News/Blog
Popular products for your Entryway, Formal Living Room and the Study
Take a trip around the Dennis Family Homes Showroom with Colour Showroom Manager, Tamara de Graaff. Current trends and functionality are the two main predictors of a product’s popularity with Dennis Family Homes clients. Tamara talks through three popular products in three rooms – the entryway, the formal living room and the study.
For whatever Home means to you, get in contact to talk about building your new home.
The Entryway
Front doors
Blonde Oak front doors, supplied by Corinthian Doors, are currently a popular choice as they can be stained to suit the façade style and colour scheme.
Tamara said staining gives the front door a more high-end finish, rather than a coat of paint.
“People will then want to match other products to the front door, like a garage door, or into timber flooring in their entryway.”
There is an option to obscure the glass panels if you’d like some privacy around your entranceway. “Even if clients upgrade the glazing to be translucent, it still lets in a lot of light,” Tamara pointed out. For clients looking at an elegant coastal-inspired painted finish, we are excited to soon be offering Corinthian’s new Peninsula Collection.
Wider door options
For something more modern, consider a wide style door with a pivot opening mechanism, rather than traditional hinges.
Wide style doors are 1200 or 1020 mm wide, rather than the standard 920 or 820 mm wide. “Clients can include a dummy handle if they’ve got double doors, that’s very popular,” Tamara said. “Having double doors gives a feeling of grandeur”
Door handles
People are often choosing to go with a Gainsborough Trilock in either Brushed Satin Chrome or Matte Black.
“From there, clients like the big oblong full handle which is called an Omni or Omni Accent (in the Gainsborough Trilock range),” Tamara said. The Trilock design offers a combination of lockset, deadbolt and passage functions in one system.
For convenience, and if you’re technologically inclined, consider the Gainsborough Trilok Freestyle. It’s a digital lock with a keypad that connects to your Wi-Fi network and a mobile app. “People who like to take their dogs for a walk or go for a run without having to take their keys really gravitate towards this model,” Tamara said. It also comes in both Brushed Satin Chrome and Matte black.
Formal Living Room
Formal living spaces combine their features to create an ambience, rather than a focal point in the room.
Tamara said that clients who give this room more attention usually install a pendant light fitting and put their effort into these three features.
Built-in cabinetry
It’s a luxurious and permanent item that removes future decisions about appropriate furniture to serve the same function.
“Especially in a family home, putting built-in joinery in a living room is a nice feature because clients can keep the space clean and have a spot for kids’ toys or books to tuck it away nicely,” Tamara said.
Colour selection
There are so many beautiful colours now available through Laminex that create an opportunity to easily bring colour into the home.
“We’ve got a very earthy palette that’s just been released to the market through Laminex, like Coolum Sand, Macedon Mist, Gumnut, Eucalypt and Daintree colours,” Tamara said.
“Consistently, we’ve seen clients wanting to bring green into their home, they’ll do it more with Green Slate, or a Possum from the current palette. “They’re very popular at selection time and we see them used throughout our display homes too.”
A benchtop
To increase surface area and durability within the cabinetry, bench tops are a popular inclusion. Caesarstone crystalline silica-free bench tops feel like high-end marble without the price tag.
Tamara’s go-to Caesarstone colours are Frosty Carrina, Calcatta Nouveau or Attera Blanca. Click here to browse the range of Caesarstone colours.
Clients often ask Tamara, ‘Does it stain?’
“No, it won’t. It’s a very similar formulation to what it was before as an engineered stone. “It’s now a mineral surface, but the properties of it are still just as hard-wearing and heavy-duty for people to install in their home and know that if you spill something on it, it wipes up easily. It doesn’t absorb like natural stone.”
The Study
As working from home continues for many of us, the expectation of a study gains momentum as more and more time is spent in this room.
Dennis Family Homes Colour Consultants are seeing clients make it more comfortable in three ways; paint colour, carpet and a built-in desk (similar to the formal living room).
Colour
Dennis Family Homes use Haymes in Melbourne and Wattyl Paints in our Regional Victoria builds.
Tamara said a client can elevate a space very easily by picking a nice colour to match their finishes.
“You want to have a really inspiring space if you’re working from home,” she said.
“Once upon a time we were doing a lot of greys, but now people are doing a lot more earthy softer tones of terracotta or clays, or even bringing those greens in like the joinery that would be the most popular sort of feature colours.”
Carpet
“People who have built that chose woollen carpet understand how nice it is to have in a home.”
Not only is natural wool loop carpet very soft underfoot, Tamara said it brings a lot of warmth to a room and dampens noise.
“So wool is wonderful because it stays cool in summer and it’s warm in winter.
“We have the wool loop carpets starting at around a series four for us, and you’ll see these in a lot of our display homes too.”
In our Showroom, choose from Carpet Call’s Derwent Range made from 100% wool with a textured loop pile.
Built-in desk
With a beautiful soft wall carpet and a green feature wall, you might want to bring in a nice timber laminate to cover your built-in desk.
Choose the width, depth, and drawers – everything will be set up for you.
“It’s going to cost you more to have it built in than it is to go and buy a desk from a department store, but it creates more of a feature piece that’s yours,” Tamara said.
It’s also saved you a trip to the office furniture store.
For whatever Home means to you, get in contact to talk about building your new home.