By Lana

WELL IT MAY HAVE BEEN OUR WORST KEPT SECRET, BUT IT'S GOING TO BE OUR BEST RENO EVER!

It HAS to be, right? It’s Bonnie’s D.R.E.A.M home and she’s been dreaming about it for over a decade. Growing up with ‘renovating parents’, Bon has been surrounded by reno inspo. Discussions around the dinner table (or portable stove in the garage cos they were renovating) covered all things from design to construction to how to style the lounge room. This ‘buy, renovate, sell’ lifestyle saw Bon move from house to house and as inconvenient as that sounds, she absorbed so much invaluable knowledge along the way. A long time ago (well before Pinterest was invented) Bon started cataloguing ideas in her mind of what SHE would do one day... if it were her home! Well that day has come…

So about a year ago, I sat down with Bon (our design guru and mother of four boys) to get her thoughts on what lay ahead.

Lana: Seriously, how long have you been designing this home?

Bon: I’ve had a picture of this house in my mind for about 5 years, but we only managed to get it down on paper about 18 months ago.

Lana: How would you describe the style of your dream home?

Bon: I think I’d call it Modern Coastal Barn. It reflects my long-term love affair with the coastal look combined with my connection to the great outdoors and a farm-like life. My husband grew up in the Southern Highlands so having land and lots of space has always been important to him. I’m still pinching myself that we came across this house and land when we did – it couldn’t be better suited for building our dream home.

Lana: Are you going to move out or stay put during the reno? Tell me you’re moving out?

Bon: No, we’re going to stay. We have it all figured out. We’ll build the new part of the home first, which is actually a self-contained cottage. We’ll live in the original house while that’s being built, then we’ll move into the cottage so we can renovate and extend the original home. Perfect. What could possibly go wrong?

Lana: Ummm do you really want me to answer that?