Announcing… a new house build!

We have some exciting things going on around here.

There’s actually two completely separate pieces of news I am dying to chat to you about (the second one is jaw-on-the-floor amazing… but you’ll have to wait for that one juuuuust a bit longer.)

Today I’m going to share the first exciting thing. It’s something I’m SO stoked about.

My parents are building a house! It’s a decorator’s dream, because they are starting with a completely blank slate – and I’m helping them decorate it from the ground up.

So that means you guys will get to watch the house progress in real time and see some beautiful new rooms being pulled together, from entirely raw to completely finished.

It’s gonna be so good. Ahhhh! So exciting.

Of course, I’m living vicariously through my parents and channelling all my personal dreams of a Hamptons style home.

Their block of land?? STUNNING. It’s directly over the road from a beach access, and has glorious sea views. This is what the land looked like before they started building:

It’s hard to see in that photo, but there’s a bit of a slope there. The house is all on one level (except for the garage which is a few steps lower) – but at the back they’ll have quite an elevation, with the deck basically on the level of a second floor. This is the floorplan:

It’s a three-bedroom, two-bath house with a media room and an open plan living/ dining area.

Construction is well underway, so let’s sneak a quick peek inside!

When you walk in, the first thing you see down the end of the hallway is the sea view.

Okay, so you can’t even see it in this picture because it’s all blown out. But in real life, that sudden shock of blue just smacks you in the face like a salty breaker. You feel like if you just kept walking, you’d be right on the beach.

(That’s because if you did keep walking, you would be right on the beach. Ha!)

The diagonal stripes on the living/dining part of the floorplan are there to indicate that it has a raked ceiling. Here’s what that room looks like:

It’s going to be the most amazing, light-filled, beautiful space. That stunning raked ceiling will be lined with VJ board (panelling) for that dreamy Hamptons vibe.

I’ve always had a thing for panelled ceilings. AND NOW I GET ONE. Fine, not exactly mine, but close enough. I get to hang out here and stare at it, at least.

From inside the room looking out, there’s a bank of stacking slider doors, a big full-width deck, and… THAT VIEW.

These photos are totally not doing the view justice, partly because they’re terrible (I snapped them on my iPhone), and partly because of all the scaffolding in the way right now.

Here’s a bit of a closer peek through the scaffolding…

The view will never be built out, because that’s an easement behind them, then the road, then an access path that goes straight through those trees and down to the beach.

On a clear day you can see the white beaches of the islands as if you could reach out and touch them.

There’s also a beautiful view from the master bedroom. (Well, there would be if all that scaffolding wasn’t in the way.)

The interiors are shaping up fast. Since I took these shots, the cornices (crown mouldings) have all gone in, the panelling has gone up on that raked ceiling in the living area (photos coming soon!) and they started laying the timber floors today.

It’s all been ridiculously fun. I absolutely love building houses. It’s even more fun when you get to spend someone else’s money to do it. Ha!

I’m excited about all this on a personal level most of all. For the past thirteen years, my Mum and Dad have lived at the other end of the country, in Tasmania – so far away that we only got to see them once (or occasionally twice) per year.

I won’t lie, it’s been a tough slog parenting four little kids without any family support. But mostly it’s always made me feel sad that they’ve missed so much of the kids’ early years.

Despite the distance that’s been between us ever since we started our family, they’ve managed to form such close relationships with all the kids. But we’ve missed them… a lot.

Then Dad retired (he was a church pastor), and this year they finally moved back up here to Queensland after well over a decade away. It’s so amazing just being able to do everyday life with them again. We are absolutely soaking it in.

And the best part is, they’re building their new house about 5 minutes away from where we live!

The fact that they moved here from the other end of the country meant that they needed to sell almost all their old furniture before they came. (It wasn’t worth the cost of shipping it all up here – cheaper just to replace it.) They’ve never had particularly nice furniture – mostly a mis-match of garage-sale finds and a few “design disasters” thrown in for good measure.

They finally have the budget to do something nice, so I’ve run with it. I’ve been completely bossy about it, too.

Neither of them are particularly interested in design (where did I come from??) and as a result their decorating taste is questionable (sorry Mum, I know you’re reading this, lol) so I’ve had to persuade them every step of the way that it is TOTALLY going to be worth it to trust my advice.

It’s not too often you get to design every aspect of a house, from the build materials/ tiles/ paint colours/ fixtures, all the way through to furniture and decor, and document the whole process. So stay tuned!

I’ll be sharing some of my mood boards over the next few weeks – and the house is on the home stretch now, so it’s going to take shape fast! Can’t wait to share it all with you.