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daniel house scope 

Suzie,

Thank you for inviting me to your home and for giving me the opportunity to discuss your ideas, plans, anxieties and dreams about its renewal! Renovating can be a stressful process to consider, but you will find it gets easier once underway.

To that end, the following is a scope of what we discussed that might help you to formulate and to crystallise some of those ideas so that you can begin what promises to be a really rewarding and transformative reimagining of your lovely federation home.

This is a scope only, its purpose being to list in a general way, all the issues we discussed at our meeting so that you can feel confident that I understand the brief and have captured all the important points. You can add, subtract or amend at any time, but if we are to proceed together, this document will be foundational to the crafting of the Creative Interior Plan (CIP) that I will develop for you.

Let us begin!

The Front room:

With it’s beautiful light and spectacular views, this under-utilised room suffers abandonment issues!!! Despite it being where you might entertain on bridge night or serve pre-dinner drinks, its identity is a little hazy. The furniture may have sentimental attachment that has made replacement hard, but the truth is, the time has come for it to retire and to leave you with memories of a happy history that you don’t need to sit on!!

A more expansive seating area with comfortable, generously proportioned lounge furniture that better fills the space will in all probability transform the way you use this room, as a couple, as a family, and importantly, as an entertaining area. If you think about the available floorspace and how much of it you are currently taking up with the furniture arranged as it is, you’ll see that you’re treating this room as being much smaller than it really is.

The idea therefore, would be to decide a furniture plan that gave a better sense of the space, that was more generous and open, more appealing and more practical for a large, close family who frequently gather. The built in joinery is attractive and could be expanded inside the front door as a demarcation between the entry point to the house and the living space.

But Suzie at the risk of being harsh, I think everything else needs to go.

You have a dining table you can’t comfortably sit at, a sideboard that is blue-tack dependant, and a piano that has, according to the tuner, quietly died in the corner. And yet here is this lovely, lively, expanding family not at all sure they want to spend time here, not surprising!

New carpet, a new colour scheme, new light fittings and new furniture would give this room the wow factor you know it currently lacks, and it would totally shift it out of history and into the 2020’s! It would call the family back to ‘sit soft’, even if you don’t think they can be retrained. Everyone feels better and lives better in a comfortable environment, one that can reach out of its inanimate state and offer warm hugs all around. A room can do that, if you let it.

You have some really fabulous artworks, as well as beautiful old frames filled with portraits of people far and near. So much more can be made of these elements by clever positioning and grouping, making a feature of the smaller pieces and making a statement with the larger.

The formal dining room area needs a larger table and chairs so that when you’re entertaining, this is the spot you’ll want to be. A big table that has a grandeur about it, given it has such prominence! I’d even suggest we consider taking a look at the good ol’ FB Marketplace as I’ve seen really beautiful colonial settings in perfect condition for less than you’d pay at Ikea!!! A really lovely timber table in cedar for example, in a contemporary and fabulously revamped setting, would be in character with the house and it would be large enough to spend long evenings around it in comfort and style. You’ve become so accustomed to the smaller kitchen table, but you will find that by creating new and inviting spaces, habits will quickly shift.

Master bedroom:

To be honest Suzie, new carpet and a new colour scheme will go a long way towards giving this zone a whole new feel. The bedhead could be replaced…. but then, a whole new set of bed linen could be a more economic option, allowing you to keep the bedhead but still refresh the look of the room.

I would devise a scheme that felt serene, but still characterful, moving away from the blandness that you have now. When everything is a shade of cream, it soon sours!!

Things like new cushions on the sofa with a new lush throw or hide to drape over it will make the world of difference and in circumstances where there is a lot to do throughout the house, I really think this room needs minimal intervention. Rehanging the artworks in places can also give the sought after sense of renewal without blowing budget.

As we discussed, you have little appetite for throwing money at bathrooms that don’t need renovating! This one does not need an overhaul but when the painters are on site, this area will get its fair share of treatment. But hallelujah for well built bathrooms.

Once again however, new towels and a few new accessories will make the bathroom feel reborn!

Downstairs bedroom suite:

Colour, carpet, light fittings - play it again,Sam!

I’d add new linen, bedsides and lamps. You night consider removing the built-in in here as it takes up space and it’s tired and shabby. Imagine here a beautiful old cedar chest of drawers (you guessed it, back to FB Marketplace where we could pick one up for a couple of hundred dollars that would have cost thousands a few short years ago!!!)

The small bedroom chair can tiptoe out and once the room is painted, some lovely wardrobe door handles can tip toe in and before you know it, we will have created a beautiful new and inviting bedroom.

But… this bathroom needs attention. we will need to address that and incorporate it into the scope for either the joiner or the builder, depending on which way you choose to go. But other than the door and the tiles, a repaint and new towels.

Bedroom 3:

This room too, needs some new, fresh love.

New curtains and a new scheme will be in order - I love the green above the desk and would be tempted to show you a colour I have used a few times that is very similar, for the whole room. Bedrooms should be sanctuaries - not operating theatres filled with blinding light, so I tend to go for moody, soft colours that calm the mind.

A new slimmer bedside and a new and contemporary lamp would also make this room feel miles better, as would reassessing, as throughout the whole house, where and how your art is hung.

Kitchen/casual dining:

The headscratcher! This is a problem zone as we try to figure out the best configuration to maximise the space as a large communal area where cooking and mingling and generally being a big family can operate efficiently whilst pumping out the feasts!

My first instinct would be to involve an architect - not a kitchen company, to help you formulate the plan for this as it involves at the very least, replacing the doors and perhaps pinching that meter more space, as we discussed.

The way the kitchen opens to the outdoor area is great, making the most of the indoor / outdoor style of Sydney living we treasure. But you have expressed a frustration with the current design and layout - you’d like more flow for the many cooks! As I have mentioned, an architect is your best bet for reconfiguring the space, but given you don’t want to change the layout in the broader sense, my concern is that you may end up with a new kitchen with the same old problems.

This is a galley kitchen that is also a thoroughfare to the back zone of the house - and that is the trouble. Making the kitchen wider here is the optimum, but moving the wall facing the courtyard is the only way to achieve this. As you’ll be aware, this is a costly. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know!

The other option is to lean in!!! Replace the cabinetry, putting the oven on the back wall and perhaps creating a big and spacious pantry where the oven currently sits, and a new island bench with the sink in pretty much the same spot. Taking out the bench return at the dining end will make the space feel freer, and using a honed marble that isn’t so busy as the lovely terrazzo, would also make the space feel less intense.

Importantly - if you do relocate the pantry to where I suggest, you can bring the door to the back rooms forward to be in the same line as the pantry doors - you said you ony really use that back area when people are staying (and of course the laundry is there) but in making this simple move, the kitchen will look so much less of a thoroughfare zone! We can create a bulkhead above the pantry and doorway, so it will look like the door is an extension of the pantry. Brilliant!!

Choosing the bench top and colour scheme is critical - we want contemporary classic, a fresh and sleek new start for this important area of your home.

Outdoor:

You probably thought I was a bit harsh equating the alcenite roofing to Sport and Rec…. I apologise if you didn’t appreciate the comment!!! I do have to say though, there are other solutions to keeping the area protected whilst not reducing the light that would be far more stylish and worthy of this lovely house that alcenite!

My CIP would detail this area thoroughly as I think this zone is so important to the way the house looks and feels. You’re a big family and you need large, generous and relaxed spaces to enjoy together in style and comfort.

I hear you, re the pool - it is still needed for the host of grandchildren you’re no doubt anticipating. But my view here, is that we could look at decking the whole area - timber has a lovely ability to shape itself around an area like this one to make it feel whole, connected and spacious. We could leave the paving in situ and deck over it, bringing the level up to that of the interior flooring - no step down from inside to out. The pebbles have to go - we could even delete the glass pool fence and incorporate a new security fence in the deck plan that would look so much better.

Imagine a tropical garden in Queensland or somewhere equally delicious - lawns are so old hat! Instead of having a lawn, a well designed garden of hardy plants would look spectacular and be so much easier to maintain than a lawn that really is neither use nor ornament. A new and expansive deck will give little kids ample space to play games whilst the adults enjoy meals around a large and well placed dining setting, or whilst they relax on outdoor lounge seating, both of which this deck could accomodate.

There is sooooooo much potential here to make the kitchen feel enormous! You’ll be amazed at how levelling the indoor flooring with the outdoor, the resultant sense of space expands.

The back zone!!!!

Suzie, we don’t need to spend a fortune out here, but lets pull out the old joinery, rearrange the furniture, give it all a lick of paint and a touch of fresh love and voila, a whole new feel.

There is no point, when you have a whole of house ambition for renewal, to spend money in rooms infrequently used, but you don’t want any poor cousins either!!! So painting, even painting existing furniture, is a good way to ensure a comprehensive facelift for the home in its entireity. Leave the curtains, but paint the walls, refresh bed coverings, add a few new touches…

The second bedroom, which I failed to photograph, would make an ideal room for storage and I’d suggest you think about that a little more. You need to pull out the joinery in there as it is in disrepair, and adding shelving needn’t be an expensive exercise - think Bunnings!

A possible alternative could be a yoga studio - room for the exercise bike, weights, and a permanent yoga mat beckoning you in every single day!!! It could be a fabulous use of the room - we paint it and make it feel very serene and lovely, and at any point you need the bedroom back, add a bed and you’re done! But putting the room to better use for the foreseeable future has strong merit!

In summary:

Suzie you have a lovely home that you have identified as needing some attention. The process needs to be fun and uplifting! I’d love to work with you to bring it up to where you’d like it to be and I hope that the foregoing indicates to you my understanding of the goals you’ve set.

Feel free to take your time considering my proposal and call me when you’re ready to discuss. If you’d like to move ahead with me, I’d be delighted and would truly love to be on your team - but if this is not how you’d like to proceed, please do not feel any awkwardness or obligation! It’s so personal - so important - so entirely your call.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Henrietta x