This full home decoration project is the epitome of style, class and family-functionality. Our services included Interior Decoration, Soft Furnishings & Window Treatments, Feature Lighting and Custom Furniture. We were able to start with a blank canvas, as the home was a new build, and create a dream home from the ground up.
Project Type: New Build | Family Home
Architect | Shaun Lockyer Architects | Photography | Cathy Schusler
The property was originally bought with the intention of creating a forever home for their young family to grow with. They brought on SLa (Shaun Lockyer Architects) to design the home, and then Langlois Design joined to concentrate on the Interior Decoration portion of the project. My brief was to ensure the home was relaxed, child friendly, and reflected the lifestyle of my clients whilst also being sophisticated and in harmony with the architecture.
Working with any architect is always a great experience as you are two creative disciplines bringing together your particular expertise to create one beautiful home. Working with Shaun and his team was great, they design fabulous homes that have incredible attention to detail, a striking materials palette and for this home a wonderful sense of proportion of house to outdoor space. Working in this environment where the architecture and interior design sit very much side by side it was all the more important to ensure the decoration elements added to the design success of the home and not detracted from it. In a project like this bringing in an interior decorator to work on the furnishings, feature lighting & window treatments, really is the cherry on top.
I was brought in on the final stages of the Architectural design so this was my first source of inspiration. Looking at the materials palette used for the Cabinetry, Flooring and Hard Finishes gave me a springboard into the materials I would continue to use for the furnishings. The neutral palette Shaun used is rich in texture and drama, creating a great base for layering.
As with all my clients, we start with images they have gathered and from there we create a mood board to work from. With the Clayfield residence mood board, bold pops of colour kept reappearing so we decided that this was something we would incorporate into the spaces where appropriate.
We collaborated room by room from the floor up introducing custom pieces with child-friendly fabrics, hardwearing pieces that could be easily cleaned always keeping in mind that this was home to be lived in and not just admired. The selection process was all about building the space block by block.
I always start a project of this scale with a cost breakdown for my client, so they have an understanding of how the budget is being spent. This often gets shuffled around however it is important to be transparent upfront to ensure everyone is on the same page.
I always suggest to my clients, regardless of budget, to invest in the pieces that are in the high traffic areas and that need to last. This generally includes the sofa which is a great item to get made custom as it allows you to determine the size, fabric and comfort factors.
On the Clayfield residence, we customised a number of pieces of which the blue velvet sofa and the gold ottoman are probably the two standout items. Customising these gave us the flexibility to choose our fabric colours and play with the design features, which was important to the individual room schemes and the overall style of the home.
The Clayfield home has often been referred to as the ‘7 Courtyard project’ in reference to the small gardens and courtyards that intersect with the architecture. It was important the furniture layout enhanced this design notion and played to the little moments of greenery throughout the home. Specifying the functionality of each outdoor space allowed us to furnish it ensuring optimal usage.
Again, it was vital to have the lighting suit the architecture. Referring back to our original mood board brass accents kept popping up. The introduction of brass worked beautifully with the architectural palette, so we decided to use the material in the form of feature lighting which added fabulous drama against the black backdrop.
The feature lighting used throughout the home sits in harmony with its surrounding as opposed to the standout feature. Because the spaces are mostly open plan, we wanted to ensure that no one piece dominated, and each contributed to the layering and overall success of the space.
Even though concrete can be viewed as a cold material, pairing it with warm timbers, rustic stone and grey marble softens its appearance for a residential setting. In some areas we decided to play to the cool tones of the concrete and other areas we used luxurious, rich materials to counterbalance it.
For example in the outdoor living space we used a cooler colour palette which was more tonal but ramped up the texture & form of some elements including the use of rope, zinc that will patina over time and focusing on the shape and layout of certain furniture pieces.
The children are quite young however it was agreed that these rooms would carry them through their teenage years. Because of this, I designed the spaces & made selections of key items (ie bedside tables, lamps, window treatments) that would age with them. Changing up smaller elements in the room as the years go by, such as bedlinen, would allow the room to change and personalise to the child’s tastes over time.
The children’s playroom was designed with the same methodology, with a fun and young vibe that still worked with the rest of the home. The kids wing was decorated with more durable elements for functional living, such as fabric with stained resistance properties and was a little more liberal with colour and a “fun” factor.
I think we were very successful in creating a flow in the home that suits the lifestyle of my clients and their family. Each space has furniture selected for its own purpose, feel and function ether that be formal or informal yet overall it works as one.
I can’t choose a favourite space in the house because they each individually answer the brief that was requested of them. However the quintessential black and white stripe cushions by the pool were a last minute inclusion and I can’t imagine that space without them. I think that is a great example of taking a beautifully designed space to the next level.
This project is an excellent showcase of the range of Decoration services Langlois Design can offer, including window treatments, custom furniture, feature lighting and more.
