The Pountneys | InForm
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The Pountneys

“We love the backdrop that the concrete floors create for the rest of the materials and furnishings. It’s tough selecting finishes that are timeless but we’re so happy with what we selected”.

When client Rebecca Pountney reflects on her experience with InForm, it’s almost as though we’ve staged the conversation. An interior designer herself, Rebecca is logical and insightful in sharing her design and build journey. Through her own work and experience as a client, she knows what’s important; collaboration, clear communication, creativity, quality, and efficiency.

Together with husband David Pountney, Rebecca approached InForm with a clear brief for her family’s dream home, where she now lives with David, her two sons Miles and Nolan, and the family’s two dogs.

With collaboration, creativity, process, and – most importantly – family in mind, Rebecca Pountney shares her InForm journey.

What led you to InForm?

My husband Dave and I always knew that one day we wanted to design and build a new home, so we spent a lot of time researching builders and architects whose designs were aligned with what we were looking for in our family home. We discovered InForm via Instagram and were immediately drawn to the modernist design aesthetic and the idea that by working with InForm, we also had access to an architect through their relationship with Pleysier Perkins.

What made you decide to proceed with InForm?

We were impressed by the InForm process, the sense of pride in their work and the excitement  to be part of our journey. We met with a couple of other medium sized design and build companies but none of them compared to the first impression we got from InForm.

What was your design brief and how did InForm bring it to life?

We wanted to build our dream family home.

As an interior designer and with Dave’s shared interest in architecture and design, we had a very clear idea of what we wanted and this was reflected in the depth of the brief we gave InForm.

Functionally, the house needed to cater for our family of four (and two dogs) with an open plan for day to day living complemented by private spaces to retreat to. It also needed to offer some flexibility as our boys grew older, and to host frequent visitors from interstate and overseas.

We chose our block of land for its north facing backyard and wanted to make the most of this by orienting the house around a central courtyard, to maximise natural light and ensure a strong connection between the indoor and outdoor spaces. We challenged the InForm and Pleysier Perkins teams to think as much about outdoor areas as indoor ones, and were impressed by how they approached this.

Aesthetically, we both love modernist design and wanted the house to take on the principles of this movement but in a contemporary way.

We were also conscious of building something that complemented the local area, which has a strong history of 1970’s modernist architecture. For the interiors, we wanted a neutral colour palette with a focus on natural materials like concrete, timber, brick and wool with some bespoke details to make the home ours.

You had a strong vision and design sense for your house, can you talk to us about this collaboration and process?

The process felt tailored to our needs throughout. Each team member was focused on creating the perfect house just for us and we had a very strong brief. It’s clear that there’s a great working relationship between Pleysier Perkins and InForm, because the process of working across two companies was seamless.

The team at Pleysier Perkins did an amazing job not just interpreting our brief but enhancing it further. They really understood what we wanted to achieve and we believe the end result is testament to the fact that they shared our passion for both the overall vision and smallest details. The meetings during the design phase were our favourite part of the process, the team were engaged with our vision and completely open to our thoughts and suggestions on all aspects of our home. There were many occasions where we discussed particular features to the overall architecture of the house and we loved how the team argued strongly for the elements they felt were critical to the integrity of the design.

Most, if not all, of those features have ended up in the completed house.

How do you reflect on the building process?

Our site manager did a great job keeping us up to date with each stage of the build and managing our expectations on timing, possibly the most important part of his job. There were some challenges along the way but nothing that couldn’t be overcome and, importantly, the lines of communication between InForm and us were always open.

It was easy to arrange access to visit the house and check on progress and the quality of tradespeople who worked with InForm was very high. Everyone we met was friendly and seemed to take great pride in their work, which is a reflection of the relationship that InForm have with their contractors.

We’ve been asked by many friends and family how we felt about the build and our answer is always that we would do it again in a heartbeat.

What do the kids love the most about your home?

After the pool, it would be the projector and screen in the lounge room. What we envisaged as an intimate relaxing lounge room space for us has also become the kids’ favourite spot to watch a movie or play games.

How does your family come together at your home; what are your favourite spots to gather together?

Summer revolves around the pool. Doors to the deck wide open, gin and tonics from the bar, and wet footprints into the kitchen.

During autumn and winter we move indoors and enjoy meals around the dining table, brought in from the smoker which then provide the embers to light the fire inside. Our dogs also know that the best spot to lie is on the rug in the living room to enjoy the warm winter sun.

We’ve spent a lot of time in the garden and worked with Matt Walsham and his team who did a great job setting up the landscaping so we could tackle the planting. The kids help pull out weeds or amuse themselves on the trampoline while we potter in the backyard. It’s still a work in progress but we enjoy watching it grow and change with the seasons.

 

This story is an extract from UnFold, our print magazine. Please contact InForm for a copy.