DAVID and Gillian Owen spend Friday nights cocooned in their pink media room sharing a movie and popcorn with children Olive, 6, and Louis, 3.
It is a perfect example of their new home at Lambton working as planned.
The couple wanted a house that would evolve to suit a growing family but not date, with separate living spaces a priority.
To achieve this as owner-builders, they assembled a team whose expertise helped them create a beautifully finished, functional home with touches of glamour.
"Great advice saved us making bad decisions," David says.
"The architect, Jason Topic, did a great job with the design and layout and Stewart Horton did the same with the interior details.
"We were fortunate to be able to execute the design and finish the house to the levels we wanted.
"There is nothing that we feel we shouldn't have done or that we'll fix up later."
The two-storey house was constructed by Boyd Building in 2021 after the Owens' fibro rental was knocked down.
"Steve [Boyd] is a Lambton local and great friend of ours," David says.
"His skills and attention to detail are second to none."
A wide hallway with European oak floorboards reclaimed from a 19th-century Austrian winery runs from the front door to the light, bright open-plan kitchen, dining and living area.
Off the hallway on the left is a guest bedroom with ensuite and a laundry and powder room.
On the right is the media room, where plush carpet and pleated curtains create a private theatre atmosphere.
Upstairs, a third living space separates the children's bedrooms and family bathroom at the front of the house from the study and master suite at the rear.
The main bedroom, which has a moody ensuite modelled on bathrooms at Sydney's QT Hotel, has views over neighbouring rooftops to the city.
David, who runs second-generation design and manufacturing business Owen Signs, made the curved, Venetian-plastered fireplace, the home's staircase and handrails, and its Corian countertops. Corian is a durable, acrylic resin-based product.
"Our brief to Jason was for a house that would last us - a growing family - for 25 years, with multiple breakout spaces." David says. "The guest bedroom may become Olive's when she's older and wants more privacy and space. Then, Louis can have his own area of the house and Gill and I will have our own space, too."
A highlight of the home's exterior and landscaping is recycled brick from The Brick Pit in Sydney.
"We wanted the house to feel like it had been lived in and to settle into the streetscape," David explains. "The Brick Pit demolishes buildings and then they chip off all the mortar by hand and arrange the bricks on pallets into different blends and colours. Our blend is called The Hawkesbury House."
Interior designer Stewart honed in on the blend's terracotta-toned pinks.
"Neither Stewart nor we wanted the house to be a monochromatic box so he pulled the colour from the bricks for the window surrounds and it also filtered inside," David says.
The couple valued Stewart's guidance.
"We'd done a lot of ground work and bought certain things such as the bricks, timber flooring and windows but we got to a point where we wanted to be sure they really married. We needed Stewart's support to pull it all together," Gillian, a speech pathologist, says.
"The level of detail in his plans, down to the placement of power points and towel rails, meant there were no questions from trades. They knew where everything had to be down to the millimetre."
David and Gillian love the size of their suburban block, which comfortably fits four-car garaging, a heated Compass pool, lawn and a vegetable garden.
"We love the pool area and the [handmade Brooklyn Copper] outdoor shower. The kids get out of the pool, have a shower and go straight upstairs in their pyjamas," Gillian smiles.
"We are often tinkering around in the veggie patch and we have a native beehive as well."
To get the most out of this house, David and Gillian have wisely factored the future into its design. At present, their home is central to precious family memories and traditions in the making.
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