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The budget for the Leichhardt house has been set at $103,000 and Morley and Milne have designed it to reflect the suburb’s Italian heritage. Inside, the walls have been given a “warm pink hue” (“our paint supplier is Wattyl,” a producer reminds me, when I mention rival brand Dulux) and the old U-shaped kitchen has been ripped out and replaced with one that allows for “360 movement, which always reads as more luxurious,” says Milne.
And, in what is the holy grail of tiny inner-west houses (one of which, I also own): a pantry cupboard has been installed. That alone will add thousands to the sale price, I tell Morley. “Seriously?” she says. Next stop is the bathroom, where an enormous bathtub that weighs a quarter of a tonne has somehow been manoeuvred into place. “I looked away,” says Morley.
The bathroom has been designed to reflect a luxurious Roman bathhouse, with chunky terrazzo tiles and an infinity mirror effect that, frankly, I could do without.
“The concepts around the bathroom were really around this idea of how the Romans pioneered bathing as a luxury experience,” says Morley. “So again, it all comes back to the Italian story. That’s the only way we can design. You have to have a reason to do things, not just do it because it’s pretty. That’s just soul-destroying for me.”
Out in the small backyard, Milne takes over. “What wasn’t working was this big long bench seat all the way along the back,” he says. “It’s not really suitable for having friends over, because you’re all sitting next to each other, side by side. You could have 15 people, but you’re not really interacting. So we turned this into a garden bed.”
Burnishing the backyard’s Italian credentials, is a large and very fancy-looking pizza oven. Hang on, isn’t that a classic seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time gimmick?
“It’s a novelty when you first put in a pizza oven,” Milne agrees. “You use it lots and lots and then sort of forget about it a little bit.”
Both Morley and Milne run their own businesses – Morley is a principal at an architecture firm in Melbourne, while Milne has a landscape design business in regional Victoria – so why would they want to sign up to the fraught world of reality TV?
“It’s about design education as well and sharing knowledge,” says Morley. “And people want that. And showing how a design collaboration can be really strong.”
Milne agrees: “I think that’s the key. There’s a lot of shows that talk about design or renovation, but I don’t think they go that extra step and actually unpack why you’re making that decision. And Rosie’s really good at that, ‘This is what I want to do and this is why I’m doing it.’”
And for those wanting to sell their houses, is it really a six-pillow minimum?
“I’m not saying that’s a rule,” says Morley, laughing. “I’m assessing the whole space and how someone’s going to utilise it. There’s maybe some general conventions around how you would style a bed for sale versus the reality of sleeping in it, but I still think there’s something to be said about making a bedroom feel full of calm and luxury. It sounds silly, but then you get into these spaces and you just want to be swaddled.”
Selling in the City is on Binge from Wednesday, October 19.
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Originally published at Melbourne News Vine
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