Setting The Exterior Direction - The Avenue - New Home Build

 Sally's brand new family home build is well and truly underway. Sally talks us through how the interior and exterior design took shape.

 First, let’s start with the exteriors.

Q: What factors influenced your decision-making process for the exterior design of your home?

A: When you’re starting with a big blank slate, it can be hard to narrow down your aesthetic. The block is 20m wide, so the scale needed to be right, and we knew we’d need a mixture of shape and line and texture and colour to achieve the natural coastal vibe we were going for.  

I wanted to go soft and light on the exterior of the home – this was inspired by a trip to far north Queensland, staying in a stunning all white hotel where the Palm trees popped against the render.  To break up the wide façade we wanted to work with a variety of materials but keep it looking cohesive and connected to the sides and rear.

The brief we gave ourselves was Modern Coastal, and so we wanted to create a silhouette and roofline that worked to respect both a coastal flavour but with contemporary lines.

I wanted to incorporate natural elements such as planting, natural stone and timber into the exterior so that it feels like it belongs in its setting.

We also wanted to ensure the exterior design of the home complemented the surrounding environment and neighbourhood. There’s a strong mix of ultra modern and classic style homes in our street so we felt that our vision would work well.

Q: How did you approach the creation of a mood board for the exterior of your home?

A: Great question. I look at Mood Boards as a visual communication tool where I want to convey an atmosphere, and evoke a feeling when I look at it. So I include a range of imagery, textures, colours, scenes and styles in a way that I can connect to.

There’s some repetition of shape and line, a representation of materials and colours and some planting styles. There’s also a distinct atmosphere of blending with the interiors of the home too, with a couple of images illustrating a connection between inside and out.

Q: Talk us though the materials you chose for the exterior of your home and why you selected them?

A: To create a variety of texture in the large façade, we have several distinct surface zones. There’s concrete render over brick on most of the ground floor, which is punctuated with some limestone cladding around part of the lower floor, and a solid timber garage door.

On the top floor I chose the contemporary and clean lines of vertical weatherboards which help accentuate the height of the home and balance out the broad width. They’ll be in the same paint colour as the concrete rendered section, but will be texturally contrasting.

To keep the light and pale aesthetic I’ve minimised any distinct contrast, so the windows are all white, and the roof is a soft grey colorbond.

These materials are all echoed in the landscaping, fencing, retaining walls and hard surfaces. It creates a beautiful backdrop for greenery to sit against, including an integrated garden bed that will sit above the stone clad section of the exterior, softening the hard surfaces of the home.

 Q: What considerations did you take into account when selecting the colour scheme for your home's exterior?

A: When we create a colour scheme for an exterior we take into account all aspects of the home and its surroundings to ensure a consistent undertone. From the driveway concrete colour to the sandstone cladding, paint colours, timber stains, pavers, roof colour, fencing… it all needs to form a cohesive palette together, otherwise one element is going to feel jarring.

I wanted a soft warm undertone to all of my pale colour palette so there’s a warm white wall colour working with the honey tones of the timber and limestone. The roof colour is a warm grey as is the concrete driveway colour.

Q: Did you encounter any challenges during the exterior planning stage, and how did you address them?

A: The pool is being built by a separate company to the builder, and as it panned out, the pool needed to be on a Complying Development application and the house on a DA (Development Application) with local council. We couldn’t lodge the CDC until the DA was approved and then we had to encase a sewer that runs on an angle through the back yard. This dictated the shape of the pool somewhat and made the design and approval process a little longer than usual but I’m so pleased with how the alfresco layout has turned out.  

Q:  How did you incorporate landscaping into your exterior design plans?

A: We engaged Lone Pine and Pier 8 Studio to design our pool and landscaping, and we used the exterior Mood Board to form part of our brief. We wanted zones within the outdoors – a zone for a fire pit, a lawn zone, a covered dining zone, the pool enclosure and so on, and again the key was consistency of materials, planting styles etc so that each zone felt unified with the rest of the home.

Q: What advice would you give to others who are planning the exterior design of their home?

A: Start with the Mood Board. Always! We have a template you can use here. Remember you’re using this as a visual communication tool and it can help form part of your brief to other consultants such as a landscape designer. Incorporate a mixture of imagery that helps you to evoke a feeling and atmosphere when you look at it. Not just a collection of product images or a pretty garden or two. For example if you want a rambling cottage style garden your mood board might have imagery of meandering pathway crafted from organically shaped stepping stone pavers, planting with blurred lines of species, imperfect lines, maybe a porch with rocker, some lavender, a rusted wheelbarrow with herbs spilling from it, a winter sunset and a a woman with a flowing dress carrying a basket wearing a sunhat… you get the picture, it’s a mood! And this will help you select plants, select products, choose colours… every decision will start here at the mood board.

• Look through a few lenses.

It helps to think of the exteriors from a few different view points : in the context of the interiors (what will we see when we look out this window?), from the streetscape, from the neighbour’s perspective and from the back fence looking back towards the rear of the home. It all counts in identifying the things you want to highlight, and possibly conceal, as well as any privacy considerations.

• Assess the physical factors.

The site conditions, topography and orientation is extremely important – which areas get light and which won’t? What’s exposed to the elements and winds and therefore might dictate the planting and materials? Where would some shade be useful? Where does the level of the earth change and how is that best handled in the landscaping? Where is water management an issue?

• Draw it out.

If you’re having plans done for a build or renovation you might have an elevation of each angle of the home already but if not, take some photos, print them out and then mark them up with the placement of some different surfaces and materials. For example, is there an opportunity for a stone clad feature wall around the garage door? Could a change in colour help to accentuate or hide certain features? (try using different shade of the same paint hue as a starting point). Where could some contrast be used to make the scene look more resolved? For example, If there’s a black roof and the walls are dark, would a crisp white fascia and window trims help to achieve the style of home you’re after (look to the Mood Board to see if you’re not sure), or are you chasing a more modern look with bold colour and concealed trims and fascia?

• Play with palettes.

When selecting your materials and colour palette, get swatches or samples of each and every item and look at all of them together. Do they feel like they work together? Or does something feel jarring? Take the swatches to different orientations at different times of the day. Look at the items that will be on a vertical face as they will appear in  real life as the light will have a different effect between vertical and horizontal faces.

• Engage the specialists.

Depending on what you’re doing in your outside area, you might need an approval of some sort, engineering or authority from government bodies (hello sewer encasement!). Chat to some consultants (designers, drafters, architects, pool companies) to understand what you’re working with and where to start.

 And, one last piece of advice…

• Do the due diligence.

When looking at your products and planting, do your research. The great outdoors can have some pretty extreme variances in our country and so knowing how the materials and products you’ve chosen – whether it’s the type of timber, the species of plant, the selection of stone – will handle the weather and perform over time is a wise investment of time.