Design Tips with James Treble - Modern Australian Interior Theme

Video Transcript - Midland 23, Box Hill

The Midland 23 is a very popular single-story design for Eden Brae Homes. Due to a combination of its great floor-plan and the practical placement of the rooms which flow beautifully from one to the next. Because this is suiting to the modern take of the Australian families we gave it the design theme of Modern Australian, so join me now as I take a walk through this home to share with you some of the design decisions that we made along the way in creating this beautiful space, and they may just give you some great tips to help you with your own design journey.

The palette for our Modern Australian theme begins with a range of finishes and selections. They cross over from earthy tones, to timber grains and an introduction of texture throughout this home. Starting with the main floors, this porcelain tiles which are 600x600 provide the perfect textural backdrop with a slightly earthy grey tone. They have a soft undulating surface, replicating the look of natural stone in the Australian landscape, and the colour provides the perfect backdrop for all of the furniture and the styling choices.

To complement that undulating surface of the floor tiles we added more texture, firstly in the carpet, which runs throughout all of the bedrooms, and it’s in a deeper grey to contrast the colour of the tiles as well. Further texture is found in the doors profile, where vertical lines draw your eye in and up into the space, adding to the feeling of height. To add more visual interest I decided to highlight these doors in a soft grey, and we decided on black door hardware; it picks up the colour of the windows and completes the look.

Continuity is an important design feature when creating your interior’s palette. For this reason we repeated the use of the floor tiles in the wet area floors, this time in a smaller size, and to add more drama to the space we continued those floor-tiles up one wall as a feature, creating the perfect backdrop in this case for the vanity, the mirror and the shower. Of course for our Modern Australian theme we had to include some timber grain, and in this case, we used this textural finish in the vanities. The vertical line adds interest to the space and the colour adds warmth to the otherwise grey and white colour scheme. To add some more drama we repeated the use of black, this time in the tapware, the mirror frame and the shower-screen and of course the accessories.

The Midland 23 enjoys a large kitchen with plenty of benchspace, and to further enhance this we chose white benchtops, to lighten and brighten the space. The honed finish is replicating a nice worn and weathered surface in the great Australian outdoors, and you remember that continuity? Well, of course we repeated the use of the timber grain from the vanities into the bottom cabinetry of the kitchen. To add further interest and contrast we decided to go with white polyurethane for the overhead cupboards. The vertical line repeats the vertical lines found on the internal doors, and the subtle but strong design element of adding black features in the tapware and internal door handles, has been repeated here in the kitchen as well, with these beautiful natural oak timber handles in a black matte finish.

The final touch to any interior is the styling, the addition of furniture and décor items, and of course we followed the Modern Australian theme here to complete the look.