American Classic by The Yarrows

An American Classic at Home in The Shire

Drawing inspiration from the architecture of America’s East Coast, The Yarrows transformed a dated 1970s Sutherland Shire house into a warm, character-filled family home with classical detailing, bold colour and a distinctly personal identity.

After spending a decade living in the United States, the owners of this home returned to Australia with their three children and a clear ambition: to create a home where their family could put down roots.

For Sarah Yarrow and her husband Tim, who together run design and build studio The Yarrows, the project became far more than a cosmetic renovation. Work began on settlement day, stripping back decades of poor workmanship and a largely cosmetic renovation from a few years earlier. The house was taken back to its framework, with structural shortcomings addressed before the interiors were rebuilt from the ground up.

The brief itself was less about prescribing an aesthetic and more about creating a feeling. The owners wanted a welcoming family home, somewhere they could connect, laugh and rest.

With the clients’ full trust, Sarah was able to develop an interior that drew on their connection with the United States without slipping into a familiar Australian interpretation of Hamptons style. Instead, the architecture of America’s East Coast provided the reference point: tailored and classic, but also warm and family oriented.

“I wanted to create something that wasn’t seen or done before, taking inspiration from the clients’ heritage in the US. We specifically steered away from Hamptons. Every space was different depending on its purpose.”

Character Built Through Layers

Rather than relying on a predominantly white palette, Sarah introduced colour, wallpaper and texture throughout the house. Wainscoting and decorative skirting boards were layered alongside bold paint, wallpaper, Australian-made brass tapware and custom furnishings.

Letting each space develop its own personality was particularly important in a home for a young family. The design could be playful and individual where appropriate, while the underlying architectural language created continuity throughout the home.

That philosophy carried through to the mouldings. A broad selection of Intrim profiles were used, allowing the detailing to shift according to its application. IN09 inlay mould and CR99 chair rail were used together to create the wainscoting wall treatment, while IN68 was used on custom pantry joinery.

SK77 skirting boards continue throughout the home, with different heights used to respond to the variations in ceiling height. The repeated profile provides consistency while allowing the scale of the detail to respond to each space.

Turning a Structural Challenge into Architectural Detail

One of the renovation’s most significant challenges was found in the kitchen, where an existing structural beam was positioned off-centre. Rather than designing around the awkward geometry, The Yarrows carefully removed the beam and replaced it with one positioned symmetrically within the space.

That structural correction created the foundation for one of the home’s defining architectural details: a coffered ceiling.

It is an approach repeated throughout the project, where mouldings are treated as part of the architecture rather than decoration added at the end. SN23 sill nosing adds definition to the windows, while SB03 skirting blocks resolve the junctions where different skirting and architrave profiles meet.

SK552 architraves are another important part of the detailing. They’re used around both straight openings and curved architraves, so the sampe profile follows every arch and doorway.

A Collaborative Approach from Concept to Completion

The freedom to make such considered decisions came from a trusting relationship between client, designer and builder. For Sarah, seeing how architectural mouldings have been applied in other projects is an important source of inspiration.

“I love seeing case studies that show lots of different products and profiles. As a designer, it gives you inspiration for how you can use something in a way you might never have thought of before.”

The Yarrows specify Intrim on all their projects. “I love the variety of profiles, and being able to source everything from one supplier. Tim looks after the construction side and finds INTRADE easy to use, so the whole process is easy to manage from concept to completion.” said Sarah.

A Family Home with its Own Point of View

East Coast American influences set the foundation, but it’s the colour, wallpaper, custom furnishings, curved details and layered mouldings that make this home unmistakably the family’s own. For the owners, that was the point:

“Sarah & Tim saw the life we envisioned and transformed it into reality. It was so much more than a renovation – it was the creation of a home, and we will treasure it always.”