Sarsha - Real Life Reno

Sarsha renovated her Gold Coast home over the span of 6 months whilst raising her two young boys. The home has been transformed in a modern Hamptons retreat, perfect for the beach side location.

Our Dural Navy Encaustic look tile

What Spaces did you renovate?
We have a lovely old Queensland Cottage, which we have now fully renovated inside and out. It has taken us a number of years but we are slowly getting there! Our Renovation has included: Building a new Carport and Entrance way, adding a large deck off the back of the home, replacing our kitchen, bathroom, building a new Master Suite, Ensuite and Walk In Robe, Configuring new Lounge Rooms, Installing a Pool, sanding our Timber Floors, replacing all of our windows and putting in a new basketball court.

What motivated you to renovate?
I love interior design and home renovations, in my spare time I can't help myself I love to curl up and read a beautiful home magazine, scroll Pinterest and the beautiful accounts I follow on Instagram. My husband and I both love renovating, we are always planning for the next project we can tackle! Our home was very old and quite dated, we took our time and have now completed our home renovation.

Were you living here at the time of your renovations?
Yes we were! I don't know if we were mad, but the day I gave birth to my first little boy our old asbestos roof was being taken off and replaced! We now have 2 beautiful little boys and they have lived through all of the reno's! I think especially my eldest is happy that they are all finished now.

Our Rose Bay Carrara look matt subway

How would you describe your style?
I love white! I am obsessed I think! I also love beautiful blues.
I feel I have a mixture of styles, I love Hamptons and Coastal Styles.

Talk us through the process you took in planning stages of the renovation!
We tackled our renovation in 3 stages. In each stage I would utilize Pinterest and Instagram , I saved so many different images that I fell in love with. My husband and I also love to travel (I used to be a flight attendant with Ethiad and I think traveling and exploring is now in my blood!) on our travels we would discover so many fabulous places and I tried to draw on our experiences and bring pieces of that into our home and renovations.

Our Rose Bay Carrara look matt subway

Were there many delays? How long did the renovation take?
Our home renovation has been a work in progress, we have completed the renovation in 3 stages. Our last stage was this year, where we finished the inside of the home, we added a new kitchen, master retreat and ensuite, boys bedroom, built a new lounge room, replaced all of the windows, tiled our entrance way, sanded our timber floors and built a basketball court, which has taken approximately 6 months. We were very lucky there were not too many delays considering the world we are living in at the moment. I was very fortunate I started purchasing hardware items last year and stored them for when the renovation started. We have had a significant amount of rain this year, which has held up our basketball court we are almost there we are just waiting to get it painted and finish off the gardens.

What was the most challenging part of the renovation? Did anything go wrong? How did you adapt?
Being organised and purchasing everything that is required in advance so that each trade had what they require, for example tiles, taps, hardware, toilets etc. My brother is carpenter, he worked with us to help us complete our renovation, he was wonderful to work with and took our vision and dream and brought it to life. I was very organised and created lists for each room for items I had to purchase, I would tick them off as I ordered them. We also worked with the carpenter and tried to line our trades up so there was not too much of a time lag. We were very lucky we didn’t have anything major go wrong, I tried to be as organised as possible, which definitely helped. With both our Bathrooms and Ensuite we ran short of tiles, TileCloud were amazing and shipped extra tiles to us each time, luckily that didn’t hold the Tiler up!

The Belrose Blue Encaustic look tile

Were you juggling a career as well as overlooking the renovations?
No, I was very lucky that I could focus on the renovations solely, my husband has his own business, which is just around the corner from home, we were very lucky if he was needed he could pop home.

Did you or your partner butt heads over the design at all?
No luckily, my husband and I have very similar tastes and design style. It made for a smooth design process. I love how my husband gets excited about design like I do!

Pool feature tile in our Dural Navy Encaustic look tile

Did you come into TileCloud Showroom to look around at Tiles? Did you order samples?
I am located on the Gold Coast, I wasn’t able to come into the showroom, I did order some samples, which were fantastic and that was how I selected our tile choices.

Why did you choose Tile Cloud/what did you enjoy best about the Tile Cloud experience?
I love watching Three Birds Renovation on YouTube, I can remember watching Sophie Bell’s Home Renovation and fell in love with her Tile choices, I hoped on your website and fell in love. I loved the variety, I got so excited as the tiles I chose matched my vision for our home beautifully. I loved how helpful TileCloud were and shipping was so quick!

Our Rose Bay Carrara look matt subway paired with the Newport matt white small square

Any advice for first time renovators?
Enjoy the process, it can be stressful but all of the stress is worth it in the long run! My other piece of advice is to be organised, keep lists of items you need to purchase and things you need to do to keep the motions running, if something gets held up, it can hold the renovation up for longer periods of time than originally planned.

How can we find you?
@chirnparkcottage