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Durkin House
68 Princess Street
Berry 2535
Overview
As I always like to say, love your home and it will love you back. But like any relationship, needs are constant! Loads of kids, hectic schedules and the myriad of demands made on busy lives conspire against us over time and so when the whirlwind of a full house slows and the last child flies the coop, it’s time to refocus the lens on that crucial relationship with ‘home’.
Current State
Durkin House is a beautiful two storey, Victorian red brick house set well back from the street with a frontal gravel circular driveway centred between the two street entrances. Large established trees, a parterre garden to the left and a generous lawn behind it comprise a sizeable garden in to which this house is positioned. There is a large garage to the rear of the house, serviced by double gates and driveway. The original house has a slate roof and the 1990s extension, a Colorbond roof. Verandas are an aesthetic feature of the home and wrap the front on the ground floor and above, servicing study and sitting room downstairs, and bedrooms to the front upstairs.
There are currently three bathrooms, four living areas, and five bedrooms. The kitchen and laundry are circa 1990’s and in the current configuration, there are three internal storage rooms; one upstairs and two down. Flooring in the original part of the house is a combination of floorboards, carpet runner on the stairs, and carpeted bedrooms upstairs. Parquetry flooring covers the kitchen, dining room and family room.
Ingrid and Dean have raised their children in this house and now find themselves empty nesters! This is an opportunity to re-evaluate the way the house is configured and to decide a new and fabulous future for themselves as they move into the next phase of their lives and a new chapter for their home.
Objectives
The following is a summary of the issues and ideas discussed at our initial meeting.
Kitchen
The kitchen area is too small for the family, and a logjam area at the counter drives Ingrid nuts. By changing the floor plan of the back of the house, we could delete the back bedroom and bathroom and design a larger kitchen, butler’s pantry and laundry encompassing that space and encroaching into the area that is the existing dining room. This would allow us to use the areas currently occupied by the laundry, pantry and store room for a new master ensuite and walk in robe, and a powder room with shower and downstairs loo.
Laundry
The current laundry has a poor layout and lacks bench space. Therefore, a new laundry with ample linen storage and access to an outside clothesline will be a critical part of the design – not to mention a revolution for whoever does the washing!!
Powder room
The downstairs requires a new powder room to be located at the juncture between the old house and the new extension, to include a shower, loo and basin.
Family room
This area is the beating heart of the home. It needs to be a warm and cosy nest for two most of the time but be capable of hosting the coming together of the large tribe, including future grandchildren!
The ‘conservatory’ living space is a light filled room that could be greatly enhanced by incorporating the outdoor courtyard as part of its internal space, henceforth referred to as the ‘new addition’. This would allow for a dining area and sitting room within a generous space appropriate for a big family, and that looks out on to the garden, lawns and proposed pool.
The windows currently looking out from the conservatory to the drive would be deleted and a stud wall constructed in their place. Windows onto a driveway are never a good look - it makes you feel you’re entertaining the cars!!
The windows in the conservatory could be replaced by low profile steel windows, with fully retractable sliding doors across the new addition that could be opened completely in warm weather. A timber deck with wide, full length steps to the lawn would flow from this new room and lead to a pool to the right as you look out.
The parquetry floor would need to be replaced and I would propose a new timber floor that could be parquetry – engineered boards have come a long way!
Master suite
A new master suite to be built in the large sitting room, with a new walk through robe and ensuite. Bringing the master suite downstairs makes a lot of sense as it contracts the areas of the house that need to be warmed in winter and cooled in summer, and it makes the house feel smaller and more intimate for the couple of lovebirds living in it alone for the majority of the time!
Studies
It is proposed that the one become two! Ingrid to occupy the formal sitting room and Dean to retain the existing study. Custom designed joinery is the best solution for these rooms as it will provide the necessary storage and shelving and can be designed to discretely coexist with the architectural features of the original home.
Upstairs
The three bedrooms upstairs require updating and reconfiguring, with new window coverings, repainting and a final clearing out of unwanted relics! The aim here is to create a total of four beautiful guest rooms, noting that the current master suite needs little done to it. I would propose leaving the furniture as is in that room and opting for new furniture for the new master suite downstairs.
The family bathroom is small and could be enlarged to incorporate the room next to it currently used as the attic for storage, to create a spacious and luxurious bathroom with adequate storage for a family.
Furniture
There are many beautiful antique pieces in the home that have been collected over many years and are key to the style, intimacy and history of a family home. The best way to feature them is by removing items that are inferior in sentimental value, functionality and design. Too much eclectic variety interrupts the calm of any room and it is always better to allow the feature piece to do the talking!!
Large, comfortable and relaxed linen sofas would offer a perfect counterpoint to the antiques, as would berber rugs, a larger coffee table and side tables, and beautiful modern lamps.
New bedroom furniture would include simple bedside tables, linen bedheads and bedside lamps. Beautiful armoirs abound!
The Garden
The drought has hit every garden hard and this is no exception. Added to that, the plant stock is old and much of it needs rejuvenated soils and replanting of new stock, but with little modification to the current layout. The exception to that would be to remove the formal parterre garden to the left of the house and replace with a hedge at the driveway side. Beyond this new hedge, the lawn can be extended from the back area, creating more space to compensate for that taken up by the new pool.
To shield the view from the garden of the driveway and parked cars at the rear, a matching hedge to the front could be planted and a complying pool fence would need to be installed. Of course, we’d need to consult a specialist to help formalise that plan.
The garage and workshop would be unchanged.
The side timber fence needs to be replaced and I suggest that instead of a costly brick replacement, timber be used, and a hedge planted on the outside to improve a sense of privacy.
The state of the slate roof on the old house needs to be checked and potentially cleaned.
Another consideration is the installation of iron gates for both entrances at the front of the house that may or may not have been an original feature of the home. Either way, electronic gates are convenient, enhance security, and are aesthetically in keeping with the era (notwithstanding the ‘electronics’ being a more recent invention!!)
A pool builder needs to engaged once a decision on where and if that is required!!
Summary:
This must be Berry’s most beautiful home. It has served the Durkin family well for almost two decades and the time has come for Ingrid and Dean to treat themselves to an overhaul of both the way the house operates for them, and to its style and presentation.
Modifications and upgrades come at significant cost and whatever budget is decided by Ingrid and Dean, careful consideration must be taken to ensure that every dollar counts. We want maximum impact!
Schedule
We need a grand plan for this grand old dame of a house. There are many elements to the proposed works and some of those will take many months to plan and complete. Other elements can be started as soon as you are ready to push the go button.
These are my suggested priorities, but this list is not exhaustive, and it will change as we advance the process.
A floor plan needs to be drawn so that our brainstorming can get underway with a vengeance! It will give us greater clarity when discussing options and perspectives. This is an inexpensive exercise.
You two need to set a budget for works, for new furniture where needed and for contingency. This is so important for setting expectations and avoiding coronaries! A budget will inform direction right from the start and so transparency on these parameters is a vital first objective.
I will begin the creative scheme in close consultation with Ingrid and as it will be via the online Client Portal on my website, we can communicate on it without necessarily speaking. I am so aware of the constraints on your time and this may be something you want to leave until the very end of the day/night to engage with. So, we can back and forth on it via the ether and meet to discuss when it suits your schedule.
We need an architect fairly soon and I’d like to research this and give you options to consider who to engage.
We will also need a landscape gardener. I have a fabulous person who is Sydney based and we have worked together often. Her name is Annie Wilkes and she adores Berry so is happy to come down. Her work is very well known in Sydney and I’d be happy to show you examples (she had a store in Woollahra for years called Parterre Garden which she sold but which was mecca for garden lovers while she was at the helm). We could have Annie put together the master plan for the garden and then have it implemented by a local to save on costs. I have just the man!
Critically, we need to book a spot with a builder and Owen Carter of OPC Constructions is the one I’d gun for. Although we won’t be needing him until plans have been drawn and approved, with all the work flooding in after the fires we really need to book a place in the queue.
There is some culling to be done…. We need to do an audit of furniture and ‘stuff’ left over and unseen by departing children – argh!!! The more we get rid of, the better it will all feel. Our homes are not storage facilities for our kids – why do we let them? Obviously, there is ‘stuff’ that will stay, but we need to look critically at what that is and how to best store it.
Once we have cleared the decks, we can get underway with planning work on the upstairs bedrooms and the two downstairs studies. Painting, furniture, window treatments, lighting, joinery – all to be planned in close consultation with Ingrid.
The upstairs bathroom can also be planned and scheduled.
I trust that the foregoing gives you confidence in my approach and my ethos. I am not a slave to fashion, I don’t believe ‘new’ is always ‘best’ and I do believe that a home is a window into lives well lived. All my clients are busy people – they know what to treasure but they don’t have the time for the detail. I have time. I have you covered and it is my mission always to work with you towards an outcome that feels not like my signature, but rather, your own.