Discover the Durham Design Studio Putting the North East at its Heart
Winning the Start-Up Award for Durham, Sunderland and South Tyneside at the North East Business Awards 2025, SPELK Studio design and create small-batch furniture, kitchens and interiors inspired by the local area. Living North learns more
Run by husband and wife team Kelly and Graeme Smith, the pair both come from design backgrounds and SPELK Studio was born from their own interior design journey, beginning with a few simple pieces of furniture made following Covid when Kelly opted to not return to teaching. ‘I developed [SPELK Studio] over the course of a year or two, and then Graeme decided to take the plunge and come on board which was great because it meant that we could expand more into kitchens and interiors – that’s Graeme’s specialism.’
The studio flourished as the pair worked in tandem, using the North East as inspiration for their work. ‘I think the most important thing is that it remains fun when it’s become a business,’ says Graeme, and Kelly agrees. ‘It used to be something that we squeezed into the margins of our life. Now that we’ve gone full time we do it every day which is great.’
While the North East remains a source of pride for the pair, it also comes with its own limitations. Accessibility was a key hurdle that SPELK Studio aimed to overcome. ‘We bought our own house and started decorating. When we couldn’t find the furniture that we wanted, we designed our own and had it made,’ explains Kelly. ‘It made you think, if we can’t find it then there are other people that can’t find it,’ Graeme adds.
‘It was about being able to get things at a more affordable price. We were looking at really nice pieces from big brands in London and we just couldn’t afford them. That was ultimately why we started making some of our own furniture. We knew what we wanted but it was just a little bit out of reach,’ says Kelly. ‘We wanted to bring that level of design and the option of personalisation to that middle market,’ Graeme expands.
‘The colour of a Barbour jacket, or the Angel of the North. There’s all sorts of different colours that we’ve taken inspiration from’
A love of the North East is a central pillar of the work at SPELK Studio. ‘We’re both passionate North Easterners and we are really proud to be from this area. There’s some absolutely world class stuff that happens in this region,’ says Graeme. Inspiration can come from the most unexpected places, and each piece pays homage to the hidden corners of the North East.
‘The first furniture range was the Social Club range, inspired by the furniture that you will still see in some northern social clubs,’ Kelly explains. ‘That very heavy, solid furniture. The kind the miners used to sit at and have a pint after they’d been down the pit. There are still a few of those pieces knocking about.’
Even details like colours can be traced back to the sights of the North East. ‘It’s things that we see around us like the Tyne pedestrian tunnel which has those fantastic sea foam green tiles,’ Kelly says. ‘The yellow that the buses used to be in Newcastle when we were kids, or the red of the lighthouse at South Shields.’ Graeme continues, ‘The colour of a Barbour jacket, or the Angel of the North. There’s all sorts of different colours that we’ve taken inspiration from the region to put into the palette that we’re working on.’
With such a wealth of creative inspiration to draw on, do the pair pay attention to changing trends? ‘We do pay attention to trends but a lot of what we do is timeless,’ says Kelly. ‘We’re very much focused on things that you can enjoy living with for a long time. One of my dreams is when I’m a very old lady I’ll go into an antique shop and there’ll be one of our tables from 2025 in there.’
Beyond furniture, SPELK Studio also work with clients to design their dream homes and individuality is at the heart of their process. ‘I think with interiors it starts with the home itself and the people who live in it. So it’s very tailored to their needs,’ says Kelly. ‘It’s about enhancing their lives and helping them live the life that they actually want,’ Graeme agrees.
Still, locality remains a priority. ‘I think the design sector is very London-centric. Even designers up here are buying stuff from the big companies in London. We just started to think we really should be trying to spend our money up here.’ Graeme and Kelly feel a responsibility to support other local makers, from cabinets hand-built in County Durham to bespoke curtains from Newcastle and independent upholsterers. ‘The North East is such a rich seam of creativity,’ Graeme says. ‘We’re trying to be as responsible as we can because I don’t think there’s really an alternative anymore.’
SPELK Studio are also putting in the work to give back to the local design community, after finding that there was little in the way of networking events for like-minded creatives in the North. ‘I think it is really underrepresented in a national sense,’ says Kelly. ‘What we need is something where all these people can get together, talk, share information and do business together. One of the things that we’re currently working on is a networking event in the North East for people who do things relating to interiors.’ Provisionally taking place at the Northern Design Centre this January, Kelly hopes the non-profit event can become a regular meeting place for independent creatives in the local interiors scene.
SPELK Studio is also preparing to release a new quarterly newsletter highlighting some of their favourite local collaborators and their work. Beginning as a way for Graeme and Kelly to share their own work, they realised they would prefer to hear from other locals. ‘I thought this is really boring, can we talk about some the people we work with as well?’ She says. ‘The first issue is going to feature Owen Weightman from 3D Virtual Spaces, and he talked to us about how he models 3D spaces so people can walk around them and see the interior design,’ she explains. ‘We’ve spoken to Michael Bamling who is a lighting consultant in Durham, [and] we’re just about to speak to a company called Woodland Floors about their fantastic solid wood flooring.’
Much like their own approach to design at SPELK Studio, the pair’s advice for others undertaking a project is to do it for yourself. ‘Don’t rush in but don’t put it off,’ Graeme says. ‘Think in small steps. You can build upon it and build a home over time.’
