• Cherie Barber
• February 04, 2023
• 43 Comments

Cherie’s Hampton’s Inspired Apartment Renovation

Howdy,

Well, it’s finally here – the first episode of Space Invaders, Season 3 aired last night on Channel 9. Over the next 10 weeks, I’ll try my very best to send you a quick email each week showing you the before’s & afters of all the rooms I renovated in each episode & why I made certain changes. Hopefully, these images provide some inspiration for you & get your creative thoughts flowing for what you can do to your place, if it needs renovating.

Let’s kick Episode 1 off – this was a renovation for homeowners Bec & Julian who owned a standard size 3-bedroom apartment in an oceanside suburb. It was a standard apartment layout – long hallway running the entire length of the apartment, with all the rooms stacked to one side. Being so close to the ocean, the homeowners wanted a Hampton’s inspired look, aka lots of blues & whites with a beachy touch of class.

Like most family homes, this apartment was chock a-block full of things in all the wrong places & everything on display that shouldn’t be. With more of us living in apartments & smaller houses due to housing affordability, you’ve got to be smart about what you do & don’t keep & how that is stored effectively in your home. The simple addition of off-the-shelf cabinets from Kaboodle & Fantastic Furniture solved most storage problems in this property.

Whilst the apartment had good bones & was of a decent size, we can’t ignore the fact that it desperately needed some brightening up. Being a ground floor apartment, natural light wasn’t in abundance & a lot of things were looking just plain old tired.

HAGGARD HALLWAY

The first space to tackle was the hallway. As soon as you walked in the front door, the clutter hits you in the face. Boxes stacked on top of each other are not the most attractive decorator items & pose a danger to any little ones. With so much stuff stacked in the hallway, it also made the spine of the apartment feel small & cramped.

BEFORE – Hallway view when you open the front door.

BEFORE – Hallway view from the back of the apartment.

Bec & Julian’s home was built in the 1930’s & has lots of beautiful traditional features like the picture rails, high coffered ceilings & decorative casement windows which you would never rip out. They add character & value to the property so it was essential they stay. Working with these, the walls were painted in a pale blue / grey colour up to the picture rails with crisp white paint overhead. This makes the hallway look less boring but also doesn’t overpower the space. Treasured photos that were stacked on the floor & in boxes, were arranged in an informal way to keep things casual & 2 simple bookcases from Fantastic Furniture were added that provide practical storage.

Let’s turn our attention to the floorboards … everyone loves real timber floorboards but unfortunately these ones, on closer inspection, were damaged in spots. To amp up the wow factor in this apartment, I decided to install the Majorca Palm Springs tiles in Blue Matt from Beaumont Tiles. The pattern & colour of the tiles helps achieve the Hamptons look & they really lighten up the floors that help brighten all the rooms within the property generally. The cheap, old pendant lights were replaced with sparkly new chandeliers from Beacon Lighting that give off way more light & also add extra traditional charm to the apartment (who doesn’t like a bit of extra bling, eh?).

Slide the arrow left & right to see the whole before & after image.

Slide the arrow left & right to see the whole before & after image.

DAZZLING DINING & KITCHEN

In this home, the kitchen was a little weird, almost 2 galley style kitchens directly facing each other. What took it up another notch in craziness, was the mirrored splashbacks that directly faced each other.

Before – two galley style kitchens, directly opposite each other.

Mirror on mirror is never a good thing so I didn’t have to think twice about covering those in clear contact adhesive, putting my elbow length, kevlar gloves on & smashing them off with a hammer & chisel. Dangerous stuff but hey, someone’s gotta do it! I installed a gorgeous pale blue subway tile (also from Beaumont Tiles) to help build the look of a Hamptons inspired space.

Before – Kitchen on one side.

In all reality, the existing kitchen provided fabulous storage with all those overhead cupboards going all the way up to the high ceiling. A good scrub & clean of the cabinets did wonders & I painted a few of the old timber cabinets in White Knight Tile & Laminate Paint, rather than replacing them.

Yellow is such a fun, happy colour but man, not on your benchtops! Rather than ripping them out & potentially opening a can of worms, I called in my trusty friends at Granite Transformations who simply placed a thin 8mm layer of real granite, straight over the old benchtops. Simple!

I kept the stunning oversized wall mirror as it really suited the style of the house & it worked brilliantly to bounce light around from the window opposite. The new Southhampton Pendant from Beacon Lighting gave off way more light than the old fitting & added even more heritage charm.

You might have also noticed the old dining table – structurally in good knick, right size for the room, albeit, just a little tired looking. My fellow co-host, Angie Kent upcycled it, painting it white with White Knight’s Tile & Laminate paint. Kmart’s DIY Self Adhesive 3D Tiles were installed straight on top, making the table look completely brand new (even though it’s not).

I added 4 x Newhaven chairs to the table & paired it with colourful dinnerware accessories, also from Kmart. These low-cost effective changes, working with the existing kitchen (not against it), meant I kept more money in the kitty to spend on other areas of the home. It’s now a nice, functional kitchen for the family to cook, sit & eat.

Slide the arrow left & right to see the whole before & after image.

Slide the arrow left & right to see the whole before & after image.

Slide the arrow left & right to see the whole before & after image.

ORDERLY HOME OFFICE

Let’s be honest, installing a few bookcases in the hallway, wasn’t going to solve all this family’s storage problems. Plus, if you hadn’t already noticed, the kitchen dining table was being used as a home office which is never an ideal situation.

The spare bedroom (bedroom 3) in the back of the property was the perfect spot for me to create a dedicated home office. It gets more natural light than all the other rooms which helps with productivity & general wellbeing.

Before – Spare Bedroom

Before – Spare Bedroom

Once all the clutter was out, I grabbed all the room measurements then hopped straight into the Kaboodle 3D planner, designing the office space, using off the shelf, flat pack cabinets, straight from Bunnings, which I got my chippies to install. Once installed, a Bellato Grey laminate benchtop from Trademaster was cut & installed straight on top.

Designing an office with Kaboodle cabinets is great because it gives you the flexibility to choose what sort of storage works best for you. There’s also no long leadtimes waiting for cabinets to be manufactured. Plus, if you join my Home SuperSaver group, you’ll get a very nice discount off all your Kaboodle cabinets moving forward.

For Bec & Julian, I chose a mixture of base & wall cabinets plus I made sure I left a decent gap in the bottom cabinets to create a desk area. To add a bit more colour, I added herringbone tiles as a splashback. Now they have plenty of room to store their work things as well as the linen, toys & various other items that were clogging up their hallway. Everything is behind closed doors & now finally out of sight!

Slide the arrow left & right to see the whole before & after image.

Slide the arrow left & right to see the whole before & after image.

COZY KIDS ROOM

Now onto the final room … Bec & Julian’s son, Caspar, needed his own space to play & sleep that felt safe. The tiny second bedroom (2.8 metres x 2.5 metres) was dominated by a wardrobe that wasn’t even deep enough to fit a coat hanger (what’s the point?). A weird floating cupboard on the other side of the wall consumed a lot of space for no real purpose.

I tasked my chippies up with ripping all that out & I replaced it with a compact wardrobe from Fantastic Furniture which fitted snuggly behind the door. Whilst this may look like less storage, it’s much more functional & also allows space for a built-in desk.

It was also a must-have that Caspar have a second bed in his room for friends to sleep over so this was achieved by adding an open style bunk bed that keep the air & floorspace visually clear. VJ wall panelling was added to one wall to make the room look more interesting & the whole room was painted in colours which stemmed from the Kmart bedding. A printed roller blind from Wynstan adds a fun pop of personality to the room. Now, young Caspar has a safe space, he can call his own!

Slide the arrow left & right to see the whole before & after image.

All up, this renovation cost $50,802.51 for all the materials, labour & furniture at full retail cost. Of this, materials accounted for $21,025.35 & labour at $29,777.16. The uplift in the property value was $150,000 exactly, resulting in a net profit of $99,197.49.

I did this reno in 3 intense days (yes, you need to move fast when you’re a TV renovator) but any average joe could easily do this reno over a month or 2 comfortably. The end result? Apart from the financial gain, a practical & beautiful home that suited the family & the history of the building. Tune in at 7:30pm on Channel 9 next Saturday for Episode 2!

As always, if you have any questions on this episode, be sure to ask them below & my team or I will answer them for you. Until next week…..

 
Much love,

Cherie x