Luxurious yet functional: Built By Wilson's latest family home is for sale. Get in quick!

Hi Lauren, congratulations on your new build project, Newtown Courtyard House! Where can people find the sale listing for this fabulous family abode?

Newtown Courtyard House is currently listed on realestate.com.au and Domain.

We love how light, bright and open the house feels. What was the brief to your architect?

We wanted to create the ultimate family home that allows connection and flow, but also has separate zones for living, work and kids. With so many people considering the move outside of Melbourne after COVID, we identified a gap in the market for beautiful family homes that are both functional and stylish. The internal courtyards tie the house together and the alfresco area with fireplace really completes the home.

Built By Wilson’s incredible projects are often featured in the world’s best interior design magazines. What's your secret to building homes that people lust after?

We love natural, textural and layered finishes, together with lots of light. Getting the floorplan of a house right is so important. We love that people get a surprise when they walk through one of our homes, due to the profound sense of space and highest quality finishes.

You’ve listed the property with the option to buy the fully styled interior package. Based on your experience, what are the top things families are looking for in a home?

We find that most families are seeking a large kitchen with butlers pantry, separate living zones for kids, a well-appointed study for those working from home, hardwearing bathrooms and connected alfresco spaces. All of which we included in this project.

In addition we engaged a stylist to curate the home's furnishings. Our aim was to truly set the project apart and present a complete home to market. Renowned Melbourne interior stylist Simone Haag assisted with all furniture, art and object selections to reflect the home's mid century vibes and to complement our luxurious internal finishes.

We love Simone's textured, timeless design aesthetic. We have been extremely lucky to have so many incredible furniture and product suppliers, in Geelong and Melbourne, supply products for the photoshoot and staging.

What’s a good starting point for someone wanting to add a touch of luxury in their home? At Newtown Courtyard House high-end finishes, natural materials and unique designer pieces create a completely luxe vibe.

We love using marble to create a sense of luxury. We designed a stunning custom blue quartz vanity for our powder room, which totally transforms the space. We think investing in feature lighting and wall sconces is also important. We have used colour in the living room and kids retreat, which has really created a sense of warmth and sophistication.

Lauren chose sheer curved curtains from our Burano range, colour Vanilla (image above).

We love that you chose a range of custom window furnishings to suit the needs of each space. Can you tell us about the process of selecting your blinds, curtains and shutters?

We worked with a DIY Blinds design consultant, Kia, over the phone and on email. Together we chose window furnishings to complement each space. The existing windows at the front of the house were perfect for shutters, and overlook a fully landscaped front yard. We chose sheer curtains for the living rooms to create a cosy, luxurious vibe. In the kids' rooms, we chose minimal blockout blinds to seamlessly fit to the windows.

How early would you recommend reaching out to our design team for advice?

Ideally, recessing all your curtain tracks in the ceiling creates the best outcome, so I would recommend making contact with DIY Blinds during your framing stage for advice. This is so you can work with your builder to set up everything perfectly.

I received all the fabric samples really quickly in the mail. This meant I could create a colour palette with paint, carpet, tiles and other finishes to ensure everything was cohesive.

Can you offer any tips for choosing the perfect colour and texture for your blinds? The white colour palette you used for all your window furnishings is beautiful.

I suggest getting your samples and materials together and viewing them in different lights. In my experience sheer curtains look darker en masse, so it is really important to put all your materials together. Initially I planned to do pale grey sheers, but when I put all the paint colours together the sheers looked so much better in vanilla.

Lauren chose PolyLux® shutters, colour Pure White (image above).

Are you able to let us in on any projects you have planned for the rest of this year?

We are working on an incredible heritage restoration project this year. We're also commencing a new beach house for clients in Barwon Heads, which will keep us busy!

Lauren chose blockout blinds from our One Block range, colour White (image above).

We custom make designer quality blinds at incredible value prices. Thanks to our disruptive online business model, anyone can afford designer window furnishings. That means every single DIY Blinds customer enjoys the same Australian workmanship, premium quality, designer fabrics and customer service.

We help people who are building or renovating on a budget achieve a luxe look in their home. We also work on higher end projects, but the designer quality is the same across every product our team makes. Regardless of budget, our designer blinds, curtains and shutters help transform any build project into a breathtaking home.

Call us to chat with our expert design consultants.