Nina and Trent went for a very Kim Kardashian aesthetic (Picture: ABC)
A couple who spent $1 million (£522,000) renovating their home have been slammed after choosing to fit out their living room in all-white décor despite having a toddler.
Interior designer Nina and her husband Trent appeared on the latest episode of Grand Designs Transformation, an Australian spin-off series of the long-running programme.
The couple, who own a $3.2 million (£1, 672,000) home in Sydney’s northern beaches wanted to turn their space into a stylish pad filled with bespoke marble furniture.
The renovation, which took five months, saw several luxurious features added to their 1980s four-bedroom home, including a handcrafted white marble island kitchen bench and outdoor bath.
But it was their all-white living room, which included a white bouclé couch and white bamboo silk rug, that saw both the hosts and viewers scratching their heads.
For co-host Yasmine Ghoniem, the biggest flaw, and risk, to the all-white interior was the couple’s young son, Harley.
The couple spent millions of dollars on a pad in Sydney (Picture: ABC)
‘I’m just imagining Harley with spaghetti and grubby fingers,’ she told them.
Trent then admitted he agreed, and it was a ‘concern’ in the back of his mind.
After getting a tour of the finished property, Yasmine said that the space could be viewed as more ‘gallery-like’, rather than promoting ‘family living’.
However, as Nina went on to explain, the space could be used for both since they had ‘pretty strict rules’ in place.
‘There are no liquids. Cheese and crackers [are] basically all that’s allowed in this room,’ she said laughing.
Despite this, the interior design choice had already caused them issues after there had already been an ‘incident’ involving Harley’s artistic pursuits.
Their toddlers decided to draw all over their white walls (Picture: ABC)
‘We had a drawing on the rug incident with crayons,’ he shared, adding the crayons were ‘all colours of the rainbow’.
He added: ‘It really was a work of art, just in the wrong place.’
However, the coffee table had been a hit with Harley, who apparently took a liking to ‘jumping’ on it, but there weren’t concerns about him breaking the marble as it was ‘nice and robust’.
As always, those watching on at home took to social media to dish out their opinions.
‘How they ruined something perfectly good. All that horrific, monolithic marble. And the unusable room…the couch didn’t even look comfy, just stylish,’ one person posted on a Facebook group dedicated to discussions about the series, as reported by News.com.au.
‘Over the top! … I had to laugh when they talked about the child drawing all over the plush white carpet,’ someone else shared.
The coupe have opted for a very minimlaist design (Picture: ABC)
Another added: ‘Try telling your guests you can’t take a glass of wine into the living room (including placing it on the marble coffee table), but cheese [and] crackers is fine. Eye roll.’
Meanwhile someone else said they would quickly tire if repeatedly telling their own children not to take into the living room.
On Twitter, the takeaways weren’t much better.
The home wasn’t a hit with viewers with one calling it ‘tasteless’ (Picture: ABC)
‘Grand Designs Transformations is Grand Disasters. People with $1m to spend on marble and zero imagination should be banned from renovating. Yikes,’ Kathy Franco wrote.
Jane F said the house was ‘tasteless’ and she was turning off the programme.
Another, Heidi, said she was ‘sick of rich people doing wasteful’ stuff after seeing a ‘perfectly good building’ being pulled apart and then ‘stuffed full of marble’.
When asked by the hosts if they would do anything differently in the renovation, the couple admitted they would have instead purchased a rug that ‘cleaned slightly better’.
Grand Designs Transformations airs on ABC in Australia.
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‘I’m just imagining Harley with spaghetti and grubby fingers.’
