This look was achieved from the moment you arrive on the doorstep when you are greeted with an impressive custom-made Balinese style pivot door. My clients came to me with a photo they had taken of an amazing door they had seen in Seminyak. I had quite a task ahead of me to try and design something similar! I used their photo as inspiration, and both the clients and myself ended up being really happy with what I designed. While the enormous scale of the door wasn’t quite match, the timber slats of different heights and thicknesses used to decorate this door, made a real wow factor at the front of the house.
The use of the same dark timber was used on custom-designed feature screens which wrap up the stairs and further create the Balinese look. The screens designed by the Architect, also have small slots where tiny tea-light candles can be placed.
In each of the communal rooms and bedrooms, I designed joinery to showcase the client’s many treasured artefacts collected from all around Asia and beyond. I designed the joinery to echo the elegant simplicity of the Balinese aesthetic. Again the dark timber veneer was used as the perfect backdrop to make their treasured pieces really pop. I also used other actual and implied textures to create visual interest.
The client fell in love with some beautiful wide Oak timber flooring that had quite a strong grain in it. While the flooring was light and the joinery was very dark, the chocolate coloured grain running through the floorboard, actually worked to tie the both together. Around the fireplace in the family room I wanted to continue the earthy but elegant theme. After much research I managed to hunt down a unique rust paint finish that is heat resistant and easy to clean and maintain. It also looks amazing and creates a real focal point in the room.
The kitchen and pantry were really important to my clients. They wanted something that was impressive both in scale and grandeur. It made sense to continue the ebony timber veneer in the kitchen as it ties in with the dark joinery in the family & dining areas. To break up the darkness of the joinery, I decided to introduce sealed concrete benchtops. The contrast actually worked really well and also the sleek and modern expanses of concrete kitchen benches echo the impressive Architecture of this home. Being avid cooks and entertainers, my clients found some amazing appliances to use, even a teppanyaki grill. The appliances in this kitchen are those that top Chefs could only dream of! I hope that one day I am invited over for dinner!
Interestingly, around the world, and particularly in resorts in Asia, it is that bathrooms that provide the wow factor! The bathrooms are examples of how carefully selected finishes can create maximum impact and this is something I just had to explore in this home. Dark colours and textures were used for the joinery and tiling materials to create a feeling of sumptuous and luxurious feeling and turned the bathrooms into destinations of resort-style sanctuary.
The internal spaces flow seamlessly into each other, and also cleverly combine indoor and outdoor living areas. Living spaces spill onto outdoor entertaining and pool areas that will allow my clients to have intimate or large gatherings in beautiful surrounds. Being sociable comes second nature to my clients, so it was really very important to for the architect & myself to get this right.
This original and substantial family home is truly like no other. Both the clients and of the staff that worked on this project enjoyed this creative journey. However, it must be said, that by far the most successful outcome of this project, and the one that I have been most proud of, has been seeing the happiness experienced by the client, that their dream home has been created especially for them.
‘]]>