Photography: Louise Roche / Styling: Kylie Jackes
For Bangalow locals Margaret and Peter, many aspects of their home brings them joy – from the richly coloured walls, sentimental art and furnishings, to their library, enveloped by gardens they created from scratch. Yet what they love most is sharing the place with their adult children and grandchildren, who feel right at home.
“The grandkids have spent a lot of time in this house over the past decade and to see the joy they get, climbing the old mulberry tree, picnicking under the 100-year-old Poinciana, swimming in the pool and just running amok through the paddocks on their motorbikes fills us with great pleasure,” shares Margaret.
Who lives here?
Margaret and Peter, retirees and caretakers for Glenwood Guest House @glenwoodguesthouse; their best friend Nick, a horticulturist; and dogs Jack Russell Rossi, and Whoopi the Cavoodle.
Best renovation decision? Margaret: “Gutting most of the internal walls to give the home that open-plan feeling.”
Favourite spot to spend time? “The kitchen. It’s where I enjoy making food for my family and teaching the grandkids how to cook. We all naturally gravitate to the kitchen table.”
What’s your decorating approach? “Be courageous with colour, go with your gut and if it’s what you truly want, stick to your decision. Take a chance, you might just love the outcome.”
Brimming with personality and warmth, the place is utterly unrecognisable from the rundown ’70s bungalow the couple bought 14 years ago. While other buyers were deterred by its dismal appearance, Margaret had a keen eye for its potential. With two decades of experience in the interior design industry and more than a dozen renovations under her belt, she envisioned what it could become – a family home imbued with a European farmhouse feel.
During their first year in the house, Peter and Margaret’s aim was to make it liveable on the cheap – ripping out carpets, giving it a new lick of paint and enhancing the functionality of the kitchen and bathrooms. A pool was installed, gardens planted and paddocks revegetated. Several years later, Margaret’s vision took shape with a complete renovation.
“We basically gutted the entire house, lifted the ceiling to expose the rafters, reconfigured the layout, added a bedroom wing and joined the house to the existing tractor shed, which was turned into the library,” she explains. The final phase of the masterplan was completed last year, with colour injected in every room and tweaks to the floor plan to enhance its versatility as a guesthouse.
Kitchen
Serving as a true family hub, the kitchen reflects Margaret’s love of European-inspired design. “On our travels in Italy, I saw the use of kitchen tiles running across the floor and continuing up the wall, and thought I’d always like to try it one day,” she recalls.
Drawn to the blue of ‘Santiago’ encaustic tiles from Teranova, the colour pulls the eye to the functional space featuring gloss timber cabinetry painted in Dulux Maximus, with classic white subways from Byron Bay Tiles.
Living area
The metamorphosis is a credit to the couple’s hard work and talent, as well as their daughter Kit, who now runs their residential design business Alida and Miller and collaborated on the home’s interior. “Kit knows my style well, so it was great to work with her on colours, furniture selection and lighting,” says Margaret.
Almost every room features a different shade of paint on the walls, which gives spaces a distinct feel. “Colour really is the starting point for our design process; it adds so much depth and brings so many moods to a home,” says Margaret. “Sometimes it can take up to 20 samples of a shade to get the tone just right in a space, but the right backdrop often makes the room.” For more ideas, visit Dulux.
We love… bold wall colour
Dining area
Removing multiple external walls and lifting the ceiling to expose structural rafters completely changed the sense of space and light in the home’s main living, dining and kitchen area. Now luxuriously open plan, bi-fold doors further enhance the expansive feel and link the area to the adjoining deck and pool zone. Margaret and Kit enjoyed the process of sourcing and artfully arranging furnishings and art within the space.
Peter and Margaret love entertaining, so it was important to incorporate a large dining table. This setting from Bisque Traders adds a rustic vibe and complements the timber table in the kitchen.
Library
It took incredible vision to reimagine the property’s original tractor shed as what it is today – a 1940s English Farmhouse-style library. “I was brought up in a home full of books and every project we have renovated has always had a space for a library, big or small,” says Margaret. The reading haven has floor-to-ceiling shelving loaded with design tomes, novels, coffee table books, magazines and works collected over four decades.
“Books and flowers are my two most favourite things and I love to fill the house with them.”
Margaret
Twin bedroom
Inspired by travels, particularly to Italy and France, the home has a distinct European flavour. “I just love the layers of history and use of colour in their farmhouses, and because the natural light in Italy is similar here, we felt bold, moody colours would work really well,” says Margaret of the inspired use of deep greys, greens, blues and mustards that infuse the interior with character. Timber furniture and antiques feature throughout accompanied by gorgeous sofas, bedheads and tiles.
Devoted to the grandkids when they sleep over, this room showcases British Paints Unbaked Clay on the ceiling teamed with walls in Dulux Raw Cotton. “It was Kit’s idea to use a bold contrasting colour, which was something we saw a lot of in Europe, often to disguise dodgy ceilings in older buildings,” explains Margaret.
Main bedroom and ensuite
Dulux Treeless was also chosen for the couple’s bedroom walls – the perfect backdrop for an elegant Create Estate bedhead and Plum Check ruffle linen from Society of Wanderers.
Previously a small bedroom, this space was absorbed within the main bedroom as a walk-in-wardrobe/lounge retreat, furnished with pieces from Byron Bay Hanging Chairs.
“Your home will remain timeless if you decorate it with the things you love, rather than simply what’s on trend.”
Margaret
The main bedroom ensuite features black tiles from Byron Bay Tiles and Florence Broadhurst ‘Egrets’ wallpaper.
Powder room
This sweet powder room wouldn’t look out of place in a Parisian apartment. Glowing in Dulux Treeless, the pink walls are underscored with chequered tiles from Byron Bay Tiles, while the repurposed vanity paired with a marble basin from a previous renovation was painted in Dulux Maximus to match the door.
Guest ensuite
Originally an office, this space is now a guest room ensuite with blue and white tiles from Byron Bay Tiles.
Pool
The couple turned the front paddock into a lush tropical sanctuary, which creates privacy for the pool. Along with their good friend Nick, they did as much of the physical work as possible, installing the decking, developing the gardens and painting the exterior in Dulux Pink Stock.
“We have created a space that reflects our family and how we like to live, and it’s not too precious, but still has a bit of magic to it,” says Margaret. “It’s where memories are being made and that’s what makes a house a home.”
Interiors: Alida and Miller, alidaandmiller.com, and Kit Spaces, kitspaces.com.
SOURCE BOOK
Builder: Belcon Constructions, belconconstructions.com, and Aarko Construction, @aako_construction.
Joinery: Design Spec Joinery + Kitchens, designspec.net.au.
