An Idyllic Setting – Tuscan Blue by Sally Caroline

In its idyllic setting, a sense of whimsy leads the sensibilities that comprise Tuscan Blue, informing materiality and tone. Sally Caroline take referential cues from the home’s existing context and backdrop charmed by familiar elements and moments of discovery, to transform the core connective spaces of gathering and nurture.

The streets of Melbourne’s Malvern are dotted with nods to the past, and references to a time where large leafy residential allotments were the norm and where homes were enveloped by their own encasing gardens. Now, that idealised setting is both enviable and rare, and even more so is when the home held tucked away offers its own idyllic individualised historical appeal and character. As a transformation and modernising effort, the key elemental areas of Tuscan Blue are given a new life, through a contextually relevant lens of its surrounding setting. Respectively, the redesign of the kitchen, bathroom and dining spaces allow for a bringing together of purpose and clarity of both finishes and materiality, further strengthening the softy muted feel of the home. Sally Caroline combine a contemporary approach with an understanding of the home’s existing heritage charm.

As a transformation and modernising effort, the key elemental areas of Tuscan Blue are given a new life, through a contextually relevant lens of its surrounding setting.

Built by Javar Constructions, Tuscan Blue is a home transformed through combining its past and present, with an outward future relevance, located amongst similar and equally captivating historical homes. Discovered after ascending a steeply sloping approach, the home reveals itself slowly, peeking through a lushly brimmed garden of blossoming flowers and dense hedges. A setting of soft and formally arranged landscape elements sees the accompanying home sit comfortably, as a welcoming and inviting place to visit and reside. As a reference to the soft curves and subtle shifts in tone, the new elements mimic geometric gestures and offer a softness and warmth to the spaces, in its own muted way.

Utilising colour and tonality, the approach is intended to extend the unique and quaint joy of the original home into the new. Creating key moments of interest, welcoming an engagement, ensures the spaces are both unexpected and help conjure spaces unique to both its site and most importantly, as a reflection of its owners. Curves are incorporated in a number of varying iterations, where a bullnose edge detail rounds out the stone benchtops, and a showcase curved plaster rangehood creates a focal point within the kitchen. Throughout, the consideration of concealment and storage is then cleverly disguised behind layers of richness, texture and a touch of the classical.

Creating key moments of interest, welcoming an engagement, ensures the spaces are both unexpected and help conjure spaces unique to both its site and most importantly, as a reflection of its owners.

Combining an ordered and restrained approach, the use of soft and supple blue tones both informs the home’s namesake and extends the original sensibilities of Tuscan Blue. Sally Caroline have intertwined thoughtful gestures and moments of unexpected joy into its unique existing home, connecting to its past and original stylistic inclinations.