Checking into a Luxury Loft Suite! 🥂 PLUS Exclusive House Tour, Design Chat w Architect Ian Bennett

I'm excited to see it. I'd have no idea what to anticipate. So this is a surprise for both of us. So let's go. Hotel hopping. We're going from Volo 1888 to Volo Woolamaloo which is completely different again. Not a heritage building like this one but it's actually a big old wharf. But first we're going to go to Paddington, visit some friends, do a spot of shopping and then what time's check out? Check out? Check in. We've already checked out. Wait we've checked out? I don't know. When's check in? Oh probably two. Well so we've got a bit of time to go before check in. Is it hot? Yeah. What's wrong? Not sure. Life on the road. Isn't it grand? So that's fun. So it's working now? No it's not. I just manually connected it together temporarily. Oh wow. I'm lucky to have you babe. Yeah you are. Are you done though? Yeah no I am done. You made the right decision. Literally just bought the same thing I'm wearing in a different colour and a few other things. This is such a cool building Joe. I'm so excited to check into an air-conditioned hotel room in my Sure. I just want coke bottles. Oh you just want coke bottles. Only coke bottles. Okay. We get to press the sweets. That is, that's a vibe ride there. Look at the stack. Now that messes with my eyeballs. Freaking me out. There's that free mini bar again. Very well. Do you know what? I might have to have a beer or something. Oh my god. This is, hang on. Oh my god. Now we've got two levels. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. I love it. Oh my god. This is so big. Look at this. This is sick. This is so big. Look upstairs. Oh oh my god. Shut up. Oh my god. Oh my god. How many hotel rooms have enough room for a gallery wall? Let alone a living space. And then, oh my lord. Oh my god. Look at this bed. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. The artwork in here is something else. I love it. Oh my god. I love it. Oh I'm gonna open these up. That's gonna be beautiful. Oh my goodness. I'm so excited. I can just call reception to have a body pillow delivered to the room. There's so much to love about these. I'm so excited. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited. This is really nice. Oh my god. Tell you what, Jono. We've been very spoiled. I really like the grey tile with that really dark charcoal grout. That's really nice. Would you like- Can you get me a water? A sparkling? Oh yeah, whatever's going. There you go. Here you go, sir. Scott, I might sit in the window. Go sit in the window. Chill out. Just take a load off. You've done a great job. Here you go. You keep the key because I lose them. You always misplace them or say, where's the key? I don't have a key. I love this room. I love this how big it is. I love like how I was tired when I got here and now I'm like, energy. Probably because of all the sugar I've eaten. Most likely because of the sugar. And I free from the minibar. And we're going to go downstairs for happy hour and check out this pad because this wharf, the finger wharf looks epic. So we're going outside. Sweet. Yeah. Okay. I really want to sit now in one of those pink chairs because I feel like I'm matching. Should we do that? Probably are. Here's the chair. Too matchy matchy. Should we go outside and see if the cool change has actually happened? It should have, but I don't think it has. Let's check it. Quick gear check. What do we need? Drone. Got it. Yep. Two cameras. Filming on one. One on my back. Mic. Yeah. In the bag. Gimbal. Yeah. All right. Me. Oh yeah. Host. Me. Host. Where are we going? We're going to Avalon. Fonsa. We're going to go meet Ian Bennett from Ian Bennett Design, funnily enough. And we're going to take a look through the Lightwells house. And I'm very excited because I actually, usually I know exactly what I'm walking into. We haven't seen it. I've only seen a couple of places. It's only just finished. So I don't even know. Like I'm talking about corners and like Lightwells and it's literally called Lightwells. I'm excited to see it. I have no idea what to anticipate. So this is a surprise for both of us. So let's go. I read your submission. So you actually worked on the lower level when you were in a different practice. Okay. I didn't design it, but I was a project architect on it. So it was my first actually job running on site. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So it was just this lower level. This was here, but then we excavated behind that. Right. And propped the whole house up. Wow. And then put in bedrooms and stuff behind there. And so this is, this is existing basically from this, what was from here. Wow. That was existing. Not in this regular format, but it was existing. And then there was a little set of stairs that came up here to similar to the kitchen, but it was a lot smaller than this. So the idea was how do we, how do you connect the old with the new? Yeah. You actually separate it. I love that. The Lightwell. Yeah, the Lightwell. And their last name's Wells. Oh, is it? I love that. Yeah. Instead of just smashing something together like that, why don't we separate it, let it breathe old, transition new. I love it. I propose this and the builder who I've done a lot of work with, and I'm still doing a lot of work with, he said to me, are you sure about green? Are you sure? I was going to say it is green, right? I was going to say it's like a really, really pale, almost eucalypt or something. Yeah, that's it. It's a eucalypt green. Yeah. It's very, very soft. And when you say it just as a sample like that, without anything around it, you think he even made me double guess. Yeah, it's right mate. Just trust me. And then we did it. And then what does he do? He wants to now do it. He's just done his house. Yeah, we've done his house. What is, what is this? This is Bengali. Oh no, that's not that, that you're seeing through there's Indian head. Okay. So Avalon's, Avalon beach is just around that headland. And then this is Bengali headland and that's Bengali head. Wow. So it keeps sloping up. Yeah. Interesting sign. Yeah. So what's your exterior? It's aluminium, which we get a 50 year guarantee on rather than using colour bond or a steel because steel just degrades with all the salt. So aluminium exterior and brick. We don't do anything with brick. So it's just maintenance for us. You're used to, cause you live around here as well. So you're used to kind of this kind of extreme climate and sort of weather conditions you have to deal with. And part of what my design aesthetic is, is trying to do low maintenance builds. They probably cost a little bit upfront, but it just saves so much time through their life. No one's got time these days to be maintaining houses. So where I can, I try and really push hardy materials that will withstand this climate or this weather condition to come through. That's the connection back downstairs. That's beautiful. Oh, it's a lovely little pop in. Yeah. Gosh, that's quite dramatic. Wow. Oh, Ian. Oh, wow. This is special. Yeah. Oh, I just love this. I love how open it is. You've just got this divide and open area. This feels great. Oh my goodness. Wow. That's the, that's their full view. There's something kind of graphic about it though that's so good because you've got this kind of strong shape anyway. And you've got that beautiful branch of the Norfolk Island just framing it as well. They've got another colour. It's either black brick. Yeah. I love that brick. To be honest, the brick softens it because it's such high contrast, especially when you're out the front and the brick just kind of warms it up and it starts to then feel part of its environment as well because you've got such older sort of, you know, the weather boards and that kind of older feeling. So that brick really helps it. So we're back. We're out of Sydney. We've been driving for nearly two hours and we are now coming into Newcastle. This is the inspo board. Well, we have all these things in our mind and we're kind of like, let's just get it on a board and we can look at it and yeah, get inspired. Hell of a storm. That was brutal. We're getting close to Queensland. I can feel it. Things are bigger. Things are warmer. It's heavier and stickier. I've seen sugar cane. It's exciting. We're about to cross the border.