Category Archives: remodeling

Bathroom Trends for 2016

Posted on April 4, 2016 | Leave a comment

bath

Is your bathroom in desperate need of an update? Be inspired with these must-have design trends for 2016 and get a bathroom you will enjoy spending time in.

Time for tranquility

“Bathrooms are often the only place where people regularly have time to themselves,” Sydney interior designer Sarah Davison says. For that reason bathroom design should “create a refuge of serenity and personal luxury. The trends I embrace are for natural materials and unique, layered textures,” she says.

Go natural

Recent bathroom trade shows in Paris and Milan showed that 2016 trends will focus around natural materials, designer Katrina Malyn, of building design company Design Projector, says.

“We will move further away from artificial materials,” Malyn predicts. “Natural stone and timber will appear in more and more bathrooms. Timber vanities, seats and accessories showing timber grain will become more prevalent. Timber will be more often used for bathroom floors and even in taps.”

Timber will continue to be a prominent feature in our bathrooms, television personality and interior design blogger Katrina Chambers agrees. From wall features and open shelving, to hardwood floors and even timber vanities. “Make sure you bring in some earthy elements to balance the space out,” she says. “Greenery, whites and a patterned tile work beautifully with tactile timber surfaces.”

Lighten up your home without loosing privacy

Posted on April 3, 2016 | Leave a comment

windows

How to open an old, dark house to the light, while simultaneously maintaining privacy for occupants, is a question not always happily or successfully answered.

Cruise down any suburban street in Sydney and chances are you’ll see a lot of unhappy, unsuccessful responses: window or door openings where maybe there shouldn’t be, and no openings where potentially there could be – privacy presumably compromised, views presumably not viewable, light not optimized. All indicating inadequate consideration and solutions to the question at hand. Fortunately, the successful renovation of a previously very dark semi with privacy issues in Sydney’s eastern suburbs offers a thoughtful, beautiful response to this all too common issue.

Pip Marston and Matt Argent of Marston Architects say the owners, a professional couple with two dogs, essentially wanted to “find the light”, having lived in a sunlight-starved, south-facing semi for several years. The house should be low maintenance, with an urban look and feel. And, they wanted to stay put during renovations, negating any major physical upheaval or additional financial strain.

The house itself was a single-storey Federation semi suffering the usual issues: with no northern light, it was dark and gloomy, and cold in winter. The layout was fairly standard – two bedrooms at the front, living space in the middle and add-ons at the rear. Sitting above ground level at the back, the house failed to connect to a long, underused rear garden. And, importantly, privacy was a problem, with the rear garden overlooked by neighbours to the east, north and south.

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Six tips for buying a house to renovate

Posted on March 23, 2016 | Leave a comment

Follow these tips for renovation success.

1. Location

Nicolas Jarvisto and his wife discovered one of the key buy-to-renovate rules when they bought their first home, an 1915 Queenslander, in Bulimba, Brisbane.

“It was a ‘worst house in a good street’ scenario with an oversized land lot for the area,” says Jarvisto. “Our goal was to bring the property ‘this side of the 21st century’. The newspaper from under the bathroom and kitchen vinyl was from September 1958 and I don’t think the property had been touched since.”

The couple took holiday leave and with the help of their family began work on completely renovating the property including repainting the kitchen and bathroom, polishing the floors, resheeting, splitting the laundry, retiling and adding new air con and blinds.

Less than three weeks later it was finished and ready to move into. It cost less than $30,000.

Tory Bevan, who runs The Property Consultancy and does buy and renovate projects in Sydney, says the old adage of buying the worst house in the street is a good rule to follow. “It is about location and choosing something that you can work with

5. Think about how to add value.

Even if you are not planning on renovating to sell, it is still important to think ahead about long-term resale value.

Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

Bevan says that one of the most important things to look for is the opportunity to add significant value to a property. In a recent project she was working on, she was able to turn a two-bedroom and one-bathroom apartment into a three-bedroom and three-bathroom property, by buying and utilizing the attic space.

Having a northern aspect is obviously very important says Bevan as is off-street parking especially in Sydney.

disclaimer: for entertainment and information purposes only.