This post is in collaboration with Coral Homes
Three years ago, when we first bought our home, the excitement was palpable.
Here was our chance to take a house that had incredible potential and put our own stamp on it.
We definitely weren’t going in blind, as Mr Styling has spent the best part of the last 18 years buying, developing, building and selling properties, but we’ve certainly learned a lot along the way.
Whether you are about to build your dream home, renovate your current home or just love all things property, I thought I’d share with you the discoveries we’ve made while living our very own real life episode of Grand Designs…
{Note: these are not photos of our home. I’ll share some more photos in future blog posts as we work our way through our never-ending To Do list!}
Think about how you live
Start by asking yourself questions like ‘where do we spend the most time?’, ‘do we plan on entertaining at home a lot?’ and ‘will we be adding to our family in the future?’.
For us, we knew we’d be spending quite a bit of time in our back room, so we wanted to make it as large as possible to encompass a kitchen, dining and lounge area all in the one space. We also have friends over quite regularly, have hosted many events such as Christmas Day and the AFL Grand Final, and we enjoy spending time at home just the two of us.
If you are working with a blank canvas (AKA a vacant block), consider the positioning of your rooms. For example, if you live on a busy street you might like to position your bedrooms away from the front of the house.
There are no hard and fast rules as such.
Do what’s going to work for you, your location and your lifestyle.
Do your research
Our budget didn’t stretch to employing an architect to design our extension and Mr Styling had very definite ideas about what he/we wanted, so we spent quite a bit of time and internet bandwidth researching other people’s houses and also building companies’ – such as Coral Homes – designs.
This helped us visualise what we wanted and also helped us gauge whether or not our ideas would work in the space (and budget) we had available.
Browse the internet, go and visit display homes, sticky beak at open inspections (come on, everybody does it!) and take note of what you like, what you don’t like, and what will and won’t work for your place.
Size isn’t everything
If you have a small block, you can still create a spacious feeling inside your home by increasing the ceiling height.
Another great tip is to make doorways taller and consider the positioning of your windows to match.
Doing all of these things doesn’t add much to the bottom line of a new build (or even an extension) but it does makes a huge difference to making your house feel bigger than it actually is.
Go towards the light
When it comes to light, consider the aspect of your home or block and also where you live in order to make the most of the morning sun and minimise the harsh afternoon rays.
Our bathrooms capture the morning sun, which makes getting ready for work (and doing my makeup) nice and easy.
Our back room faces north, which means the sun moves over the top of it (from east to west), avoiding any blazing direct sunlight into this space.
Bathrooms and living areas are the rooms that you want to capitalise on the most natural light, whereas bedrooms can afford to be a bit darker as that creates a more tranquil feel (good for the perfect night’s sleep…and the occasional sneaky sleep-in).
Bring the outdoors inside
This brilliant tip is courtesy of Mr Styling, who is incredibly proud of our outdoor entertaining area.
He says when you are building your extension or new home, continue the same floor level and type of flooring (such as tiles or polished concrete) outside. Also, continue the same ceiling height.
This creates a seamless transition from the inside to the outside and it’s much less hassle to do it while you’re building rather than as an afterthought once the project is complete.
Out of sight, out of mind
When it comes to storage, the more the better!
Factor in as much cabinetry as you can, because you can seriously never have enough storage.
You can gain valuable cupboard space in the kitchen by building a butler’s pantry. This not only gives you oodles of extra storage space, but also means that you can hide appliances, food and extra crockery in there.
Same goes for the walk-in-wardrobe.
You’ve gotta love an extra little room that affords you a lot of extra storage – and one you can simply close the door on to hide the mess.
Play with colour
For the most part, I would highly recommend sticking to a neutral palette, especially for your big ticket items such as bathroom tiles, kitchen cabinetry and flooring.
Consider the size of your rooms and the feeling you want to create. Lighter colours open up the space while darker colours close it in.
Just like fashion, trends for the home come and go.
Add your pops of colour in the form of soft furnishings such as cushion covers and throw rugs, and decorative items such as vases, prints and ornaments.
It’s much more affordable to change up these items than it is to re-tile your bathroom, renovate your kitchen or rip up your flooring.
Be at one with nature
My final tip would be to incorporate natural elements wherever you can.
Stone and wood go a long way in adding warmth and interesting textures to your home.
A little bit can add a lot of luxury to an otherwise simple room.
For more house-y inspiration, our friends in NSW and Queensland can discover their local Coral Homes display homes, while the rest of us can do some online research by checking out the designs on the Coral Homes website.
Have you or are you in the process of renovating or building your home?
What would be your must have items in your dream home?
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