How This Minimalist House Uses Muted Tones to Bring Tranquility to the Family

The concept was to create a low-key, design-driven, minimalist aesthetic throughout. Every design decision that we made throughout the process, largely in collaboration with our clients, kept coming back to that simple design that they were after and they wanted it to feel relaxing, they wanted it to feel like a sanctuary. The house is located in an inner-city suburb south-east of Melbourne. Quite a few of the homes in the area are original, intact heritage houses. The property has been owned by our clients for over 15 years. The design of the façade is quite traditional. It's a very understated, modest Victorian cottage. The simple nature of the façade acts as an unintended smoke screen, disguising the modern, minimalist extension our clients wanted to create. At Merelees, our design philosophy is inspired by the individual. And with this family, it was quite apparent that they wanted to create a space where they could be close together as a family and they could create a haven away from the busy daily life outside. So we took a lot of inspiration from their own desire to create that for themselves. Our brief was really clear and easy to follow. Simple, minimalist design details, muted tones, robust, low-maintenance materials are all really key elements to the design outcome. We removed the weatherboard clad lean-to extension at the rear to make way for a modern extension. We're quite keen to create an instant sort of transition between that modest façade and a light-filled, minimalist interior. The front two rooms are retained, keeping with the heritage requirements and celebrated in their original format. Ceiling cornices, ceiling rows, skirting boards and the architraves are all retained. And we simply put in new joinery, window furnishings and furniture. And then moving beyond the front two rooms, we've got the powder room and the bathroom. Those spaces were created in the original part of the house but completely transformed to facilitate a much larger bathroom. Then moving on, we've got the transition between the old part and the new part, which we've decided to accentuate with some beautiful glazed steel doors. Stepping straight into the new part of the house, we've got an open-plan kitchen, dining and living space with utility spaces off the kitchen. Off the kitchen space, we have a second living room, which doubles up as a multi-space where our clients really visualise themselves using it as a home office. But hidden behind the pocket doors, we've got a large TV, so it gives them a second space where they can relax, watch TV, read a book, work. There's a large cavity slider that separates the kitchen from the den, which can be tucked away completely out of view or it can be closed to create a more private and quiet space. And then following on from the den slash home office, we've got the parents' retreat, which is also separated by another large cavity slider. Our clients approached Plume to design their gardens, both at the front and the rear of the property. It has a beautiful organic-shaped pool and burnished concrete, large concrete pads and palm trees and cactus plants to create that low-maintenance and visually aesthetic garden. The finishes palette for the exterior design is very much limited to muted tones. We've got white, light grey and some contrasting black components. For example, the cladding is light grey painted cement sheet. Internally, we have followed a cohesive interiors colour palette. It's very white, light grey, muted tones with occasional accents of timber veneer in a whitewashed colour to add some warmth and texture. The burnished concrete slab is a defining feature of the interiors, which commences at the threshold between the old and the new and extends all the way through the new spaces of the house. Our clients were really keen to incorporate this into the interior design palette, and so it became a focus and something that we kept coming back to when we were designing the interior spaces. The main driving sustainable features of this home relate to its modest size. The average Australian home is typically larger than this house, especially when considering it's for a family of four plus their dog. The house has a small footprint and therefore there's less materials, less waste, less components that need to come together to build this house, and there's less reliance on heating and cooling when the spaces are quite contained. When you walk through the front door of this house, you instantly feel peaceful and calm. There's a definite sense of tranquillity that transpires. The minimalist interior feels really relaxing to me. Everything feels uncluttered. Everything is here because it's intentional, it's supposed to be here. Our clients wanted it to be this way. It feels calm and like a sanctuary.