2021 was a mammoth year for many reasons and despite the obvious challenges (we all faced), we also decided to embark on our own personal journey of building our first family home!
Whilst we’ve designed and renovated hundreds of homes (including our own) this was the first time we had designed and built our own home, from the ground up!
Our journey started back in 2020 when we decided to relocate our old home over to a block of land we had on the islands (Read all about it here). And whilst it proved to a somewhat hectic experience, it did pave the way for our new family home: Bayview One – whose name was inspired by our beautiful seaside location in Wellington Point, the doorstep of Brisbane’s Moreton Bay.
It’s been a long time coming, but we couldn’t be more excited about finally being able to share the reveal of all the spaces with you and talking you through all the design details and of course, the build process!
When designing a home, the exterior can really set the tone for the rest of the palette, even within the interior. From day one we had a clear vision for the front elevation of the home – we knew we wanted a gable roof, clean lines, flat and matt finishes and loads of texture.
CREATING VOLUME
We wanted to accentuate the height of the structure as it is a small lot block, so we wanted to ensure the home still felt as voluminous as possible. The introduction of the Colourbond Standing Seam really draws your eye up and accentuates the height. We chose panels that weren’t too wide as we wanted to ensure we didn’t have any rippling or ‘oil canning’ as some people refer to it as. Even though it’s an expensive product, when not installed correctly it can look terribly wrong…
PLAY ON TEXTURE
There is always a fine line between too many materials and a house feeling over designed! We also had to factor in that we were aiming for a predominantly all white exterior so a play on texture held an important role in balancing out the design.
One of the elements we introduced to compliment the white was blackbutt timber. We used this in a few varying areas on the facade of the home. We worked with Duce Timber Windows & Doors to design a large custom silicone butt joint corner window which was framed in blackbutt. Internally not only does it offer amazing views of the bay and flood the room with gorgeous natural light, but it also creates a gorgeous architectural feature on the front facade.
For the front door, again we worked with Duce to create this beautiful pivot door which was rebated with a vertical detail that reflects the timber cladded roof of the front portico area. We also worked with our metal fabricator to design a beautiful custom handle and inserted an off cut of marble that we had left over from the kitchen.
To help connect the timber accents on the lower and upper level, we also added a blackbutt cladding to the ceiling at the front entry and on the cantilevered section above the garage.
Our garage door was from B&D. We went with their knotwood product which essentially is a timber look metal product.
BRICK LOVERS
Both Darren and I love everything about brick – we love the textural, tactile feel it has along, with the clean lines it creates. We loved using it as a feature to highlight specific areas within the facade by stepping the brick out, creating a corbelling effect and also using a hit and miss technique in the entry and rear support columns to create a breezeway feel. Not only does this result in a beautiful interplay of light and shade in the space, it also allows for great airflow through.
We knew the brick would not only compliment the other features of the home but become a feature within itself, visually and practically. Knowing that, we spent some time researching and looking at all types of white brick painted and unpainted. We kept coming back to the painted brick as it brought an element of a ‘full colour’ texture that we couldn’t achieve with a pre-made white brick and mortar as it always has some natural pigment.
Here is a snippet of our inspiration board that kick started the process for the exterior…. Read our Exterior Inspiration blog here.
As you can see a variety of materials where used in the exterior palette, the variation in texture and use of materiality adds visual interest whilst the simple and natural palette gracefully ties it all together…
Making for an architecturally striking first impression!
Next week we will be moving inside and sharing the first of our interior spaces!
