Expert advice

design dream

With Cassandra Fenaughty

Cassandra Fenaughty is a landscape architect with more than 20 years’ experience. She is the founder and owner of an innovative renovation design consultancy, creating photo-real renovation concepts for clients looking to visualise their dream renovation before it begins. For more visit cassandrafenaughty.com.

SEVENTIES DESIGN APPEAL

The design we selected this month to showcase to our viewers is a gorgeous coastal home with a quirky 1970s holiday house feel.

During the initial consultation, the clients’ initial thoughts were to render the bricks of the existing home. Once we got to know how much they loved the “old school” holiday beach house feel we decided we needed something with a little more personality than a rendered brick house.

During the consultation we worked together with the clients to formulate a design brief: what do they want the home to feel like, did they need privacy, what spaces did they use the most, which spaces worked and which spaces didn’t?

All of these questions are really important because when you are working on a facade renovation design it’s not just about what it looks like, it’s ensuring that the functionality works on both the inside of the house, and the outside.

The main points of the design brief were: to ensure the retention of breezes through the property, to make sure that any facade Before

treatments didn’t make the house too dark inside, to lighten the feel and provide more of an airy beachside look, and to provide low-maintenance options for finishes.

As you can see in the design we started by painting the brickwork to retain a vintage feel, rather than rendering the home and covering up it’s personality.

We then added new balustrades and shutters that can pivot and slide to allow for varying levels of light and breeze to enter the

“The concept design is simple and costeffective and doesn’t change any of the structural elements”

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covered veranda and home. All of the balustrades and shutters will be powdercoated aluminium with a combination of flats and rods to further build on the vintage personality of the home.

The entrance for visitors from the front of the property didn’t function well. It was a convoluted process to find the front stairs and front door so we reworked the pedestrian entry to the property by breaking the existing retaining wall. We then added entry stairs and a new entry gate which will lead directly to the bottom of the stairs that take you up to the front door of the home.

There was also an unused, converted garage and ramp that we decided to remove, fill and use to extend the size of the entry courtyard area. This minimised the expanse of concrete driveway at the front of the home, further soft ening and greening the frontage.

The front fence has been articulated, adding recesses for planting along the frontage to break up and add coastal plantings of soft grasses. Feature sandstone and granite rocks will match the existing stoneface retaining wall and add to the beachy feel. To ensure a low-maintenance outcome, the driveway gates and pedestrian gate will match the new garage doors and be fabricated from a timber-look aluminium product.

To keep costs down the rest of the fence will be hardwood timber paling with a good quality exterior paint to extend its lifespan. The bitumen crossover will be removed and new concrete will be installed to match the existing concrete inside the property boundary.

When designing a front fence and entry statement it’s important to reference the building materials of the house to result in a harmonious design palette. To do this we have added painted brick blade walls to either side of the pedestrian and driveway gates.

The concept design is simple and cost-eff ective and does not change any of the structural elements of the home. This project is a fantastic example of how strategically designed cosmetic changes and designed entry can transform the look and feel of a home.

Do you have a landscaping or renovation question for Cassandra? Email her at enquiries@cassandrafenaughty.com

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