The couple transforming their old family holiday shack in Newcastle into a stylish coastal home

Nicole Meaker’s beach shack in Newcastle was her family’s much-loved holiday house for a decade before she and her husband Tim rolled up their sleeves to turn it into a permanent, stylish home for just the two of them.

“Our kids had all grown up, and we just needed a change out of Sydney,” Nicole explains.

The empty-nesters have worked steadily since they moved in three years ago, slowly coaxing the 1915 cottage that’s full of family memories into the modern era.

They’ve crafted a coastal feel, one room at a time, with whitewashed floors, lots of neutrals, and lashings of white paint throughout.

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Before

Even as seasoned renovators, Nicole and Tim had their work cut out for them, with very few improvements made to the Merewether property for some time.

In the decades before it became a holiday house, the shack was home to three generations of Nicole’s family; her maternal grandmother spent about 60 years of her life there, a woman who was happy with the home’s oddities and “didn’t really like a lot of things to change”.

So, the couple’s first renovation task was prompted by necessity.

“For us to live here and be comfortable, we had to put a kitchen in,” Nicole says. “There wasn’t an actual kitchen here.”

She and Tim have built up their DIY skills over many years, “renovating lots of houses over our lifetime”. Tim carries out the building works (a gradual process he does around his full-time job) while Nicole paints the walls and unleashes her passion for styling.

She admits that taking things slowly has meant they sometimes forget how far their house has come from the rusty-roofed shack they moved into.

“It’s not until you go back and find an old photo and put it next to a new one and think, ‘Oh wow’,” she says.

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Before

The wow factor is certainly high, but Nicole says much of the dramatic transformation is thanks to paint, which has “just freshened everything up – everything’s clean and fresh and brighter”.

“There’s no big budget,” she adds, “it’s just trying to get the biggest impact with the smallest amount of money.”

Even the significant improvement in kerb appeal was done relatively easily by painting the old roof, replacing the verandah’s old corrugated iron with Suntuf sheeting, and choosing a serene grey-blue hue for the exterior. (The deciding factor was that Dulux Miller Mood complemented the hydrangeas in the garden.)

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Before

Inside, some of the cottage’s more vintage pieces have been dusted off, including an old stove and fireplace that Nicole’s grandmother had kept covered with curtains “so nobody saw they were there”.

“We took all the curtains off and just painted [the stove and fireplace] up and made them a feature instead of trying to hide them,” Nicole says, highlighting that they’re for looks only.

“We’re too scared [we’d] burn the house down!”

Some other antiquated design choices were promptly purged, such as Grandma’s old carpet that was similar to “a green scourer, like something you’d wash the dishes with”, pulled up in favour of whitewashed boards.

Nicole enjoys the hunt for eBay bargains to upcycle. Her hallway table, bedside tables and outdoor furniture on the back deck were bought second-hand.

One upcycle in particular was a hit with her Instagram followers, a “really friendly community” where “we sort of bounce a lot off each other”. When a new barbecue was going to cost upwards of $1000, Nicole instead gave the shack’s old cooker a revamp with a few cans of high-temp paint.

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Before

Now that most of the house is done, the couple are working on the dining room, which is converted from one of the three bedrooms. Next, they’ll tackle the old bathroom and laundry – a “massive job” they’re not too excited about.

“We know we’re going to have some damage that we’re going to have to deal with,” Nicole says because termites have made a mess of the floor joists. “So, it’s on the list!”

With plans to stay here forever, they’re content to take their time putting their personal stamp on the place alongside the history of Nicole’s elders.

“We’ve got no plans for moving away, that’s for sure,” she says. “It’s the best thing that we ever did. We love it here.”

This article is part of a series on amazing home transformations brought to you by Monarch®, a leading Australian painting accessory company for professional and DIY painters.