After 25 years, homeowners Trudi and Rob decided to update their family home – and bring it into this century, from the roof down. There is no doubt that no matter how well you build your forever home, styles change and trends move on.
One day you might be looking around and realise that everything in your once-modern abode is looking just a little tired.
The problem
Trudy and Rob’s Windsor Downs home in NSW was designed and built in the 1990s – at the height of the Australian obsession with Federation revival style. It was time for an update, they say.
It featured all of the design elements of the time – green and cream-painted timber trims, a dark timber kitchen and worn concrete tiles on the roof undefined.
“The other roof was a concrete roof,” explains Rob. “It started to discolour and go quite light and greyish. We weren’t really that keen on the look of it and we thought that it was time for an upgrade. We wanted to get something that holds its colour, which is why we chose Terracotta.”
Trudi says that the house, while perhaps a little outdated, was essentially well designed internally and externally, so they decided to keep the floorplan, but just refresh everything, starting from the roof, with classic Hamptons style in mind.
“It’s structurally and cosmetically a very nice looking home,” she says. “It addresses the land that it sits on well. It’s a good-sized home and it has good bones. It just needed to be brought up to date.”
The solution
They engaged Dreamroof for the roofing job, which included replacing and updating the guttering and was the biggest part of the property’s overall – essentially taking it from a dated Federation look to a Hamptons-style home.
“It was all part of a major renovation,” says Trudy. “Essentially starting from the top down. We saw that the whole property looked dated as compared to what modern properties look like now.
The works
“So, we started at the top and we worked all the way down, which is why we did the roof and then we did the gutters and then we painted,” says Trudi. “And then we put in shutters. Then we revamped some of the garden.”
A quintessential Hamptons-style garden often features hedging, so tools like Fiskar’s PowerGear X Hedge Shear were needed to recreate the formal look.
Streamlined roof tiles
Monier Roofing’s stylish Terracotta Nullarbor tiles in Peak colour refreshed the house by adding a statement and dramatic finish to the exterior and changing the Federation aesthetic to a more modern Hamptons style.
A fresh coat of paint
Trudi and Rob say that just by replacing the guttering and painting the timber trims in Dulux Whisper White gave the house an instant facelift. Guttering and dark trims are in Dulux Monument.
The result
The new roof tiles are sleek and dramatic – the look that the couple wanted – in order to achieve the streamlined style to align with the house’s new façade.
And while the couple have no plans to sell the house, they say they were mindful of the fact that because the Terracotta won’t fade, it will maintain its colour if they change their mind in the next decade and put it on the market.
