When Lyndal and Tim Scrivener decided to build their new home, they knew exactly the right people to call on – the design-savvy, trustworthy Rosewood Homes team
As the estimator at Rosewood Homes, Lyndal Scrivener has the inside view of the quality of work done by the Rosewood team.
She says she’s seen some great success stories with their builds over the years and has appreciated the quality of the homes created. Sometimes the success comes from Rosewood customers building a new home to spend many happy years in it; other times the homeowners sell the completed residence for a healthy profit.
Inspired by these stories, Lyndal and her husband Tim decided to find a suitable block of land to build a beautiful and classic family home for themselves and their two teenage sons, with the view to eventually selling for a profit. After a six-month search, they found the perfect site – one of the last remaining blocks of land for sale in a small new subdivision in leafy Turramurra.
“I’ve always liked the area,” admits Lyndal. “It is an ideal location for a family and I thought it was a perfect place for a Rosewood Home.”
The Scrivener family wasn’t sure how long they were planning to live in the home because the concept was to build the house as an investment, selling it when they felt the time was right.
“I wanted something that would appeal to the local market,” Lyndal says. “So it had to have lots of bedrooms upstairs, a guest bedroom downstairs and multiple living areas, because I know that even just with two kids, who are very noisy, we needed space from each other.”
The design brief to Rosewood was to create a classic home to complement the existing established neighbourhood. Rosewood designed a French Provincial style home (with a Hamptons influence), fully customised to fit the challenging site.
“The block in our subdivision was probably the worst one because it had the most fall,” explains Lyndal. “It had fall from right to left and from front to back, so the home ended up having two split levels in it. We probably could have done away with one of the splits, but then the ceiling heights wouldn’t have been as high as they are.”
Indeed, the kitchen and dining area of the home is generously sized, with 3.6 metre ceilings.
“It’s actually my favourite spot in the house,” Lyndal says. “I love standing behind my kitchen island where I do all my chopping and I gaze out this beautiful, huge stacker door. We’ve got highlight windows and have lots of greenery out the back. It’s just the best. I love it.”
Lyndal says that building with Rosewood was stress-free. “Adam and Gina are so easy to work with,” she says. “They helped me with my selections because that’s not my forte. It was a great relief to be able to bounce ideas off them.”
The integrity of the Rosewood team was also comforting, she says. “Having worked here and seeing how they interact with clients and how honest and transparent they are, it just gives you reassurance,” Lyndal says. “Everything is really above board, and you can tell that they really look after their clients and they want the best for them.”
The end result is spectacular, says Lyndal. “It a spacious house – the biggest house I’ve ever lived in, but it’s still homely and cosy. And I love that we were able to achieve that.”
“What I love about the house is that it has so much light. The rear faces south, but even then it still feels bright. I’ve got a massive window with louvres either side in my family room and I have that stacker door and the highlight windows off my kitchen and dining area. And out in the alfresco, I’ve got two skylights as well, so there’s just light everywhere.”
Lyndal and Tim now have the house on the market, and say that the return on investment with the project is amazing. They are expecting a great price, which will set them up comfortably for the future. They have definitely done well, adds Lyndal, “life-changing well, in fact”.
And the next house? Rosewood again, of course.
