Posts tagged behind the scenes
{The reno files} A real-life renovation guide: the design process
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Let's just ignore the fact more than six months have passed since I last published a post on this site. Let's also not talk about the numerous post ideas I have listed in my notebook that haven't seen the light of day. Let's instead focus on how we came up with the design for this extension of ours (which, despite six months later is still three roof sheets short of being watertight from above! It's been... well it was all good until last month when the rain didn't stop and we had no roof. But that is a story for another day... Not six months away though, promise!) 

So. When we were house hunting four years ago we had a few musts: it needed to be a fixer-upper because we wanted to make our own stamp on it. Location was important - we wanted to be close to the water. It had to have good light, good structural bones, a decent yard and the potential for us to add to it. We found the ugliest house in the best street with water views and snapped it up. The good thing about it being an ugly house was there was no history or architectural details which we had to work around which is often the case with old houses. This was fibro. It had plain walls, plain windows, plain cornices, plain everything. It was essentially a blank canvas (and I hate using that term, but it's true). Our last home had pretty cornices, timber windows and a real cottage-y feel to it we tried to keep while modernising it. Our first house was a historical semi we didn't dare touch aside from paint in tones true to its style. This house had nothing really. It gave us freedom to do what we wanted without feeling guilty about veering away from its "style" or stripping it of character. I believe in working with what you have and if it had any redeeming features, we'd definitely have worked with them in the design process. As it happened, we ended up creating the story of our house once work started - we recycled parts of the old roof into stair treads, changed the floor direction in the extension and kept a few original parts like the old knocker and house numbers. We have piles of hardwood from the roof that will become a bar top and library shelves. We reused the huge beams as heads above doorways and windows, moved some windows around and recycled doors. It's nice to have a kind-of-cool answer for the "why is that like that..." questions that might come.

But before we even got to creating a story, we had to create a plan. And while it's tempting to look at magazines and Pinterest and blogs and imagine yourself in that space, there are so many more factors to consider aside from loving something because it looks pretty. Captain Obvious, right? Well yes and no because despite all my constant writing about this stuff, it's easy to get swept away imagining something when the reality is likely to be very different. And know that it's not just a matter of things being different due to your tastes or location, but it's to the rules of YOUR property - and they might be different to your immediate neighbour's. It's the way you live your life. It's your actual home's ability to handle the changes you wish to make. It's your budget. And weather patterns. It's your personal needs and those of every person who lives there. The list of things that can affect your home's design is endless, so by all means look to others for inspiration, but be sure to design the best space for you and your family, taking into consideration all the musts/have-tos and can'ts along the way. After a few harsh realities from Steve (who rolled his eyes every time I showed him an all-white Swedish space and explained "something like this!"), I wondered how close to the mark we would get in terms of creating a home perfect for us. While we've not finished or been able to use our space completely, so far, I can't see much I'd change if I had free reign. Which makes me think the long, long design path was the right road to take. If you're looking at taking yourself on a similar renovation journey, here are a few things we learnt along the way.

Resist the urge to get renovating immediately 

Any magazine article on renovating will tell you to live in your space before you do anything major to it. There is a good reason for this - because it helps you make better decisions. If you can do a full year, do it - because honestly, your home is so different throughout the seasons and you want to ensure you know it back to front. The light falls differently in winter to summer - we discovered the afternoon sun bounces off the verandah of the house across the street from us and rebounds into our bedroom in summer and lights up the south side of the home in winter. We know the afternoon sun is unbearable in summer at the back of our house (which faces West) but that the sea breeze cools things down most days too. We know how the yard floods and where the shade falls for prime planting. We've worked out where we have mould problems, where we like to dump our wallets and keys, how we don't walk down the driveway but across the middle of the lawn to the front door, which way the weather usually comes from and where the rain affects us most. Putting up with all the annoyances that come with an unrenovated house is worthwhile because you work out what annoys you, what you like, how you live, what you need to make living better - knowing all these things is essential for good design. 

Create a wishlist

For us, we needed more space - we had a tiny three-bedroom, one-bathroom home. It had a living room, kitchen/dining and that was it. All up, it was 80sqm. We weren't after a huge house, but with four kids, we definitely needed more space! We renovated the bathroom and kitchen spaces with an extension in mind - we decided we could just extend from the back out so worked out a way to do just that so whenever the time came, the existing house shouldn't require much work. And then we planned and planned. We worked out what we wanted exactly: some kind of loft space, raked ceilings, two living spaces and a fireplace. We wanted at least four bedrooms, but five would be better so everyone could have their own room if they wished (I am now DYING for them to all be in their own rooms because I'm over the bed-swapping, whinging, kicking and meltdowns over who gets to stay up later and who doesn't...). I wanted lots of storage because the house had none. So we incorporated a dedicated storeroom into the plans. It turned out that Steve changed careers while waiting for council approval and so the storeroom has been renamed his workshop for all his tools. It will be the world's tiniest workshop but still! Luckily I still had large storage areas planned for the roof - having a high-pitched roof means the unusable areas can be walled off and used to store alllll sorts of things!

Get drawing

I've been a lover of floorpans forever! I'd draw my dream homes all the time complete with indoor pools, ballrooms, sweeping staircases and libraries. Being able to draw up a more realistic one for my family that we would actually build was so exciting! Several variations were drawn up - the first was turning one of the bedrooms into a staircase and adding a whole second storey to take advantage of the water views. Then I thought maybe not the whole hog and just a really high-pitched roof so we can have an attic bedroom. Another version had a master bedroom at the back next to second living space. Another kept our master where it was but stole the bedroom next to it for an ensuite and wardrobe and added two smaller rooms to the back. Yet another plan extended to the side of the house over the driveway. But I kept coming back to the attic idea - why couldn't we just make one big room out the back with a staircase up to a loft bedroom in a new roof? Sounded pretty easy to me, so I called in the draftsman...

Call in the experts

The thing with major renovations is this: there are SO MANY DIFFERENT ANNOYING RULES AND ASPECTS TO THE PROCESS. And you don't really know about any of them until you're at that stage. First up for us was the biggest bummer of all: we had to do a full development application for council. Many renovations and extensions won't require this - you can go through a private certifier and they can have your plans approved within a few weeks. But if you live in a flood or bushfire zone, you most likely won't be that lucky. We live in a flood zone and so straight up we had bonus conditions - the biggest being we had to raise the floor height by 60cm. This meant the nice walk-straight-out-of-your-living-room-onto-your-deck-onto-the-grass moments and easy view of the kids playing in the yard from anywhere in one side of your home wasn't going to happen. It would be about a metre or so off the actual ground. Having to step up the extension means a split level to the ground floor, which means extra materials in height (more bricks for footings/longer pieces of wood) extra precautions in stabilising the building and a more difficult build as it's higher off the ground (we had to lay a subfloor so the builders didn't just rely on standing on bearers and joists - this was an extra couple of thousand dollars immediately). The huge pitched ceiling I wanted with a bedroom in it? Couldn't quite do as I wanted - did you know habitable rooms (living/bedroom) require your ceiling height to be at a certain height (for memory it is 1.8m but I could be wrong there) for 2/3 of the volume of the room? We wanted the angled ceiling to just hit the floor, so in the end, knee walls had to be built to decrease the size of the room so our master bedroom won't quite be as we imagined it at first, but the library can be. There are also height restrictions (we just snuck in for how high our house can be), light-to-dark ratios through use of windows and doors, shading requirements (we need little awnings on our east-facing bedroom to shade them) and so. many. other. annoying. things. The draftsman/architect/builder who designs knows these tricky little things and will outline your options. In the end, our draftsman discovered if we submitted the second story as an "attic bedroom" rather than a second storey, we had a little more freedom with our plans. One thing I suggest is to give your draftsman/builder/architect a ball park figure of what you want to spend - underestimate it, though. Because if you give them no budget to work to, they will design just design to all your whims and you might end up with a house you actually can't afford to build! And never feel you have to do EVERYTHING all at once. It is a good idea to design your home and submit everything in one application with a view to doing it in stages as budget/time/circumstances allow. We never planned to complete our extension in one hit. We wanted to do it in two to three stages with our master bedroom and ensuite being the last thing. If you have plans to put in a pool or garage or separate studio down the track, consider doing it all as one DA and get the approval now. It will save you in extra drafting and application fees later on.

Draftsman vs architect vs builder vs carpenter

Depending on the scale of your works you might not need a draftsman or architect. Many builders are able to draw up and submit plans on your behalf and if it's less complicated works to a place that doesn't change the footprint of your home, a carpenter might be all you need. We knew we needed plans drawn up but as we had a good idea of what we wanted, we knew a draftsman was all we needed. If you're stuck for ideas about what you want, I'd still start with a builder who can at least point you in the right direction of an architect if they believe one is required. 

Make all your changes at this stage

Every time I got a draft plan from the draftsman I printed it out and got out my trusty red pen for changes - because there were always changes. I lived and breathed these plans - even dreamt about them sometimes! But that is the good thing about drafting plans - they are drafts and can be changed. And you should change them at the planning stage because it will cost you a lot more time, effort, money, patience and possibly relationships if you change them once the build begins! For me, I'd use the printouts to just see what it might look like if I moved the wall a little more this way. Or if I moved the door layout or added an extra room. Always sit on the current draft for a while and get a feel for what it might be like. Measure things out - I would use string and mark up the walls/doors/windows on the grass so I could physically see the floorplan in the right scale. Get a feel for the space in terms of size and look for things like views from windows and doors, door swings and potential furniture placement. There is often a little wiggle room for small changes once construction begins such as window size and placement, but nothing too drastic, so get it right now. We took our time with our plans - probably waaaay too long but there were a fair few delays on both sides of the process and in the end, we're glad there was a wait because we love our plans. We were also lucky in that our draftsman had a fixed price so it didn't matter how many changes we made, our $3000-odd fee for the measuring/drafting/submitting didn't budge. Spoiler alert: the engineering fees were a surprise $5000 we weren't expecting! 

Turn negatives into positives

There are going to be restrictions but it's what you do with them... We had to raise our floor level which brought a few headaches for the builders and extra costs for us, but we started to see the advantages of having this split level. For one, it broke up the extra-long space and created two distinct living areas. It allows us to see the water views from the back room and has created a large under-house space where we will able to store our water tanks, excess building materials, kids bikes and surfboards etc. The fact we have to apply builder's bracing (which is essentially thin plywood sheets made from hardwood at $35 a sheet) to all of our existing interior walls killed me (and here I was thinking we wouldn't have to touch the existing house too much!) but it meant we were able to insulate them as well, meaning the bedrooms on either side of the bathroom are now a little more soundproof. It also got rid of the wallpaper that had been painted over and often bubbled up during wet periods and means our Gyprock walls will be nice and straight and new. The engineer's obsession with bracing, particularly expensive materials and extra strengthening requirements means our house is the strongest, well-built thing in town. It's not going anywhere! 

Be realistic with your choices

Sometimes I would look at our plans and wish for larger expanses of glass by way of bifold doors from the family room onto the back deck. And then I remembered the heat in the middle of summer. And the bugs. And the sand and crap that would fall in the rails of the bifolds. And that I love French doors more... We went against the norm because it doesn't work for us. Realistically we knew we needed a decent size door opening but also windows on either side of them that could be open all night long if we wanted for safe, mozzie-free breezes and airflow. We knew as much as a big deck sounds great in theory, it would encroach too much into the backyard, which was more important. And we're not big entertainers anyway. We know pretty pendant lights are going to have to take a backseat to ceiling fans. And timber windows or louvres everywhere were just going to eat too much into the budget. Getting the right mix of practicality and aesthetics is hard and if you really want to live in a place, aesthetics will most of the time lose out to practicalities in a battle of the wits. Like my whitewashed floors. I love them to bits but we're going with a mid-range natural colour for floorboards because we're a rough and tumble family and that's the best colour to mask wear and tear and the inevitable dirt that comes with living with children. (Though Steve is still A-OK with my painting our eventual master bedroom floor pure white. It will have to be a no-shoe zone!) Think honestly about how you live, what your budget is and what is important to you and plan your home around them. 

Expect delays and to pay a lot upfront 

Dear God did we have delays... The whole process has had delays! And they will happen at one stage or another. For us it was just getting the plans right, then not pushing the draftsman to get them back to us as quickly as we should have. Then it was council approving our plans (after a couple of months) but not noticing we had asked for a one-metre extension to the existing house (four square metres in total) at the existing floor height to give the dining room a little more space before the floor level rose. So it was back to council for another six or so weeks as they had to start all over again. Then it was a matter of organising a certifier who couldn't give you a construction certificate to start works until you had waded through their list of things: engineer's report, home builder's course etc. In the end we forked out close to around the $15,000 mark before we even bought any materials or began labour. Here are some approximate figures for you because I honestly can't recall exact amounts and I am too lazy to sift through my disorganised paperwork to find them (sorry!)

Draftsman: 

$3300

Engineer: 

$5000

Council fees:

 $2000

Certifier: 

$3000

Surveyor:

 $200

Home owner/builder course and white card:

 $250

Long-service builder's levy:

 $500

In short, an architect told me when I wrote the 

Real Living Renovations magazine

 to never sign up and start building if all you have is the dollars the builder quoted you. Because it will ALWAYS cost you more, somewhere along the line. And it's usually before the builder even begins! 

I hope this was somewhat helpful. Because frankly I haven't typed this much in a while and my fingers hurt (Kidding. I still write a fair bit; just not here!). If you're about to renovate, you can track down a copy of the reno magazine 

here

 or at your newsagent if they still have them in stock. Otherwise I did find a lot of what I wrote has been uploaded to the Homes to Love website. It's not everything, but it's a fair bit. I've linked to a few of the sections below.

Guide to hiring an expert

Choosing the right team

Researching and shopping

Surviving the construction stage

8 steps to a well-designed home 

Kitchen design

Bathroom renovation

The owner/builder: what you need to know

The power of paint

Spotting the warning signs

Where your money goes

Renovating sourcebook

And for more of my Reno Files posts...

{The reno files} A real-life renovation guide: introduction

Our house plans: spending big to live small(ish)

A very exciting renovation update

A real, hopefully helpful and honest guide to renovating your bathroom

{The reno files} A real-life renovation guide: introduction
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Two years in August, we contacted a local draftsman to talk about drawing up plans for our house extension. TWO YEARS AGO. Ever heard this old gem - that renovations always take twice as long and cost twice as much as you planned for? Yeah, so far, the first part is true. We're yet to find out about the other part because, well, we’re only a few weeks in and while the bills have been frequent and hefty, we really won’t know final costs for a while! We were originally told if all went smoothly we could have our plans drawn up, submitted and approved through council in a maximum of 12 weeks. Hahahahahahahaha. No. Not even close. It took us a year to do plans, soooo many months in council, stuff-ups and surprises and life stuff too. And so two years after showing our little sketches to the draftsman, here we are, seeing them come to life. It’s SO exciting - we might even be able to host Christmas here this year (I’ve had to swap with my sisters for the past three years!) But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself - read those first few sentences again!

I’m so tempted to throw in all the pics of the stages so far (although if you follow me on

Instagram

I’ve been posting daily pics and images of what’s going on in InstaStories), but I really want to document this properly from start to finish - how we came up with the design, what we spent upfront before we even started building, the process of going through council and the build itself. And so, I’m going to have to get cracking on writing to catch up to where we’re at! Bare with me… So what ARE we doing? Well, we're extending out and up - creating a family room with laundry and workshop on the ground floor and an attic library and master bedroom in the high-pitched roof. You can read more our plans

here

.

When we bought this house we knew we were going to extend it - it was just a matter of how. If we had gone with the very first suggestion by a builder who lived a few doors down, it would have been a very different home to the one we're creating now! And it would have been very wrong for us. So there is a lot to the "live in a house for a while before you touch it" advice… 

Part way through our council-approval-stage delay,

Real Living magazine

asked me to write an entire magazine on renovating. I'd been planning to contact them about writing again - it'd been a while since I’d done any kind of work and I was feeling like the time was right. In the end, they got me first and I agreed, although about two weeks in I started to regret it as it was a HUGE job - and not exactly easing back into work, which I'd envisioned I'd be doing! But once I got past the "OMG where do I start?!" I started to enjoy it. I've always been annoyed by magazine articles on renovation or those bathroom and kitchen guides - I never feel as though they cover the right things. It's all so general or about aesthetics - or with huge budgets And don’t even get my started on renovation shows… I can’t watch them. And I LIVE for this stuff. I’ll only watch the UK version of Grand Designs - that’s it! Anyway, for the reno guide, I was pretty much given free reign to write about what I wanted to write about as long as it fitted within their general section guides. And so I did. I wrote 40,000 words on renovating - why you should, where to start, who to contact, what things might cost, how long things might take, things you should or shouldn't do, how to shop, how to deal with tradies, how to decorate, how to be environmentally savvy, all things about windows, doors, floors, paint, hardware, lights, all the rooms, outside/inside and behind the scenes. I tried to include meaty information like measurements for placement of bathroom and kitchen fittings, who to contact for what job (you don't always need a builder or architect), what you'll be out of pocket before you even lift a hammer, and even if going the home builder route is for you. Basically, it was a 101 in renovating. It was something I always wanted to write and something I always wanted to read.

Real Living Renovations

is out now in newsagents and I do hope it's helpful! 

And yet despite a whole magazine dedicated to it, I couldn’t cover everything - and I couldn’t get specific on something that is going to be entirely different one build to the next. And so, as a kind of extension (ha! see what I did there?) on that magazine, I thought I'd outline our own project here - what we've gone through, how long things took, what they cost, our problems and solutions, the good, the bad, the ugly! We are going the owner/builder route ourselves and one step further than that: Steve is literally building it! After being over his career for a while (politics/media!!!!! Not surprising!), he resigned late last year to start a whole new career: carpentery! We've often longed for a more relaxed, simple lifestyle - less stress, timeless skills, more time together... We came to that great understanding that earning a lot of money didn’t mean happiness, so we changed our stars. We spoke to the carpenter we planned to use for our build and he was so keen for Steve to work on our house - he was happy to show him the ropes and build up his skills with a view to being accredited down the track via prior learning. In the end, his apprentice left and he offered Steve some work before our place was ready to go, so Steve donned the tools earlier this year and has been his trusty sidekick ever since, starting from scratch in a new career. I'm so proud - and so excited he will have such a huge part in building our extension. 

Another thing we’ll be doing - and documenting - is paying for everything ourselves. It’s kind of bugged me for a long time now that somewhere along the line, blogs equal freebies - especially in the DIY/home arena. I often can’t look past the fact that someone got something for free and that’s why it is in their house. I can appreciate people earning money from their blog or turning it into their career and I really enjoy a lot of the blogs that do accept freebies - some of my faves manage to work it well. But that side of things is not for me. I’d love to some day, somehow, monetise my blog, but the current model with sponsorships/gifts/freebies etc isn’t for me anymore.

I stopped it all a while back

and while it’s tempting sometimes to say yes to things that are offered - especially if it really is something I’d probably buy - I don’t feel it’s a true reflection of what renovating/decorating/home-making is about. And I’m all for sharing the real side of things. So if it comes down to real budgets, real compromises are going to be made. And by real I don't mean hundreds of thousands of dollars and top-end everything. Ours is ballparked at $170k but that is for a huge extension, second storey, laundry, two decks and balcony. I know in parts of Sydney that money might buy you a couple of decks and a bathroom renovation. I also know in other parts of Australia it could buy you a beautiful house. I'm not saying it's a budget renovation, I'm just saying our money is going to have to work really hard to get what we want. We aren't taking out a loan or extending our mortgage, it's our hard-earned money going back into our home with hard physical work (well, Steve's hard physical work!!), careful choices and lots of compromises. And because of that - our home is not going to be Pinterest perfect. And it’s not going to be designery, too tricky or trendy. It’ll just be a home that reflects our wants and needs - and that is what everyone’s home should be: a reflection of the people who live there. Not those who live in photoshopped pages of magazines! Because no-one lives in those rooms as they're portrayed. I KNOW what goes on before a house makes it into a magazine - lots of props (I recall a house having its entire contents replaced for a photoshoot!) rearranging, seeking of good angles, professional photographers and stylists, editing, cropping, photoshopping… Don’t ever feel bad you don’t measure up. All that applies to Instagram images of people’s homes and lives too, by the way! Consider them inspiration and use them to inspire your own spin on it. It's taken me a while, but that's what I do now.

I figure by sharing our journey, you might pick up something (or pick up what NOT to do on some occasions! That’s good too!) to help you on your own renovation journey. If you have something you’re particularly keen on knowing about, please let me know. I’ll try to work it in somewhere! Next up: working out the design….

Belinda x

PS:

Speaking about renovations... For a guide to renovating your bathroom, head

here

.

 One day I'll get around to doing a kitchen one too. One day!

Our house plans: spending big to live small(ish)

Sounds so silly, doesn't it? Spending big to live small. That's my life at the moment - a bundle of contradictions! I feel so hypocritical talking about living more simply and with less stuff yet planning to spend a small fortune in order to extend our house! But to us it makes sense. We're realists. We know we can't do teeny tiny living - we plan to be here for a while and want our tweens and teenagers to have their own space. But we're not knocking our house down and building a McMansion and we're not adding on masses of extra rooms or installing luxury fittings or giving each child an ensuite or spaces that won't get used. We're working with the existing structure and attempting to make it look better, flow better and suit our family of six. It took us two years and many, many different versions, but we finally got a final plan together and submitted to council and I think we nailed it - for us. Want to take a peek?

Front and back in line-drawing form, above. The windows are still to be decided in terms of their exact looks (I'm thinking part of the centre upstairs windows will be louvres and the rest fixed. And probably not so many panels. The back is also going to be slightly different - the deck cover will just be pergola style, not a second roof or the hot west Summer sun will just cook us! My little illustration of the front and back of the house will be more like it (hopefully not as wonky in the structure's lines though!!) 


Ground floor, above: So everything right of the dotted red line is our existing house. See? It's tiny! Since moving in we renovated the bathroom and painted the bedrooms. Then after playing with several floor plans we decided to rejig what we had already and eventually extend onto the back of the house only. So we knocked out several walls to open the living room side of the house all the way up front to back. It's like living in a fishbowl at times, but it's made a huge difference to light and my sanity. I love being able to supervise the kids when they're playing outside from pretty much anywhere on that side of the house. The good thing about our plan is, we now don't need to make any drastic changes to the existing structure - no bedrooms need to be converted to staircases or anything like that. All we want to do is slightly extend the dining room area as it's so tiny - we're hoping council lets us continue the floor at this height for one more metre as well as the laundry and storeroom. We have to increase the floor height due to living in a flood zone (the downside to living so close to the water!) so past the dining room will be a couple of stairs up to the new floor height family room. The wall dividing the family room from the laundry and storeroom will have a long built-in low shelf along it with a fireplace. The ceiling in this family room will be raked so it will be a huge open room with lots of light. The stairs will feature a large linen cupboard built under the highest steps; the middle and lower stairs will have a bar built in underneath them. French doors will open outwards onto a covered deck and there will be plenty of windows to keep it light and airy. The windows on the north wall in the family room will be high ones purely for light. The laundry will have an L-shaped bench with another linen cupboard and extra pantry - our kitchen is not huge so it'll be the go-to place for extra everything as well as the recycle bin. We'll be installing Ikea kitchen cabinetry for this room again and I want to cram as much storage into it as is physically possible! Next to the laundry will be a built-in tool/garden/bike/scooter/fishing kit storage room. Steve wants it to be all old-school and a bit beat up like a Grandad's shed at the back of the yard kind of room. 



Top floor, above: Upstairs you'll come into a large open landing. The roof will literally slope down to the floor on either side of this landing area - the bigger side will be Steve's library looking out into the family room and the small side will maybe eventually be turned into a small study/bedroom for Annika. Above the laundry and store room will be a long narrow storage area built into the sloped roof - perfect for office paraphernalia if we ever start a business, which is a future goal. There will also be a laundry shute in there - yesssss. This excites more than it probably should. I mean, it's a laundry shute!?
Through the doors is our master bedroom suite. The ensuite will have a super-large shower - we'd like a walk-through one but I don't think the space is big enough. Bummer! Still, it will be nice to have a dedicated shower again! There will be no door to the ensuite - in fact, the walls on either side of the doorway will be low-height. Opposite the ensuite will be a wardrobe built into the eaves. The rest of that narrow storage area I'm thinking of using as my sewing/craft space. It should be just big enough to sit in comfortably. Our bed will sit alongside the knee wall under a roof window and there will be a small door or large window out onto a little balcony. Access to the other storage area will be from the small study/little bedroom area and I'm picturing it hidden in a cupboard and being a magical play space for the kids eventually. Both of these storage spaces at the front of the house will have large fixed windows in them and plenty of light, so I might as well make them useable!

So providing we get the all-ok from council (neighbours had until last Friday to object so we should  hear something from them very soon), this is what our house should hopefully end up looking like. It's not too big, it's not too small, it's just right for us. There isn't anything too tricky or unique in the design, but it's not your bog-standard home extension either, which we like. The entire look and feel of the house will just start off pretty clean and simple and we'll see where we go from there. I don't want clutter or all surfaces filled with things. We just want to surround ourselves with pieces we love, that are comfortable, made from natural materials and hopefully pleasing to the eye too! With a fair bit of breathing space in-between it all with white walls and natural-stained timber floors. I'm calling it cosy simplicity - can that be a thing? I think it could be...
behind the scenes: real living mag kids room shoot
shopping - nurseries may 10-1

So a couple of months ago, I helped Nat out on her mammoth shopping shoot: kids rooms. Mammoth because there are three rooms that need to be created, it has to be to a certain budget, it has to be newish and cool and it’d be ideal if it actually looks like a real room. My big pet hate with shoots was getting the images back and the “rooms” not looking like real rooms. So I love that Natalie really fills hers out – there is STUFF in them, they’re imperfect and they actually look like someone might live there.

behindscenes1an idea of the studio and how small the “rooms” are
behindscenes2
props tables arranged by “room”

You also have to work fast. Nat had two days to build three rooms, put together furniture, decorate and style it up. And you really have to do everything – when you arrive at the huge studio space, you have a few tables for props, a wall of windows and a few huge panels and brackets. These are your walls: you slip the panels into the brackets on the floor and slide them together to create a corner or longer wall. It’s never perfect so it’s digital production specialist Bi to the rescue later on to do electronically what a carpenter and plasterer would do in real life: seal the gaps together and make them seamless.

behindscenes4The Young Explorer’s room stage 1. I moved the walls in place and stuck up the map collage.

shopping - nurseries may 10-2In the mag. Click to enlarge
And then? You paint, wallpaper or create a wall-map collage, you lay a floor, hang curtains and use a giant L-shaped arm to hang a light fitting. You have to build the furniture from flatpack and unwrap everything being careful not to destroy the packaging (it all has to go back in perfect condition to be sold later) and marking what went where. Then you customise the furniture, you make toys, iron linen, hang decorations and fold clothes. There’s careful toy-in-basket-on-top-of-blankets placement so they peek out the top even though the basket is too deep for the limited amount of toys you have. You hang wallpaper with double-sided and masking tape and cross your fingers it doesn’t fall down overnight before the photographer can snap it. And then you can start moving in, changing things around, styling it up and trialling and erroring until it looks right… And that’s all we got up to when I hot-footed it out of there for my ridiculously long drive home in peak-hour traffic.

behindscenes4Circus room stage 1. I “wallpapered” with double-sided tape along the sides and masking tape on the top and bottom.
shopping - nurseries may 10-3In the mag. Click to enlarge
I couldn’t go the next day, but I’m 100% sure it was hectic. Nat still had to place the rest of the items (these pics was how the space looked when I left), style it up and work with Chris Warnes while he photographed it. And then? Then she HAD TO PACK IT ALL UP!!!!!!!!! Oh yes, as if it wasn’t enough you have to build the set, you have to take it allllll down again too. And put it back perfectly. All before 6pm. Eek. She did have a few other elves (thank goodness for those three keen interns!), but she did the hardest yards.
behindscenes3Pastel princess stage 1: quite different in the end result: walls are flipped around and furniture different. I made the pom pom garland and height chart.
shopping - nurseries may 10-4In the mag: click to enlarge
So shoots are hectic, hard work and stressful, but look at what she created? Aren’t they gorgeous? My fave is the young explorers – Zak would LOVE that room, being world-obsessed. What’s yours?
{behind-the-scenes images by Belinda Graham for The Happy Home; scans courtesy Real Living mag via Daily Imprint}

24 Responses to “behind the scenes: real living mag kids room shoot”

  1. yes see, I’m the dopey one, I thought these gorgeous rooms were real rooms!!! shows how easy to copy them if you really want to!
  2. MicP says:
    That is sooo awesome! Thanks for sharing behind the scenes pics!
  3. peta says:
    mine is the explorer one too! I have already been pooring over the pages – and working out what i need. I am most definately using that map wallpaper idea. i love it! my only concern is attaching to the wall and getting a nice smooth finish. …
  4. kathy says:
    Was just looking at these rooms last night as I perused the new mag. I love them all!
    So many great ideas there to take away, even from the ‘boy’theme ones I can use some ideas in my girls rooms.
    Thanks – love your creativity!
  5. Amanda says:
    Wow what a great look behind the scenes! It looks like despite the hard work and stress that it would have been really fun too!
  6. Viv says:
    Ohh I really like this post! Thank you for sharing. How exciting that you were able to be involved in the setup and it definitely looks like a lot of hard work went into it. You couldn’t tell from the photos though, it all looks effortless and like a real room.
  7. Katrina says:
    Thanks so much for sharing – this is my DREAM job! Loved seeing how it came together. I loved the rooms too. Fab job.
    Hope you are having a great day x
  8. Amanda says:
    This was such a great post Belinda – I loved reading and seeing photos of how a magazine shoot comes together – you’d never tell they weren’t real rooms. Although I can see it’s lots of hard work and must be a long day, it must be so much fun gathering ideas and styling the ‘rooms’. Thanks for sharing x
  9. miss mellie says:
    oh wow how fantastic. thats my dream to be a mag stylist so it was good having a sneek peek into it!! ahhh so inspired
  10. Debora says:
    How fun! Love the behind the scenes look.
    x
  11. Hazel says:
    Love it! I love Real Living magazine and now can really appreciate the effort that goes into preparing the shoots!
    :) Hazel
  12. Alison May says:
    Oooh thank you for this: I can’t tell you how much I adore seeing behind the scenes stuff… it kinda makes real life feel more workable you know?
  13. This is such a fantastic pot, love it. Thanks so much for sharing your experience it’s so interesting to see what really goes on behind the scenes :)
  14. Oops I meant ‘fantastic post’ but I’m sure you got that ;)
  15. Piper says:
    Thank you for sharing these behind the scene pics – I always have dreamed of being a stylist – now I get to take a peek at what it’s like! It’s amazing how the rooms get created…so inspiring :)
  16. Piper says:
    oh btw…saw you over on real living blog yesterday – how fun :)
  17. amy prior says:
    I love being able to see how you do these shots in real life- looks like tonnes of fun
  18. Jane says:
    Fascinating post about the behind-the-scenes workings of a mag shoot! It does look like pretty hard work but the results speak for themselves. My favourite rooms were a tie between the explorers and the princess, because the princess room is not too girly but feminine enough to know it’s for a little lady. Well done!
  19. Alison Gibbs says:
    Thanks for an insight to the ‘reality’ of a Real Living shoot.
    Alison
  20. Lynda says:
    This is so amazing! Many years ago pre-kids I worked in fashion and advertising and styled many photo shoots. We too worked in warehouse type buildings and constructetd what we needed. I’m completely blown away to see what you guys have built in such a short amount of time and how fabulous it looks. You must be so very proud of your involvement in this project!
    I’d just feel better if it was in Inside Out, not ‘Real’ Living
    Lynda
  21. fat mum slim says:
    That’s so cool to see behind the scenes. So much work goes into it, and I’ve always wondered how it works. I have a new appreciation now. x
  22. Abby says:
    Thanks for sharing the insider info, I’ve always wondered how these “rooms” all come together. Looks like lots of work, but lots of fun! You guys did a great job.
    Abby
  23. I love them all!! So funny, I have this month’s issue of Real Living and I was ogling the gorgeous kids’ rooms, then I came across your blog today and here they are! They do look real and the lighting is fab, it really looks like there’s daylight poring in from an unseen window :-)