classic coastal feel The thing about renovation is that you never From the dark engineered oak floor from Big know what you might find when you start River, to the oak shelving and joinery, the inspiration peeling back the layers, especially if it’s flowed from the basalt stone fireplace. an old farmhouse. ‘They’re quirky,’ says It was rebuilt from stone found on the property Simone Mathews, who with husband Ben forms and nearby, which reflects the Mathews’ philosophy Sydney building firm BAM Construction Group. to reuse and repurpose materials as much as Simone, the interior designer, and Ben, the possible to pay homage to the original property. builder, fell in love with the charm of an iconic NSW And to use local trades, such as the stone South Coast farmhouse that dated from the 1800s. mason and cabinet maker. Only a single BAM team They wanted to restore the Gerringong member and the tiler on the project were from property and create a new standard of coastal Sydney. INSIDE, THEY accommodation, moving the whole family down Cedar was the timber of choice to rebuild, WANTED THE from their Cronulla base for what was supposed to matching the original, and to construct two other FARMHOUSE TO be a working holiday. self-contained accommodation spaces at the rear – BE FULL OF LIGHT But immediately there were challenges when the the barn and the cabana. project kicked off in 2017. ‘It shows that natural grain coming through, The floors were on a lean so the house had especially on the farmhouse where we’ve used to be restumped, the kitchen, lounge and dining the white. Then on the barn we’ve contrasted spaces were riddled with asbestos, and then they and painted Dulux Black … the texture that you discovered there had also been termite damage. get coming through from the natural cedar is the While the front part of the farmhouse could be perfect material for this project,’ says Simone. restored, the heart of the home and rear had to be Inside, they wanted the farmhouse to be full rebuilt from scratch. of light, installing Velux skylights in the rear and But there were also treasures to be found such deploying Stegbar feature highlight windows, as the raked ceilings, which had been covered up custom made to recreate the original windows that over the years. had been beyond repair. ‘As soon as we found them we thought right we ‘We spent a lot of our budget making sure those have to create them as a feature,’ Simone says. features were put back into the property,’ says Then there is the stone fireplace, which Simone Simone. calls the hero of the space. It was only about half It was also about framing the outside from inside, its original size and left standing in no man’s land ‘so when you’re in the main living-dining room when when the rear of the house came down. you look up through the skylights we’ve actually ‘All the inspiration for the colour palette was framed the iconic pine trees that are out the front drawn from the stone in the fireplace. Every part of of the property. We really wanted to blur the inside- the home is built around it,’ she says. outside line’. NOVEMBER 2018 HOUSING 59 INTERIORS • FARMHOUSE PROFILE