Stepping into the right style

Interior styling for Geelong home

Sarah Holian vividly recalls the day her home underwent a complete transformation. She remembers leaving the Newtown abode for the day, earlier this year, not knowing what to expect upon her return. At the time her home was little more than an empty shell with little furniture and no furnishings. Several hours later, she came back to find a ready-made, perfectly styled property where every detail had been considered.
“It was a shock… but a nice shock”, Sarah laughs.

Having purchased the home late last year, the customer services officer had intended to furnish it her herself. But with a career and young child, she found her time was stretched to the limit. Then when her mother became ill and needed to spend time in hospital, Sarah decided sourcing furniture for the whole house was a job that was beyond her. “I had pretty much got rid of everything I had”, Sarah explains. “The plan was always to start from scratch. The things I had were pretty old anyway, but I had decided I wanted the whole house to really flow. I thought the best way was to do it all at once. So it wasn’t just buying a few bits and pieces – it was buying everything. I needed furniture, otherwise I was going to be in this house with nothing. I was intending to do it myself but when my mum got sick I just thought it would be easier to get somebody else to do it.”

Sarah called on Mandy Molloy-Lee from Premium Interior Styling in Geelong to fit our the home’s three bedrooms, two living areas and open-plan kitchen and dining area. The house had undergone a recent renovation, providing an ideal canvas of white walls and timber floors. While it retained some original features, such as decorative ceiling cornices, providing a hint of its mid-century origins, the home lent itself to more modern styling thanks to its contemporary update.

It’s open spaces and fresh palate dictated much of the design brief, which Sarah says centred around providing a livable area for her to enjoy with her two-year-old son Will.  “I didn’t want anything that was going to date and I didn’t want to have to replace things 12 months down the track,” she says. “I have done the renovation thing before and I didn’t enjoy it. I won’t do it again. So it was really nice to be able to walk into the house and not have to fix things.  It was ready to go, and I really just wanted to be able to have people over and have fun, and not be too precious about anything. And I didn’t want Will to feel he couldn’t play or run around – I want him to be a kid. It’s a home for us to live in, not a display home.”

As such, Mandy was handed the task of fitting out the home’s interior to suit Sarah’s requirements, from the main furniture pieces through to decorative items. After an initial consultation, and much toing and froing over email, the result is a beautifully curated interior where blonde timbers and white accents are offset with hints of colour.  A formal living room has been dedicated to monochrome styling, the sophisticated space confirming itself as Sarah’s favourite area of the home. Bedrooms were given burst’s of colour, while a second living area offers a relaxed feel via neutral tones interspersed with hints of vibrant accent pieces.

The kitchen and dining space boasts clean lines and understated styling, allowing statement items such as the dining table and buffet to become the hero pieces of the room. Sarah says while the process to get there may be unconventional the end result is exactly as she hoped. “Mandy and I didn’t know each other or what each other’s styles were, so in terms of that neither of us were probably too sure of how it would turn out,” Sarah says. “We met up and I told her what sort of thing I was hoping for. She put together mood boards for each room and sent them through. There were some things I didn’t like – a few artworks that I just said ‘no’ to straight away. But we went backwards and forwards until we were both happy with the rooms.”

“When they came to set everything up, I was told to go away for the day. When I came home I was shocked. Everything has been set up and put where it was supposed to be. It was just really, really easy. It took a lot of the pressure off me – for me I found it more efficient to have somebody else do it.”

“It’s exactly what I wanted it to be, and it was just so easy. I couldn’t be happier with it.”

Suzie Coffey
GT Magazine October 17 2015