HOME THE BUILDERS DIARIES Getting Started

By MEGHAN BRYANT

As a child my family moved houses more times than I could count, and I switched schools 11 times. That might sound like a disjointed childhood, but it wasn’t. My dad had a job that required him to move around the country and I absolutely loved it. I loved the excitement of discovering my new room and lying awake at night thinking about how I would decorate it with the small amount of possessions I owned as a child. It’s probably why when I met my future husband Matt at 17 and he told me we would forever be moving houses because he already had so many design ideas, I shrugged and said “okay.” Most people hate the idea of packing up their lives and moving house, but I enjoy it. Even more so now than when I was a child because instead of just being able to decorate a bedroom, I have the whole house. Matt and I have lived in three different homes together. The first was one he owned and renovated with his brother, the second we built together, the third we renovated in six weeks together, and now we are building our new home. This time, it’s a family home, because we’re joined by our one-year-old son Billy. In May 2019 Matt sat at our

kitchen table and drew a rough plan of what he wanted our home to look like, and it only took one or two revisions and he had the layout perfect. We enlisted the help of Alisco Designs to bring the design to life and it was even better than we imagined. Our new home has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen and butler’s pantry, mud room, library, and the four living areas include the main area, media room, kid’s retreat as well as an outdoor area with a firepit. That may sound like a lot, but the home is 315sq m, which is only slightly above the standard-size home for a family of four these days. The reason we are able to fit so much in our house, is due to the design. Matt laid it out to maximize the space. Matt isn’t a draftsman or architect - he is a builder and co-owner of Bryant Brothers Building Group - but he also has an eye for the design process.

“I really liked basing the idea off the homes you see in American movies, with the high-pitched rooves and the driveway on a right-angle to the house,” Matt says. “But I also wanted to keep it in style with Toowoomba homes, so we took it in a slightly different direction and put our own twist on it. “I liked the idea of walking through the front door into the center of the home, which is made up of the kitchen, dining and living areas. “I wanted to be able to open up all the living areas and it feel like one big room yet at the same time close them all off to each other. “The spacious feeling is also helped by almost a wall of glass along the eastern side of the home to capture the morning sun.” While Matt focuses on the design as well as building the home, he leaves most of the creative and interior decorating side to me. We knew when buying this block that there would be some lengthy delays because the development still wasn’t approved. The delay has given us plenty of time to design the inside and outside of our home, choosing everything that will go into the build, right down to the door handles and light fittings. Our idea is to make the home a mixture of American Colonial but with a modern feel. We finally began building at the end of September with the plan to be in the home within four months. So far, the block has been cut, the slab has been poured and our frames are up – these are all jobs for Matt and his subcontractors. My job has been to pick and choose our tiles, paint, flooring, cabinetry, blinds and plumbing fittings. The following stages will be where we see these elements come to life.