My Forever Home

In this episode, Frances makes an exciting announcement about the partnership with B1G1 and White Pebble Interiors. She outlines her goal to use her business as a vehicle to help others around the globe (not just through creating amazing homes for her clients).

She explains how working with B1G1 aligns with the values of the business, the team and her own personal values, by contributing to the livelihood of others and providing an impact around the world. The particular focus where she wants the business to make an impact is through providing education to those where it’s not always available.

SHOWNOTES

White Pebble Interiors is now in partnership with B1G1- Business for good. Through her extensive travels, Frances has seen and heard stories about inequalities and other challenges, particularly in developing countries.

Frances wants to use her business as a vehicle to help others around the globe by providing access to education and opportunities.

What is B1G1?

B1G1 is a social enterprise whose mission is to create a world full of giving through its alignment with UN sustainable goals. There are 17 goals that represent global communities' next step in ending poverty, fighting inequality and injustices, and tackling climate change by 2030.

How does it work?

With your support, White Pebble Interiors has the power to change lives by integrating giving into our everyday activities to positively impact worthy causes worldwide.

• For every new proposal signed, we will provide business training program for a month in Malawi.
• For every initial consultation, we will give school supplies to 5 children in Nepal.
• For every review we received (positive or negative), we will provide a week of vocational training to women in the Philippines.

Every month we will do a reconciliation and donate directly to those mentioned above. The full amount that’s donated will then go to these causes as a business. An administrative fee has been given to B1G1 to help the organisation which means that every single dollar that we donate goes directly to the cause.

Links mentioned in the podcast

White Pebble Interiors with B1G1

https://www.whitepebbleinteriors.com.au/b1g1givingback/

B1G1

https://b1g1.com/

In this episode of the podcast, Frances outlines the many reasons why you should write a brief for your architect (and your landscaper and interior designer), and why it’s so important. She also provides an outline of what to think about when creating your brief, how to start creating one, and what to include, and who should be involved.

As a starting point for the vision of your home, the brief is a reference document that is referred back to many times throughout the process of creating your Forever Home, so is a logical starting point to get the process moving.

SHOWNOTES

Why is Creating a Brief Important?

1. Allows you to create a vision of what you are trying to create, the core things that you need to include in your home, and what's really important for you.

2. It creates a dialogue for everyone who’s involved in the project – all family members, including the kids!

You're able to sit down as a family and go through what is it you are trying to create and what's important to each of you.

3. It allows you to assess 'what you need Vs what you want. It allows you to identify key priorities.

4. You can refer back to the briefing document throughout the process to assess floorplans, landscaping, and interiors and how those consultants have responded to the brief

• Has the briefing requirements been met by what's come back from each consultant?

Who is your brief for?

• Architect/ building designer
• Landscaper- Interior Designer- What is the feeling you want to create? What sort of functionality do you need, the aesthetic and style you want to live in.

What do you need to include in your brief?

Think about your vision

• What's the overall objective of the home?
• Create a visual brief

A visual representation of what you want really helps to show what you love

Overall look and feel

• How do you want to feel when you walk into your home?

Overview of the site

Provide details of the site.

• Lifestyle requirements
• How do you live in the home?
• How your home is to be used
• Essential rooms required
• What do you need to store in your garage
• What's needed in the space for each room

For instance, wanting a desk for your child's bedroom or a guestroom that can be turned into a separate office.

Essential Vs Non-negotiable items

Make a list of what's essential Vs Nice to Have (space or budget permitting)

Sustainable Features

• What energy efficiency or sustainability measures are you going to incorporate into this design?

External components

For instance:

• Pool
• Any trees you want to retain
• Is there going to be a fire pit or do you want to have a trampoline?

Budget

Be honest with your budget. Your architect should know what will be achievable with your budget. Get the experts involved so that you get an idea about what it's going to cost.

Always have a contingency. Allow10-20%

Ensure you're clear about budgets either being inclusive or exclusive of GST (VAT/tax).

Timeframe

• What are your expectations about when you want to move into your completed home?

Design references

Create a digital portfolio or a hard copy of the things you like, and architectural styles you love. This provides direction for your consultants.

FREE RESOURCES AVAILABLE

Creating a brief is a good exercise to get everyone on the same page and to ensure your thoughts and ideas are captured as cohesively as possible so it’s able to be followed.

Download our FREE Briefing Template here.

Join my webinar- 'The top 5 costly bathroom design mistakes and how to avoid them' as I prepare and arm you with critical information that will save you time and money creating your new bathroom.

This will be on Wednesday, 24th November 2021 at 7PM- 8PM AEDT.

Click here to register.

Book a free 15-minute chat to discuss your project and how we may be able to assist.

In this Facebook Live, Frances discusses the steps to take if your floorplans are not quite what you want. She outlines the steps you should take to have them meet your objectives, and who you could turn to, to help out in getting them right. Floorplan is king, so you must be happy with your plans before starting any build works for your renovation or new build.

SHOWNOTES

It's an easy trap to fall into when you have your floorplans and they are not really what you want, so you start to find solutions and re-jig the floorplan yourself to ‘fix the problem’.

My experience shows this is not the best approach. You've engaged an architect, building designer, or draftsperson to design the floorplans for you, so it's best to leave this to the experts.

So what should you do when your floorplan is not working for you, and it's not how you want it to be?

Go back to the Brief you provided your architect/builder designer/draftsperson

• Identify your core objectives for the home, what you set out to achieve, and your non-negotiables.
• Check what you communicated with your architect, building designer, or draftsman about what you are trying to create. Has this been reflected in the plans?

Review your plans

Refer back to the brief and review your plans to see how the response from your architect, builder designer or draftsperson has met your brief.

• Has it been designed around your core objectives and non-negotiables>
• What's missing?
• How is the floor plan meeting your brief, objectives, and requirements?

Review your floorplans with your Building Designer

You need to be clear about not providing the solution, but rather giving your building designer the opportunity to respond to your concerns.

• Refer them back to the brief to focus on areas that have been missed, or are not quite right.
• Be clear about what's not working for you in the plan.
• Let them explain if there is a reason why something cannot be achieved.
• Allow them the chance to review your comments and come back with a revised version.

For instance,

• Mudroom is not big enough to store 5 school bags
• There is no connection to the views we have.
• There is not enough space in the kitchen for two people to cook

Consult another expert

You may feel more comfortable having another set of expert eyes go over your floorplan to ‘sanity check’ it's as good as it can be and you're not missing anything.

For example, an interior designer will look at things from a completely different perspective.

Cut your ties

At the end of a lot of backwards and forwards trying to get your plans right, but you still don't feel like you're hitting the mark, it may be the time to cut your losses and find another architect or building designer.

As painful as that sounds. it's going to save your thousands of dollars and so much heartache. Imagine you build a home, you know at floorplan stage is not right, where you'll forever regret you didn't sort it out before you started to build.

Resources and Services Mentioned in the Podcast

Floor Plan Sanity Check

Save Yourself from Costly Mistakes

Book a floor plan sanity check today.

Join the “Renovating and Building your Forever Home” Facebook Group

Want to be inspired to create a home you truly love? One that is future proof and adaptable as your family’s needs change? Join our exclusive (but inclusive) Renovating and Building Your Forever Home Facebook Group.

Your Forever Home Book

Keen to know more? I have dedicated a whole chapter to Floor Plans in my book ‘Your Forever Home’. You can order your copy here.

First three chapters of the book FREE

If you’d like to receive the first three chapters of the book ‘Your Forever Home’ for FREE, download it here.

In this Facebook Live, Frances outlines the key differences between using engineered timber flooring and timber tile flooring. She walks through the advantages and disadvantages of each and discusses criteria for when you may use one over the other.

In this episode of the Kitchen Design Essentials Season, Frances chats through how to choose your colours for your kitchen – and she’s certainly encouraging you to use colour – if you love it!

She walks you through how to determine ‘what comes first’ when creating your design scheme and runs through popular combinations. Finally, she gives some great advice and tips on decorating your kitchen, and how to make it your own and give it some personality.

SHOWNOTES:

Your kitchen does not have to match everything else in the home. For instance, if you are using a particular tile in the bathroom, you don’t necessarily have to bring that across to the kitchen. Make your kitchen a unique space!

• Have a consistent colour tone to create continuity and flow. For example, if you have a warm home, you need to make sure that you also use warm coloured materials.
• Warm tones = Beige
• Cool tones= Greys
• When thinking about the tone for your home, think about the colors you naturally gravitate to and often it’s the colours you wear.
• For Open plan, you need to coordinate the style of your Kitchen and colour with the rest of the home. For example, a country style kitchen in a modern home will not work.
• If there isn’t consistency throughout the whole home, it will not feel or look right.

• Start with the floor – Everything gets built up from the floor. For instance, if you’ve got a timber floor, are you going to have timber cabinetry that matches the floor or are you going to create a contrast?
• Choose your leading piece and select other materials around that piece
• • You can choose the colour and design of your kitchen based on your Splashback tile, cabinetry colour (eg. apple green) or natural stone feature.
  • Don’t start with your paint colour! There’s over 10,000 to choose from.
  • Choose something that you love. Everything will go out of date except the things that you love the most- material, tile, colour or shape
  • When building her Forever Home, Frances used Patricia Urquiola tiles that she had loved for years, for her splashback. It then became her leading piece and she designed her kitchen around it.
• Dark or light cabinetry? An all white kitchen can be clinical – A safe option when you are not sure what goes with what, but it is uninteresting unless you're going to brighten it up with something else.
• • Choose off white or warm grey. We have our go-to – not quite grey and not yellow based either. Work with warm and cool interiors.
  • Add texture, shape or colour to break it up – generally in the splashback or benchtop that has movement in it.
• Create contrast – with benchtop and cabinetry, or with splashback.
• • Eg. Light cabinetry and dark benchtop or vice versa
• Sleek and sophisticated – less is more. For instance, Dark or timber cabinetry with the benchtop and splashback the same.
• • Use Maximum of 3 materials.
• Timber in a kitchen
• • Timber is a sustainable material which is quite popular at the moment.
  • Gives an organic feeling which is difficult to replace.
  • Natural timber comes with a premium price compared to veneer.
  • If you have timber cabinetry overhead, then you may want to use a contrasting material such as aa plain cabinetry underneath or vice versa. Keep in mind that the timber underneath needs to work with any timber floor.
  • All timber finish can be paired with light or dark benchtop, just make sure that the benchtop coordinates back to the timber kitchen.
  • Can also have a timber benchtop with plain cabinetry or a timber benchtop with coloured cabinetry.
  • Use timber handles as an accent
  • Timber floating shelves as an accent.
  • Avoid grey based timbers – They are artificial and don’t look real. It will date because it’s not a natural timber colour.
• Combine cool tones using other materials, rather than using grey in the timber. Avoid mixing different types of timber because it will become too busy. Stick with one.
• • My preference is to contrast the timber floor with any timber cabinetry – if in doubt, have the timber cabinetry overhead.
  • Maximum 3-4 different materials.
  • • Eg benchtop, cabinetry, splashback and accent material or 2nd cabinetry colour instead of accent colour.
• How to bring in colour
• • An easy and obvious way is adding it in the Splashback– able to change relatively easily
  • Cabinetry – Avoid trends and choose the color that you really love. If you stick with the colour that you gravitate into, you will never get tired of it.
  • Benchtop – natural stone or otherwise