Pride Road Manchester

Lisa was the Architect who designed the extension to our House. It's a 1930's semi with limited architectural features and had a small kitchen with no sunlight at the rear of the property. Lisa's imagination and enthusiasm was instrumental in opening our minds to what could be achieved and with her help we now have an amazing, light and airy family room at the back of the house, a kitchen in the middle of the house (which we were struggling to imagine, but now absolutely love), and a small but perfectly formed downstairs loo.

My wife and I hired Lisa Raynes of Raynes Architecture to help us remodel our house and we're tremendously glad we did. We wanted to make substantial changes—walls were to move and chimneys to disappear, with something happening in every room of the four-bed house—and decided to look for professional advice after one of the builders we consulted looked at our own, hand-sketched plans and said "Erm...maybe you should think about getting an architect." We found Lisa via RIBA's directory and, over a series of meetings she got a feel for what we hoped the house might become and sketched out a series of imaginative plans that fit with both our hopes and our budget. She also helped us pick the materials: a job that would have taken us months of fretting and googling was pretty much finished in one agreeable late-afternoon meeting. Lisa and her team were cheerful, quick and inventive throughout the design phase of the project. And it all turned out even better than we'd hoped. The house is brighter, more spacious-feeling and much easier to use and to keep clean—an especially important point since, as we discovered, it takes rather less time to conceive and give birth to a baby than it does to navigate a big remodelling job. Our son was born after Lisa had made the final drawings, but before the building work started and so he'll probably only remember the remodelled version of the house. We still think of it as our "new" house and even now, two and a half years after the last builder left, are delighted by small, lovely touches everywhere: the management of light and the many kinds of beautiful glass are perhaps our favourites. Here are Before and After photos of the kitchen and main ground-floor hallway.

Completed a stand alone piece of art work that is our porch. A beautiful mix of coloured and textured glass in 6 x 10 foot encapsulated panels. It has given us much pleasure and numerous compliments.

Lisa was a joy to work with. Quick and efficient. I felt I'd been listened to and all my needs were met with the minimum of fuss. Perfect!

We have successfully worked with Lisa Raynes of Raynes Architecture on a number of projects, we have created an excellent rapport and work really well together as part of a professional team. Lisa is knowledgeable and is able to transfer the clients ideas and dreams onto paper, much to their delight. She takes a practical approach to common problems and her personality enables her to easily engage with all clients and provide practical solutions.