PROJECT FAMILY
IT WAS ALL HANDS ON DECK FOR THE RENOVATION OF THIS DAYLESFORD HOME, WITH HEAVILY PREGNANT NADINE OSBORNE ON THE TOOLS.
Being heavily pregnant didn’t deter Nadine Osborne from renovating her Daylesford home.
ONE-YEAR-OLD BOBBY OSBORNE has been renovating since before he was born. His mum Nadine, who with her husband Jake owns Musk Vale Farm in Daylesford, Victoria, took on some serious DIY while heavily pregnant with him – and the whole family loves the results. “I’m the daughter of a carpenter, so I insisted on doing it myself,” she says. “Watching my dad in the workshop all those years definitely paid off when it came to the power tools!”
Back in 2018, Nadine and Jake, a GP, with daughter Penny, now four, were hunting for a fixer-upper when they first laid eyes on Musk Vale Farm. Though the house has less history than they initially wanted – being only 14 years old – it had immediate appeal. “We felt an instant connection as soon as we saw it,” says Nadine, who is an artist. “The property sits on the edge of the Hepburn Regional Park and has a rich cultural heritage and a strong spiritual feel.” Once a potato farm, the property had previously belonged to renowned sports journalist John Thirsk. Updating it was no small matter, and involved knocking through internal walls downstairs to create the open-plan entertaining space the couple wanted.
“I’d always dreamed of styling a large property,” says the 38-year-old. “The house was a blank canvas – it needed a serious injection of character, and I wanted it to have >
an old-world feel.” So she got on the tools, despite the imminent arrival of Bobby, installing cladding on the walls, replacing skirting boards, adding a chair rail and repainting walls. “I made mistakes – I had to redo a lot of work, repaint rooms. The cladding is imperfect. But I couldn’t be happier with the end result.”
Her style is inspired by Daylesford designer Theresa Albioli, whose signature of simple white walls and textural materials is echoed in Musk Vale Farm. “I wanted to go with a neutral background for the majority of the house as I felt it would blend best with the antiques and souvenirs from our life and travels,” says Nadine. And she’s not afraid of a moody hue: “I would have gone dark and dramatic in more rooms had Jake let me, but he only gave me one!” she says.
“The inspiration behind the Green Room arose from my obsession with Melbourne’s cocktail bars with their Prohibition-era styling – mysterious and decadent.” She particularly loves the dark green she chose for the walls: “It creates a cosy, classy and romantic atmosphere.”
And so do the antiques with which she’s furnished the home, many of which came from Daylesford’s Mill Markets. “We are so spoilt in country Victoria as far as vintage furniture, collectables and antiques go,” Nadine says. “It really is much more rewarding choosing a one-ofa-kind second-hand piece which has its own story.” She has a sharp eye for a special piece, picking up the velvet chairs in the Green Room from the side of the road, and spotting the dining room fireplace hiding in a shop’s back room and “covered in possum poo”. >
“The house was a blank canvas – it needed a serious injection of character and I wanted it to have an old-world feel.”
“It really is much more rewarding choosing a one-of-a-kind second-hand piece which has its own story.”
ABOUT THE HOUSE:
• Nadine has a cost-effective hack for the artwork on display in the Green Room: “I added period prints from the open-access program available from museums all over the world such as the Getty and the Met and put them into vintage frames. Ideally I would have liked to fill the entire house with original oil paintings, but it’s a large home with a lot of walls!”
• Her love of vintage pieces is another cost-effective choice, as well as being local, sustainable, and of course giving her the look she’s after.
• Describing her decorating style as eclectic, Nadine says: “I like to blend different eras and periods. I definitely tend to lean towards more classic style furniture, but my art, for example, tends to be more modern and contemporary.”
There’s plenty of green outside the house, too – it sits on a hectare of land, which is Jake’s domain. The 37-year-old “has always dreamed of landscaping a large property,” says Nadine, and he’s certainly fulfilled that dream, planting about 100 hydrangeas, 200 astilbes, 300 metres of maples, 300 metres of Portuguese laurel, 30 white roses, an olive grove, 50 lavender plants and 100 metres of box hedging. Not content with that herculean effort, he also relocated the crowded fruit trees to a more suitable spot, meaning the family enjoy fresh plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots, almonds and more.
Because the Osbornes are currently travelling around Australia, they are letting out Musk Vale Farm. So right now, lucky guests can enjoy the fruits of the family’s labours, including the work of the world’s tiniest renovator.
To rent Musk Vale Farm, visit thehousesdaylesford.com