Designing a holiday home between the beach and bush

The appeal of Australian coastal towns is that they are usually set to a backdrop of lush hinterland thus offering their lucky residents the best of both worlds.  Designing a holiday home between the beach and the bush offers a particular set of challenges though.

For Melissa Bonney, Director at multi-disciplinary design studio, the Designory, a brief to create a holiday home with the vibe of a luxury hotel, set between Byron Bay's beaches and the Arakwal national park, offered her the perfect challenge – how to create a relaxed home representing both the beach and bushland.

“This project pushed my aesthetic to new plains,” says Bonney of the five bed, five bath Barefoot Bay Villa.  “I knew that there were key elements I would need to capture the surrounding look and feel,” she adds.

Key attributes of a holiday home set between the beach and bush

Connecting to the local environment is key to Melissa's personal approach for ‘designing from the inside out' and is evident as you enter. Every room has large expanses of glazing that create sightlines to the scenery, while allowing for cross ventilation.”

This is evident as soon as you enter the home with automated Breezway Powerlouvres by Trend Windows & Doors running the length of the entire space.  Melissa has utilized a wide range of options to create open spaces and private places.  A good example of this is the use of the Quantum Cavity Stacking doors between the dining area and garden to create one large open space or close off for a more intimate gathering.

Selecting the right window colour

Melissa selected the Black Textura finish for the windows and doors of the home. “The matt, finely sandblasted appearance of the frames is a perfect reflection of the rock of the Byron coast and parkland.”

This is a great point that Melissa makes as often my clients will request a white window believing this is important to create an open feel for a home.  However you actually look through and past dark colours, while you look at light, particularly white, frames.  A dark window frame is mellow and settles into it's location well, particularly in a bush or garden setting.

Related: How to choose windows

A starting point for a colour palette

Selecting the right colour palette for your home can be overwhelming and it is therefore useful to consider a starting point that can be continued and create a flow throughout the home.  When designing a colour and finishes palette for a home between the beach and the bush, it is a good idea to take the natural environment into consideration to find this foundation.

Melissa adds “consistent colour choices make a home feel cohesive and resolved.  Our palette started when Corinthian Doors suggested their White American Oak veneer door designs.”  To continue with this theme Melissa selected Moda barn doors to help transition between the downstairs bedrooms, ensuites and walk-in robes.  “To continue this material and colour choice, we've used Moda White Oak as our hinged interior doors and also within Platinum Cavity sliding pockets.”

The matt black elements of the windows are cleverly extended through to the hardware for the barn doors.  While touches of black, with accents of green and the warm tones of rust to evoke the Australian bush, are brought into bedrooms.

Image: The Designory Photo Credit: Cat Gerke

Image: The Designory Photo Credit: Andy MacPhersonThis gorgeous partnership of colours brought in from the bush setting can then be used throughout the home to create a different mood. You can be confident that they will work as they all have the connecting starting point of oak and black that creates cohesion.  The boundaries were successfully pushed with the selection of wall tiles in the bathrooms and laundry joinery creating a unique and uplifting environment.

A holiday home needs good storage

When it came to considering innovative storage solutions for the home, Melissa turned to Stegbar for assistance.  “The robes also had to meet the needs of everyone from groups of friends, to families and couples.  We worked with Stegbar to create bespoke configurations, with full length and shorter hanging rails, hampers, baskets, drawers, shoe racks and other options to provide individual experiences in every room” adds Melissa.

The above joinery is in Polytec's Venette matt board in the gorgeous dark tones of Cinder.  From Stegbar's Galleria range with their Bluetooth enabled LED Lighting system, this really adds a lux feel to the holiday home.

Stegbar joinery was also used in the laundry with hampers on soft close extendable arms for easy access.

A final note on designing a holiday home between the beach and the bush

The Designory, together with some trusted suppliers, has created a gorgeous, luxurious yet understated holiday home.  Melissa has cleverly brought in outdoor elements specific to the Byron Bay location rather than simply relying on the usual splashes of blue and green that you would associate with a holiday home between the beach and the bush.  Building on a simple neutral palette and incorporating rich colour tones to evoke the landscape, the home is welcoming, relaxing and certainly luxurious.

All rooms included here are the work of Melissa Bonney at The Designory.  Further information about their projects and services can be found here.

Find out more about Trend Windows & Doors, Corinthian Doors and Stegbar.

I have some further reading on putting together a successful colour palette so that your home relates well to its surroundings.  Follow me on Pinterest too for a range of colour palettes to bring inspiration to your next project.

Related: Australian Coastal Style – 7 steps to achieve this look