Displaying posts labeled "Renovation"

Linn emailed us a little while ago with her cool kitchen remodel.

“I really just wanted to share some before and after pictures of my tiny kitchen which my husband and I spent a few weeks remodeling. Our small bungalow is from 1946 and it has a rather tiny kitchen which we wanted to preserve the integrity of, yet update and give a new fresh feel. We installed a black and white (marble and granite) checkerboard floor, refinished the old wooden cabinets and drawers, installed a stainless steel counter and tiled the walls with subway tile all the way to the ceiling. We did all of this ourselves on a budget of little over $6000 (including buying new appliances).”

Befores then afters… obviously 🙂 Great job Linn and Linn’s other half! Check out all the details on her blog The Home Project.

Sarah emailed to share her house.

We have just finished (but not completely styled) a renovation of our 1880s workers cottage in Adelaide, South Australia. As a bit of an amateur designer, I drafted a plan and gave it to an architect whose house I’d seen at an open inspection 5 years previously. I tracked her down (Sophie Fielder) and when we met for the first time couldn’t believe our eyes when we discovered we had the same photos in our scrap books! We even had photos from the internet of houses in other states! Due to budget constraints and the love of a challenge, I project managed the job with our builder and we’re thrilled with the result. We wanted to create a home with a slightly industrial/warehouse/barn feel that was practical and didn’t waste space.

The garden is yet to grow but already it is a sanctuary with birds and chooks (over the back fence!) waking us up each morning and we absolutely adore the  50 year old olive tree right outside our bedroom window.

I’ve already informed Sarah to expect me any moment, bags in hand, because I’m moving in. What a wonderful marriage of old and new.

The house before they started and a few demolition shots.

They’ve done it again. Washington D.C. design duo Adams & Duke have taken an utter dive and created a dream home with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 baths. There’s even a lower level suite. Sonia first shared Adams & Duke’s work back in August and it caused quite a sensation. Now the second project is complete. You won’t believe the change after the jump. Yes you have to step warily through the before shots first but that only makes the afters even more spectacular. I would have run screaming from the original house. Hard work, good design and real estate savvy pay off big time.

The befores…

A teaser to give you hope…

Back to the horror…

And now the afters….

I get so excited when I see an email from Australian architect Scott Weston in my inbox. He has been a regular on Desire to Inspire for quite some time now as he generously shares his latest projects. What gets me so excited though, is that not only are his projects so inspiring in their colour choices, storage solutions and great design, Scott generously gives us an insight into his design process, material selections, plans and models. The complete package. Today is no different. I’ll let Scott explain SWAD‘s latest work.

It’s been a while since I shared what we have been up to in SWAD world. We have just completed a 70m2 apartment in Darlinghurst for a female doctor who sold her house up in the blue mountains and is now living full time in the city. The existing apartment was ‘surprise surprise’ a cold white bland space devoid of any personality but had great natural light. The general colour scheme of materials and finishes was generated by the Client’s favorite colours as shown by the handbag with it’s walnut, powder blue, copper, olive green and silver grey palette. On the ground floor we designed a continuous floor to ceiling walnut timber ‘hero wall’ 500mm wide x 5626mm long that concealed everything. The bespoke cabinetry housed TV, stereo, speakers, flexible shelving, electronic push touch drawers and secret walk-in pantry all finished in a light olive green. To break up the scale and planar shape we inserted linear and vertical niches that were hand finished in copper leaf and reflect beautifully both natural and artificial light. The return end wall housed the kitchen wet area and appliances and we used grey mirror to reflect and give the illusion of greater depth to the room and reflect the new landscaped external balcony room. The pantry is a great exercise in planning and design and reminds the Client of being on board an airplane or ships galley with everything having it’s own specific place.

Upstairs the existing ‘white blandness’ continued with a bedroom, separate inglenook office and a rather dark and dingy wardrobe room. Walls were demolished and the entire room was opened up and the joinery insertions seamlessly defined the three functional activities of bedroom, office and robe. A light crown cut timber was used for the general robe wall and extended out to form the office and framework for the upholstered bedhead. A beautiful grey green hand drawn wallpaper with pistachio green overtones was selected to define opposing walls and to house a concealed triptych mirror and cupboards to the robe corridor. The office borrowed on the flavours of eau de nil with a desktop of powdery olive linoleum and a cashmere pinboard in a similar hue. Turning the corner there is a vertical library shelving system and facing the window the oversized king size bed with powder blue cashmere bedhead. Direct and indirect strip lighting creates great visual drama to the spaces and the finishing touch being the grey/lilac carpet that ties both upstairs and downstairs together very elegantly. The Client took a leap of faith about the lilac carpet as I said many a time convincing….. that if we did just brown carpet the whole space would become very flat and the visual interest would not be there. Very happy Client and a pleased Architect.

Kate emailed from the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. “After being inspired by you both so many times, I wanted to share an outcome that you helped inform. We recently completed a soup-to-nuts renovation. It was a long slog, but we finally got there and we’re thrilled. Thank you for providing inspiration during the design phase and critical creative lifts when it seemed like it would never end and I was running out of steam.” Kate describes the original house on her blog as “Outside: yellow bricks, small aluminum-framed windows, and lots of lattice-work pergolas. Inside: a rabbit’s warren, with too many doors leading into lots of pokey rooms and a front door that entered directly into the family room where the refrigerator sat.” Here are some befores…

WOW Kate what a wonderful home… now! I can’t believe the change. My favourite spot? The library. Oh and the kitchen. And the ensuite and the garden. I’d love to see your home photographed for a magazine. Some of you will realise that the shots Kate has shared are real estate listing photographs. Yes it’s true. Kate and her family have worked so hard to create this miracle and now it’s on the market. (Link here.) Good luck with the sale Kate and make sure you share your next renovation!