Woolomin country home When this family came to the Peel Valley, a new house had advantages over renovating. A doll’s house made by her father helped spark Georgie Oates’s flair for interior decoration. The little house now stands in daughter Hattie’s bedroom, after Georgie updated its 1970s lime-green colour scheme and metallic striped wallpaper with soft pink and white hues. Now Georgie has moved on to larger enterprises, in particular helping design a new home at Woolomin, south-east of NSW’s Tamworth, that she shares with grazier husband Richard, and their children — eight-year-old Hattie, and Lachie, 11. After renovating a 100-year-old weatherboard house some 200 kilometres to the west at Purlewaugh, near Coonabarabran, Richard was relieved to be starting from scratch with modern wiring and plumbing. Asked what he likes most about the house, Richard says succinctly: “No draughts or rattly windows!” For Georgie, however, the house’s main appeal is light. She points to a favourite window nook, to the glowing squares on the polished concrete floor cast by a generous skylight, and to the floor-to-ceiling glass doors and windows in the living room and three of the four bedrooms. Richard and Georgie looked as far afield as Queensland and New Zealand when seeking a change from the Purlewaugh grazing and cropping property where they had lived for 15 years. In 2009 they came across the Woolomin property, whose 47 hectares could be turned into high-performance cattle pasture. “It had all the things we were looking for, including a big centre nearby for schools and for my interior design business,” Georgie says. There was also a century-old timber house, but the changes the couple envisaged made it more practical to start again. However, Georgie and Richard thought the existing house was too good to knock down — so they found a buyer online who would also remove it intact to a village south of Tamworth. Having settled on a hillside site that basks in morning sun and overlooks verdant river flats, they began searching for a builder — and found Mark and Loanna Single of Single Builders, who happened to live right next door. Single Builders constructed a generous-sized, single-level wooden family home. The polished concrete floors and neutral palette of white and grey have a pared back, almost industrial aura, which is warmed by Georgie and Richard’s collection of antique and new furniture. The main living area and three of the four bedrooms are designed to make the most of the view and the sunshine. The utility areas — the garage, bathrooms and laundry — are located in the south-western corner, helping insulate the house and protect it from southerly winds. Georgie and Richard were both raised on farms, she near South Australia’s Naracoorte and Richard at Orange, NSW. After about “one day” of an agriculture degree at the University of Sydney, Richard abandoned formal study and headed for the Northern Territory, where he became head stockman on Napperby, a large station north-west of Alice Springs, before returning to Orange. After high school, Georgie went to Adelaide intending to pursue graphic design. However, she deferred the course and worked as a nanny and as a waitress. After two years she yearned to return to the country, moved to Orange to study agribusiness — and met Richard.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 23:54:23 +0000