It’s out with the old, and in with the new.
On the outside, Adam and Amy Brassil’s abode is a charming interwar period home, complete with textured glass front doors.
This facade fades into their home, as it melts into a sleek modern masterpiece.
Wanting to pay homage to the heritage of their new home, the front is kept almost as it originally stood, but as you walk through, it progressively opens up and becomes more modern.
When first purchasing their starter home back in 2015, they knew they had a big job on their hands.
Built back in 1936, the fixer-upper needed a lot of upgrades, and Adam and Amy had big dreams for the renovation.
Their first major project became transforming their old living room into their master bedroom.
Gutting the front room and turning it into their new bedroom with an ensuite and walk in robe proved to be a more ambitious task than they first thought, with many lessons learned from their DIY job.
“I’m very fussy. We did the renovation when we first moved in, and it sort of shows our immaturity and how our tastes and styles have changed,” Adam said.
Life got in the way, with the couple undertaking small renovations where they could, before finally being able to complete the house extension in 2020.
“It wasn’t until COVID [that we began the extension] because we were meant to be getting married and couldn’t,” Amy said.
“So we postponed that for a while, and then we thought, well, we’ll just renovate because we’re going to be home anyway.”
Gutting the rest of the house and transforming it into an open concept kitchen and living room meant that for months the couple lived out of boxes and chaos.
“It was hard once we got rid of the kitchen,” Amy said.
“We had a little setup in our laundry, and we were living out of large containers and tubs, including all our food and kitchen stuff.
“The front of the house was our nice area so we just hung out in our master most of the time, and we used the front bedroom as our lounge room.”
Throughout their renovations, the Brassils knew they wanted to keep the timeless charm of the original house and mix it into the modern elements, which they’ve featured from the ground up.
Starting from the very bottom, they preserved the original floorboards, using a mix of original and new feature grade floorboards.
“We pulled all the boards up and mixed them together, and then laid them back down so the floorboards blended right through,” Adam said.
From the ground to the ceiling roses, there are pieces of the old home memorialised.
“The cornices in the front two rooms are actually brand new,” Adam said.
“Originally, all the plaster was from Browns back in 1936, so we went down there to see if they still had the original cornice plaster moulds, which they did, and so Browns was able to create brand-new cornices but made out of the same moulds that they used 80 odd years ago.
“All the skirting is the same, exactly the same. We got custom profiles made up to match the original, so they’re all brand new, but the same as the original.
Even in the modernised areas of the home, they still found ways to pay homage to the original home.
“We chose green for the kitchen because originally, the whole house had been painted this horrible dark green colour, which made the house so gloomy and dark,” Amy said.
“But we thought it would be nice to bring a little bit of the old house back.”
The kitchen is one of their favourite spots they renovated, with the focal feature of the concrete waterfall benchtop one of their personal favourites.
“The concrete is probably my favourite because it is so hardy, you can put your hot pans straight onto it without damage,” Amy said.
“I also really love the laundry because it’s got so much space and storage.”
Adam’s favourites include the double-glazed windows featured towards the back of the house, the main bathroom and the alfresco posts outside on the deck.
“They’re out of the Geelong pier,” Adam said.
“There’s a recycled timber yard there called Timber Zoo, where they mill them down.
“The pattern on it is from a sea worm, it’s eaten them to a certain stage.”
Many local businesses from around the Goulburn Valley helped the couple bring their renovation dreams come to life, including Adam and Amy’s own business, B&Co Projects.
Specialising in custom-builds and renovations, the team at B&Co Projects handled all the carpentry work including demolition, floor and wall framing, floorboards and installing architraves and skirting.
“We did all the concrete work ourselves, including the benchtop and hearth,” Adam said.
With the renovations complete – for the most part – Adam and Amy are taking the time to soak up their new home and appreciate all the hard work that went into it.
Since the renovations, they were finally able to get married, and their little family gained a new addition, with their daughter being born at the end of 2022, after the renovations wrapped up at the end of 2021.
While the experience was rewarding for them, both Adam and Amy were in agreement that if they ever decide to renovate again, they wouldn’t live there at the same time.
“It was a good experience,” Amy said.
“We’re keen to complete another renovation in the future.”
This story originally featured in Our Home Winter 2024. Find the full magazine, here: https://www.sheppnews.com.au/features-and-magazines/our-home-winter-2024/