At KWD, we love seeing local designers achieving great things, and believe it’s important to celebrate this success. So when we saw what Sarah Healy and her partner Ben Harris had created in their own home renovation, we had to share their story.
Sarah Healy is a Melbourne based freelance graphic designer with a passion for design. Her innate sense of style is evident on her website, and in her blog which she created to document the process of the build. “It was a nice way to record everything, and I wanted to give people an insight in to the process and show them all the work that was involved,” explains Sarah.
Ben and Sarah first met when she was studying, and they formed a bond based on a common aesthetic and a desire to create. With Ben’s many years of carpentry experience and already a couple of his own developments under his belt, he purchased a property in Armadale and began working on the redesign with Sarah. The partnership grew from there, and Ben and Sarah have completed their second home renovation, also in Armadale. The pair are now living in their Hume Street home, and enjoying the fruits of all their hard work.
“We recently finished Hume Street and look forward to living here for some time, and enjoying what we have created. People ask us if we are looking to get into the home renovation business, but at this stage we just love working on our own projects. Ben and I work really well together and we have similar tastes so I don’t know how we’d go working for other people. We feed off each other and living on site you get to know the project so intimately. We get so engrossed in the projects we work on – I really enjoy working with Ben,” says Sarah.
Sarah and Ben love period homes, combining the old with the new while keeping the overall look classic and timeless. Ben project managed the renovation and did much of the work himself, only calling on tradies as required. Family and friends also helped out with the renovation, including Ben’s brother who did all of the plastering.
Says Sarah, “I drive the interior side. While we do love creating the overall design aesthetic as a team, Ben gets so busy doing the physical work which means I have to ensure the interiors are on track. Once I have put together the interior design concepts and ideas, figured out the finishes and got all the quotes for the fittings and fixtures, we spend time going through it all, defining the style and creating the look together.”
The success of the Hume Street project was such that The English Tapware Company (who supplied the beautiful tapware for the kitchen) submitted photos of Sarah and Ben’s renovation to some leading magazines. One of the images made it on to the front cover of Kitchen Yearbook – such an amazing achievement for the design duo.
Belle Magazine also ran a full page photo of the Hume Street kitchen, describing it as ‘dark, dramatic and oozing effortless glamour, this bold kitchen mixes contemporary with classic.” A very fine compliment from the design afficionados.
“We were so surprised, delighted, over the moon to see our Hume Street home on the front cover of the Kitchen Yearbook. The English Tapware Company took a series of photos and sent them to the magazine, and we couldn’t believe it when we saw our kitchen on the cover of a magazine that we admire so much. We love the tapware we used for this project and it was really rewarding to see that a magazine that is such an expert in design loves what we worked so hard to achieve.”
sarahhealy.com.au
@sarsiehealy
@bellemagazine
@kitchenyearbook
@theenglishtapwarecompany
Belle cover image courtesy Anna Rees of The English Tapware Company