CREATIVE connections

THE RENOVATION JOURNEY OF THIS BANGALOW HOME TOOK A EUROPEAN-INSPIRED ROUTE BACK IN TIME

- KYLIE JACKES

For Bangalow locals Margaret and Peter, many aspects of their home brings them joy – from the richly coloured walls, sentimental art and furnishings, to their library, enveloped by gardens they created from scratch. Yet what they love most is sharing the place with their adult children and grandchildren, who feel right at home. “The grandkids have spent a lot of time in this house over the past decade and to see the joy they get, climbing the old mulberry tree, picnicking under the 100-year-old Poinciana, swimming in the pool and just running amok through the paddocks on their motorbikes fills us with great pleasure,” shares Margaret.

Brimming with personality and warmth, the place is utterly unrecognisable from the rundown ’70s bungalow the couple bought 14 years ago. While other buyers were deterred by its dismal appearance, Margaret had a keen eye for its potential. With two decades of experience in the interior design industry and more than a dozen renovations under her belt, she envisioned what it could become – a family home imbued with a European farmhouse feel.

During their first year in the house, Peter and Margaret’s aim was to make it liveable on the cheap – ripping out carpets, giving it a new lick of paint and enhancing the functionality of the kitchen and bathrooms. A pool was installed, gardens planted and paddocks revegetated. Several years later, Margaret’s vision took shape with a complete renovation.

“We basically gutted the entire house, lifted the ceiling to expose the rafters, reconfigured the layout, added a bedroom wing and joined the house to the existing tractor shed, which was turned into the library,” she explains. The final phase of the masterplan was completed last year, with colour injected in every room and tweaks to the floor plan to enhance its versatility as a guesthouse.