Fontaine In Focus - Michael & Jamie | Fontaine

Categories: All, Bathroom, Kitchen, Fontaine In Focus, Renovation

Fontaine In Focus is a series where our customers talk about their journey through their recent renovation. In this blog, we talked with Michael & Jamie about how they renovate and modernise their property while retaining all the heritage features!

WHO LIVES HERE: MICHAEL & JAMIE
LOCATION: PRAHRAN, VICTORIA

Renovated in the early 90s, this beautiful 1885 weather board property needs an entire overhaul for the interior.

We purchased the property about 5 years ago, but only moved into it a couple of years ago once the renovation was completed. It took us sometime to really plan out what it was that we wanted to achieve with this property, make sure that we had the right selections.

The style of the home is an 1885 weather board property, with beautiful casting detailing at the front. And that's what really drew us to the home. Inside, it seems it already had a renovation probably in the early 90s. So everything is super cream and yellow and just really outdated.

The bathroom needed an entire overhaul, it was so dated, there was a lot of water damage. And the layout just didn't work, you had a really old vanity that was really narrow, right across from the shower over the bath. And the bathtub was probably only a meter long, it was really really small. So when we were standing in there, we couldn't even really have two people walking past each other. And there was an old school door that led out into the laneway, because I think that was so that you could take your laundry out and hang it outside. And so we completely ripped it all out and started again. And completely reconfigured the bathroom. And we had identified some Fontaine products that we really liked. We wanted to make sure that in the reconfiguration, we could actually use those products including the double vanity, which means that although it's a small space, we can still both be in there and do the things we need to do without feeling like we are on top of each other.

We decided to choose the gold tapware because it's a really nice blend of modern and period. And so when you are in the home, although everything is new, modern and updated, you still do get the sense that you are in a heritage property.

When starting out with the renovation, we really wanted to put a vision together, so that we could hit the ground running. And so what we did was we started to look out the sorts of colours, finishes and features that we wanted. And then we had a look at the Fontaine website, and we were able to put a lot of the products together, which really fit our vision.

There were quite a number of different online resources which we used throughout the planning stage including Pinterest, Instagram, as well as a number of different online design magazines. We were then able to take that information back and consult our builder and see what was possible from then on.

When we started having our friends and family over, everyone was completely blown away at the transformation of the house, in particular the kitchen and the bathroom. They just came such a long way, and everyone was really impressed with the types of fixtures and fittings that we use.

We really love the look and feel of the kitchen appliances including the oven and the gas cooktop. The stainless steel and the sleek black glass really finish nicely.

When we were planning out the bathroom and we ultimately decided not to use a bathtub, we wanted to have a really big shower, so we used quite a large piece of glass from Fontaine which looks awesome. And we also did a tile insert shower grate. And it just looked really seemless there with the white and grey tiles and then the gold tapware, it just finished the space off really well. And I find when I am using the shower, I got a lot of room to do the things that I need to do whilst using really lovely products at the same time.

I think overall, we would both agree that the renovation was a huge success. We are thrilled with the way everything turned out. It was a much bigger project then we had anticipated, and I think that's just always the way with a renovation. Once we got going, we did find a few things that we had to sort out along the way. But what that meant is that we ended up with the kitchen and bathroom that are not only beautiful but are very functional, which is just critical particularly in a small home like this.