FOR ALL AGES

AN OVERGROWN BACKYARD HAS BEEN TAMED AND ZONED FOR OUTDOOR FAMILY FUN ALL YEAR ROUND

For Helen and Ben, learning Helen was pregnant a month after moving into their new home upped the urgency to kickstart improvements. “Our first priority outside was addressing the pool, which was unfenced,” says Helen, of their property on the Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne. To carefully plan how to make the most of their vast outdoor area, they enlisted landscape designer Chris Batchelor from Granite Landscapes to devise a modern, functional space for entertaining and where daughter Billie, now three, could play. They also factored in a decent patch of lawn for their two dogs – Hungarian Vizslas Floyd and Fern – to run around. “One of the things that initially attracted us to the property was the tropical feel of the backyard,” recalls Helen, “but it was cluttered and overgrown, so it needed to be pared back and simplified to create a more usable space.” The couple spent endless weekends de-shrubbing areas and repurposing materials, including sleepers for retaining walls and three cubic metres of river rock. They planted gardens with low-maintenance greenery and grasses to soften edges and introduce contrast. To complement the existing merbau deck, the home’s exterior and the boundary fences were painted in Dulux Monument, which makes all the greenery pop, as does the little cubby at the back of the property where Billie loves to serve “customers” ice-cream. Now that all the hard work is done, the family loves spending weekends outside. “We’ll have friends over for a swim and dinner,” says Helen, “and we find during the summer months we don’t tend to go away much, as there’s nowhere else we’d rather be.”

Helen sourced an old railway trolley on Facebook for $20 and removed the handle to create a unique outdoor coffee table. Pots from Bunnings showcase a Mexican fan palm and a purple leafed Yucca desmetiana.

“In the warmer months we eat nearly every meal outside,” says Helen of the covered alfresco area (left), where a custom-made blackbutt table teams with Malawi chairs and a Hive pendant from Greedilulu. “You get the sense you’re amongst the palms and all the tropical foliage makes it incredibly private. When friends visit, they say it feels like a resort.”

On the upper deck, a built-in bench seat stores pool toys, while custom cushions make it a comfy spot for Billie to curl up with the dogs, Fern and Floyd. To make the space feel more like an extension of the adjoining indoor living area, pieces collected on the couple’s travels, including Tonga baskets from Johannesburg and a Borneo backpack from Bali are displayed like art.