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Long Jetty Reno: Ep 8 - First Impressions Count

15 November 2017

 

After months of hard work on the front facade, Kyal & Kara are ready to landscape! With all the beautiful greenery brought in, this reno is all coming together!

Transcript:

It's so nice to have accomplished the whole front facade.  The turf is looking amazing.  Our concrete steps just  work perfectly with the driveway.  It's just the front facade to die for.

One of the reasons we bought this house was because we loved the Canary Island date palm in the the front corner.  The original front of the house, was just, it was a bit of a mash-up, of like, the fibro cottage and then a driveway down the side with a carport.  And now that we've sort of incorporated that into our design and brought our roof line as far forward as we could without encroaching on that tree, that palm just, like, it just looks so nice and established there.

Once we designed the floor space, then we knew that we had to re-pitch the roof, because it wasn't all gonna work together.  And one of our goals is to always make sure there's a beautiful street presence.  Exactly.  And the roof line plays such an important part into how the front of the house is going to look. So you know, we love a gable roof, and it just gives that opportunity for another dimension and to change that shape.  It just really, it just looks beautiful.  

I love the fact that we've been able to use, like, colorbond products for this roof.  Not only does the installation happen at a super fast rate, but, the fact that it's a trusted and tried product, and it's been tested all over Australia, it just gives me that assurance that everything is going to be spick and span. It's a really nice finish.  It's something a little bit different about your standard colourbond roof.  This matte finish has just got a real elegant touch to it.  

All along we wanted to keep that beach vibe going at the front of the house, so we've gone for the linear weather board in the 150 wide.  It's a slightly smaller profile. The texture of the weather board like those shadow lines and then you tie that in with that beautiful stonework that we've got at the front.  It just, you know, it speaks like 'I am from the coast - I am a coastal home'.

The stone wall looks amazing and now that the scaffolds down, we've being able to revisit it and finish it off.

It's a massive project this one, but I can't neglect the fact that we've got a crack on and get this driveway happening.  And I'm gonna log on to hipages and find a local contractor who can contact me and supply a quote.

As anyone who's renovated or built will know, it is so hard to keep the site clean when you've got trades walking dirt in and out.  Absolutely. So we cover up that dirt and get that driveway in and things are starting to look finished.  

It's a pretty massive day for the front facade. It's really starting to take shape.  And I've got the concrete pad footings going in, which lead up to the front door.  We're also concreting in our posts, which are for our picket fence around the front so that is going to start to look awesome.  And you know what - we're getting pretty close for this front facade to be finished.  And it's started to take shape and I'm pretty excited because once that's done it means less dirt on the inside of the house.

We wanted to do, like, a really nice deck out the front, which sort of leads up to the front door.  So we've got this beautiful 140 wide Blackbutt decking from Mitre 10 and it looks stunning.  To cap off that decking at the front, we've used a small dwarf wall and I really love the combination of the Blackbutt decking and the limestone together.  It looks really beautiful.

With our garage door we got a custom cedar backdoor made up.  But similar to Toowoon Bay, we are going to do some extra timber detailing on it because we feel like that really makes the front of the house at Toowoon Bay and I think it will add something special to this house as well.  Yeah it'll be a nice little detail.  So a couple of crosses, just to give it that subtle hint of texture.  

Well the time has come and we're landscaping the whole front and the plants are gonna look amazing. I'm so excited.  

We've got the team from Sprint Horticulture here and we honestly couldn't have done it without them.  And I'm so excited to see all these plants in place because I think it's going to look amazing.  These trees are looking absolutely stunning and I can't wait to get them in the round.  They're absolutely massive. 

I'm really happy with how this garden is coming together, and what I like most is the different colour variations in the grasses.  So we've got the festuca here.  We've got the crackerjack and we've got the Blue Ridge.  And together these grasses are going to fill the front of this garden and create that volume and texture, which is great for our seaside garden.

We've got our larger plants in now.  We've filled the space with our smaller grasses and we are ready now to put some mulch in and get everything watered.  It's so nice seeing like the amount of greenery that's just come in and it just brings the whole space to life.  I've been working on the front facade, you know, for months and it's been a big design.  But when you start to bring living elements in like plants and everything, it just like enhances the whole front space. 

One of the finishing touches of our garden is this succulent bowl and I think this is going to be that little touch of colour that this outdoor area needs.  And I think that colour is going to look great against the limestone.  So we've chosen a huge range of succulents from the urban wild range which is available from most hardware stores.  And once you are happy, you just plant away.  

This festuca beyond blue is perfect next to hard surfaces such as driveways and stepping stones.  It tolerates really high heat it doesn't need much water and its really hardy.

I'm really happy with how the front has come together.  It certainly got street appeal now.  And you know it really catches your eye as you drive down the street.  Part of the goal with transforming the front facade was to give a nice established entryway which looks inviting and you can clearly go - yep that's the front door. I'm going there I'm knocking on the door.  Gonna see if they want to buy some cookies.  That's where I'm going.

For the front door, we didn't want to go your standard 820 wide.  So we've gone a massive 1150 wide front door. I love the v-groove joints in it.  It's really beautiful and it's a nice subtle way to add some texture to your front facade. 

What we also want to do to incorporate like a nice entryway up to the front door, is do some random concrete pads.  So we've matched those in with the driveway and then they lead out beside the stone letterbox that we've created aswell. 

Off the letterbox, we've decided to do a white picket fence but a little bit more modern than the traditional picket.We're really excited to use the colour bonds surfmist because we are the one of the first in Australia to have it in the matte finish, and it looks absolutely stunning.  I wanted to paint the garage door a beautiful sage colour and Kyal was freaking out about it, but I found the perfect colour.  I've done snow olive in a half tint.  Couldn't be happier with how it looks.  It looks really beautiful.

With the stone we're tossing up whether to sandstone or limestone and we've gone with the limestone.  We're really happy with how that looks because it's just a little bit softer and it works really well with the colour palette that we are going for.  I absolutely love that large one metre succulent bowl with all the different textures and colours.  It's absolutely beautiful. 

It's so nice to have accomplished the whole front facade.  The turf is looking amazing.  Our concrete steps just work perfectly with the driveway.  It's just the front facade to die for.

Coming up next on Long Jetty reno - The front facade is looking outstanding.  It's done and dusted.  And now it's time to focus our energy on the kitchen living and dining, and we can't forget about that pool area.

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