fixtures, exposed structural elements and colour schemes were employed throughout, with slight tonal changes to each level making them unique in aesthetics as well as spatially interesting. Apartment 2 is particularly special, with an innovative solution to facilitate the formation of a second bedroom as well as providing borrowed natural light into the entrance hall through a high-level glazed pod, cleanly cutting into cornice.

Apartment 4 on the top floor boosts beautifully restored roof trusses as one of its main features as no original cornicing was present at this level.

Flat 4 on the top floor boosts beautifully restored roof trusses as one of its main features as no original cornicing was present at this level. A disguised specification to this unit is a roof terrace capable of receiving a 3-person hot tub should anyone wish to crane it up there!

I hope the new occupiers love the apartments as much as I do!

Emily