Selling Houses Australia: Room for 10 in Safety Beach, Victoria
Creating a space worthy of a big family in Safety Beach, Victoria
Photography Melissa Heath/Selling Houses Australia
In this sweet episode of Selling Houses Australia, we were tackling the enormous home of Jackie and Terry in Safety Beach on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. This is a home that has raised 10 children, so it’s huge and it's super comfortable for them – or has been – and now they're just rattling around and they need to move on. We needed to bring it to the now because its showing the wear and tear of a lot of years and a lot of kids. It’s a big house, with big problems. In order to move on with their lives and retire, they needed to sell the home because they still had a mortgage on it! I really needed to give the home a kitchen worthy of the scale of the house, and refresh the dated 1990s vibe with paint, window dressings, rugs and styling.
Creating a big kitchen from a tiny one
More suited to an apartment than a five-bedroom home, the kitchen was the one room that didn’t feel spacious. The opposite - it was teeny tiny, and very clear that it was the area I needed to spend the biggest chunk of the $60K budget.
To connect it to the rest of the home, I had to rework the layout, removing the wall to the dining room and creating space for a butler’s kitchen behind a new nib wall. We had to fit some patches into the floor where the wall came down, a bit like a jigsaw puzzle! But the finished look was seamless, and bringing down the wall also allowed some extra natural light into the area. A new awning window from Alidoor connects it to the deck outside.
To create the kitchen itself, I went with flatpack Kaboodle cabinetry ( available at Bunnings) with a Magnolia stone benchtop for a splash of luxury. The cabinets below are painted in a gorgeous creamy white Almond Sugar by Wattyl, and the kitchen island and wall cabinets carry through the coastal vibes with sophisticated Deep Sea Dive, also Wattyl.
In the new layout, I was able to make some key changes, like adding new Euromaid appliances much more suited to the scale of the home. This one is a 90cm freestanding electric oven with a gas cooktop (GE90S). The butler’s pantry as big as the original kitchen! In this area, there’s a new 474L French door fridge in stainless steel – much more suited to the size of the new kitchen (and the home).
Adding an island bench also made a big difference, bringing storage, seating and masses of extra bench space. Positioning is key - I wanted a minimum of 1200cm all around the island so the space would flow and make a great entertainer’s kitchen. Above, a Nordlux Circus 27 Pendant Light Large E27 in White from The Lighting Outlet adds a dash of modern styling.
“That kitchen was tiny. I do not know how they raised 10 kids in that kitchen. It's tiny!”” ~ interiors expert Wendy Moore
A daring new dining room
This area is now a smart and sophisticated dining space that’s perfect for evening entertaining. Terri shared that she has always loved throwing dinner parties! And even though we took back her beloved dining room to create a bigger kitchen (taking out a wall completely opened up the kitchen but stole some square meterage from this area), we were able to convert the pool room into the new dining zone - because believe it or not, a pool room is not on the wish list of most buyers! I wanted long, flowing curtains for a sense of elegance in this area and went with Luxaflex Sheer Tiara in Chalk.
A downstairs living room needing style and connection
The home actually had three full sized living areas, so my focus was bringing continuity to each different area: a really consistent, low-maintenance and relaxing vibe. The biggest problem was that there was a lot of orange flooring - it was dominating and strongly dated the area to the 1990s. And who wants that?
My strategy was to deliberately choose furniture that wasn’t wood, and flooring to break up the colour scheme, along with adding lots of large rugs from Flooring Xtra to break up the large floor.
Lots of living areas: upstairs updated
Yet another room with a serious case of the blahs! In this area and throughout the home, there was such a lot of orange flooring - it was so dominating and just felt really dated. I couldn’t replace it, so I had to embrace the flooring as best I could, by working the colour into a new, relaxed and warming palette.
Installing large rugs really helped to soften that huge expanse of orange and to zone the different areas; the ones pictured and throughout the home are ‘Arabella Grey’, a wool blend rug from Flooring Xtra. The feature wall is again Deep Sea Dive by Wattyl, and updated window furnishings are stunning Pirouette light filtering and room darkening shades in Chamomile from Luxaflex. All the art featured in this home was discovered at Art Lovers Australia.
A subtle master bedroom update
This suite was just fine - just a little dated. I was able to focus on simple updates like paint and window dressings which are the same as featured throughout the rest of the home - ‘Arabella Grey’, a wool blend rug from Flooring Xtra; walls in Deep Sea Dive by Wattyl, and Pirouette shades in Chamomile from Luxaflex.
The history of the Selling Houses Safety Beach home
I loved this gorgeous suburb - what a great reason to visit Victoria’s gorgeous Mornington Peninsula! Dennis and I hit the road and arrived at Safety Beach, an hour south of Melbourne, to see its beautiful marina, sparkling bay and beautiful beaches.
We made an instant connection with Jackie and Terry, both teachers who bought this enormous five-bedroom home 13 years ago. They loved its grand size, which was perfect for their huge family. As I mentioned - 10 kids!! TEN! They worked really hard in this home, raising their lovely, huge family, but they’re now empty nesters. They needed to move on, sell the home and be mortgage free, so they could begin travelling.
Initially, they wanted $1.58-1.68 million dollars for the home, but it sat on the market for 11 months with little to no attendance at open homes. But with a desire for turn key properties - not big ones - their home had a marketing problem! We could see why it wasn’t selling. It was almost too much home - and definitely not enough kitchen! Those who saw the home put the value more around $1.2 million dollars.
The budget for the update was $60,000, which wasn’t large. We would have preferred 100K! It meant we had to focus on the kitchen. We couldn’t update the floors, but we could definitely paint and decorate.
Did Selling Houses Australia, Safety Beach sell?
Jackie and Terry were really thrilled with the home’s update – or “full of joy”, as Jackie put it. The agent was predicting offers of up to $1.6 million, with the renovation improving the saleability of this older home. They ended up selling for $1.55 million! They were both able to retire and set off on their travel adventure.
Who pays for the renovations on Selling Houses Australia?
Jackie and Terry, the owners of the Safety Beach home, contributed $60,000 towards the renovation. While this wasn’t a huge budget for such a large home, we were able to focus on key areas to get a great result. The costs excluded from this price were the labour (including the work Dennis and I put in), and anything our suppliers contributed.
