Our house is located in Rosanna, which is a Northeastern suburb of Melbourne. It's part of
what they refer to as the green wedge. Rosanna is a bit of a best kept secret; it's really green and
leafy, it's still close to the city, it's got a lot of parkland and just a really nice feel to it.
The brief for our home was very much that we wanted our family home,
something for our boys to play in and to grow up in
and it was really important to us that the house felt comfortable to live in.
My palette as an interior designer is very much focused on clean lines,
natural textures and a very neutral colour palette. We really wanted something that gave us
a backdrop to show off the architecture. Choosing a company to work with was quite tricky
but we knew from the moment that we met the guys at InForm that we'd come to the right place.
The collaborative process that we went through with them really
took our initial ideas and enhanced them in ways that we never really expected.
The family of four came to us and they wanted a sensitive design approach that
respected the character of the area with an emphasis on clean lines and volume.
Building on a sloping site can often present challenges
but also can offer great opportunities to play with floor levels and also ceiling heights.
Opening the front door, the ceiling rises and as you move through the corridor
you're slowly rising up a series of steps towards the main living
areas to the rear. It was a conscious decision to make the fireplace the central focal point;
this draws your attention as you move through towards the living spaces to the north.
The plan of the house circulates around the central courtyard where we find a pool and garden.
This courtyard offers good opportunities for cross ventilation throughout the entire house. as well
as affording good northerly exposure to the sun for some of the spaces further back on the site.
We wanted the house to have a kind of enclosed feel so that when we're sitting in the courtyard,
you've still got the house sort of wrapped around you.
The central courtyard really delivers amazing sight lines through the house.
We can be sitting in the lounge room and we can see across the courtyard,
into the dining room, actually all the way through to the kids playing in the backyard
and it's one of our favourite things about the house.
Connection between the outdoors and the indoors was a really important aspect for us. We always
knew from the beginning that one of the big features outside was going to be a brick smoker.
That idea of slowing down and enjoying the process,
having people around, was really important to us and something that we do often with friends.
When it came to choosing the materials for our house. we wanted to make sure that even though
it was a new build it felt very at home in the area. Choosing the recycled red bricks was a
no-brainer really and then the white weatherboard just gave it that really fresh, modern look.
The lightness of the smooth weatherboards are contrasted against the solidity of the red
brickwork. This red brickwork helps to ground the building on the site. The colour palette
is deliberately neutral throughout the house, allowing an authentic spirit to the design.
I think one of the most rewarding aspects of this process has been coming back to visit the site
and the owners where we've established a good friendship and listening to their stories about
how they've entertained and the smile on their faces, I think is very rewarding.
We had a very clear vision when we started. The home that we've ended up with not just meets that
vision in terms of how it's been executed but the fact that we live in every corner of this house
and we enjoy every corner of this house and I can see us being here for a very long time.