Our prestart meeting yesterday meant that we had to make our first lot of selections, which meant committing to enough stuff so that the builder could start ordering construction materials.
We struggled a bit with the facade colours. We wanted light colours for thermal reasons, but we didn’t want the place to look boring either.
So we roped in Michelle from DeNovo Concepts to choose some colours for us. This is what she came up with:
Roof & Gutters: Colorbond Surfmist
Fascia: Colorbond Monument
Main render: Dulux Dieskau
Feature render – used for portico pillars and front fence render: Dulux Raku
Garage door: Caoba Dawn
Portico ceiling and floor: Jarrah
Door: Jarrah stain
Window frames: Charcoal Lustre (from Jason)
And then Dan from New Home Visuals put it together for us:
I then did a bit of tweaking because it wasn’t quite right – I changed the barge to the gable, tweaked the portico steps to how the builder suggested they be done, changed portico floor to dark tiling, highlight windows above front doors will be timber framed, added side gates, and added a hint of the driveway colour.
The builder pointed out that the barge capping on the gable will be the same colour as the roof – this is unavoidable, but he will try to minimise the amount showing at the front. Standard is 200mm, he thinks he can get it down to 50mm. (Prior to this I had no idea what a barge capping was, it appears to be the bit that tidies up the end of the roof.)
My initial thought was that it was a bit bland, but if you imagine it with lots of lovely native landscaping, I think it looks OK. For example:
My vision for the facade landscaping is waterwise and native, with most species being from our lovely Jarrah forest and surrounds. Here are some of my favourites:
May not be able to afford the grasstree, but the rest should be doable.
Front fence will probably be something like this, but with the Raku render:
I look forward to building the pillars myself!
I really like your selections – the render colours are great and look forward to seeing photos of them.
Beautiful selection of natives – you will get lots of little birds visiting your new garden :)☺
Thanks Deb. As long as the birds stay away from the fruit trees out the back! 🙂
The colour scheme looks very pulled together. I am also of the opinion that the landscaping, especially trees and plants has the potential to make or break how the front facade looks. Yours is going to be great! What do those lovely grass trees cost these days? Not something you can buy little and wait to grow. Glad to hear you are planning a bit of brick laying yourself! Good luck.
Thanks Joh! “Pulled together” is a great term, I do want things to look deliberate. I agree that the landscaping will make a huge difference, I’m looking forward to watching it develop over time. I’m also looking forward to the brick laying, although no-one seems to believe me. It will be hard work but also so satisfying. I think grasstrees cost in the order of $1000 each. Not cheap! But they are such a wonderfully sculptural plant.
Oh wow, that’s going to look fantastic – and with your landscaping, you are going to have great street presence. My husband would be a massive fan of your plant choices – he’s big on natives, and quite a few of those are going into our landscaping. It’s funny, we priced up a grasstree for the front garden of our current house and almost fell over at the price. They are so expensive for a plant that can be found almost anywhere!
Thanks Lauren! I think native gardens have come along way and can look spectacular these days, especially with a landscaper who know’s what they’re doing. I suspect the effort of digging up the grasstrees contributes to their cost!