Hi. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Jane Eyles-Bennett and I’m the founder of this Facebook group. I specialise in exterior facade design. I want to say hi to all the new people. We’ve had so many people join us over the last few months and I’ve been a bit slack and haven’t been on here.
Today I wanted to talk about what type of home renovation you want. I can kinda guess even without knowing you. A lot of people think what they want is the minimalist, really beautiful design masterpiece, really amazing looking. I’ve called it in my title “Minimalist magazine-worthy masterpiece”. Or, do you want a lovely beautiful feeling sanctuary for a home?
And I can tell you that most of my clients want the latter, in reality. You know we see all these images on the TV and in magazines in particular and it gives us this grand idea of what could be possible, but really, in reality, we want somewhere that really just feels nice for us.
There’s scales of really minimalist, personality-less renovations and homes and then there’s really homely. And you can sort of fit somewhere in the middle so you’ve got something that feels like it’s really you and it really reflects your personality but it’s also modern. It’s not clunky and it’s not too minimalist. You can kind of go half way in between.
That’s where a lot of my clients go. What a lot of people want is that sort of thing where it looks good, it feels calm, it feels like a really nice space to be in. It’s your sanctuary at the end of the day.
The thing is it’s not just about, “Oh, we’re going to do this white kitchen” or “We’re just going to do this or just do that”. It’s not about picking out a selection of different colours and materials; it’s the combination and how all of those things are put together – so the colours, the materials, the choices.
Of course the colours that you choose, the textures that you choose, where everything is positioned is important. (And I’m talking about things to do with the kitchen, bathroom, exterior, outdoor living, bedrooms, all of those sorts of things.) But, I think one important aspect that people miss is the layout.
So, you might think, “Oh, yeah, we’ll change the layout. Pull this wall out or that wall out”, but if you’re going to be doing a renovation, it’s really worth considering whether it’s the best use of the space. A lot of the time it isn’t, and a lot of the time it doesn’t take a lot to change it. I come across botch-ups – I could use a worse word- but I come across this all the time where I turn up to a property and they’ve started the renovation and… I just went to one recently and I just thought, “My God!” They had really made a mistake that had affected the rest of what we’re doing now to help them fix up the rest of the house. It’s really affected that. So, think about your layouts.
I guess one of the main things I want to say too, is that when people are choosing colours and finishes and things for their home, it’s not necessarily what you want it to look like, but how do you want it to feel?
So the way your home feels is really more important than how it looks. So, I’d really encourage you to think about your renovation from that angle – how do I want this to feel? Not how do I want it to look. So the way you change the way it feels is going to be dependant on the colours, materials and the layout choices and things that you make. Good design is not about plopping some different colours here and there; it’s really a big picture thing.
I hope that was interesting. Just think about how you want your home to make you feel and how you can interpret the colour and layout choices into the feeling that you want in your home.
Once again, my name is Jane Eyles-Bennett. I’ll see you here in the group and if anyone does want help with their design, I’m here to help, so just personal message me if you need some help, otherwise I will see you right here. Bye!