The Details

So! As previously mentioned A Shiplap Home has quite a few features worth retaining. Yes we are planning on modernising and opening it up to the magnificent views we are very lucky to have. However, we are hell bent on being politely courteous to our lovely lady - She's too beautiful & rich in character to contemporise for the sake of it.

Here's an overview of the details:

I should probably start with the shiplap eh? This is a central feature of the family room, the heart of the home. The room will be opened up to the kitchen in the reno, but we will keep this as our main focal point. With the high ceilings it's a grand beachy feel.

A bit of bling I thought was pretty daggy at first. We have 2 of these waterfall crystal chandeliers in the family room. There was another in a dining room but when we bought they were missing loads of crystals, so I've sacrificed it in order to restore the 2. I have lovingly removed and washed every single crystal. It was a bloody nightmare! I now love how old Hollywood they are, even if they don't really help with the beach house ideal. For 3 years I've been stressing how I'm going to work these into a scheme, with shiplap! But for me they just work, so my scheme I've now labelled Glam Beach House, what do you think?!

Continuing on with the brass accents are these amazing solid cast handles on the french doors in the family and master bedroom. They are gorgeous and I love the patina they have. I'm thinking I'll mirror this with raw brass hardware for the internal doors in a more simple cast. I guess I'm lucky with the trend for gold and brass being so hot right now. But I'm totally against anything trendy, especially with this place. Key word 'classic'.

And last but not least, the hallway panelling. We also have this on the master bed wardrobes, something we will definitely replicate in all future bedrooms and the kitchen.



So that's it for now. I'll be visting a few suppliers next week to do some specifying, so watch this space!

A Brief History

In 1890 Matthew Lang, a Mayor of Melbourne, ordered the construction of a mansion to be known as The Point. It was a large estate that encompassed a few streets here and the mansion sat perched on the cliff with wide bay views. The estate was subdivided in 1953, the original mansion demolished to make way for modernist flats and the only thing that remains is the old caretaker's cottage.

'The Point'

Image courtesy of State Library of Victoria

We have been told a wealthy Melbourne town family who may or may not have been linked to the Ripponlea Estate purchased our block and built their beach house to use as a holiday home. My husband and I bought this home in 2007, and after a small fix up to make it liveable we moved in September 2009. It's a gloriously solid, double brick late 50's home with the Colonial and Georgian influences typical of the date for this area. Next door was built a smaller version of our house for the family's mother in law, but that has unfortunately been demolished in the past  2 years and redeveloped.

Our house now

Our home has had a few 60's wrong doings, mostly the ghastly conversion of what was a terrace overlooking the bay upstairs into a flat roof hot box room. But the original house is (was) beautiful. It still retains the original panelling down the wide hallway, waterfall crystal and brass chandeliers (so 50's Hollywood), and of course shiplap surrounding the fireplace, one of my favourite features!

More on that next time!

In the Beginning...

So this is the beginning of the story. I'd better introduce myself firstly. I'm Laura and I'm a design addict. I've trained professionally at design school and subsequently began my own interior design & decorating business from home. That had suited me just fine being able to work around the 2 babies that came along. Now, after years of making other people's homes beautiful it's time for our dream family home to materialise. (if only it were that easy!) I've taken a year (or 2) off work so I can focus on family, and our massive project that lies in waiting. We're only at the beginning. Plans have been drawn and a builder about to be chosen.

I guess I started this because I'm a bit of a research freak. I've got so many ideas in my head and it's exciting to be able to do whatever I want and not be restricted by a client's tastes. So in my quest for the perfect detail on every single surface I will be posting my journey. I suppose you'll be a bit of a sounding board too...That's the problem with being in my profession, I have too many options to choose from!

Thanks for tuning in :-)