More than a year after moving in, Valeria and Leszek Szychowski are still coming to terms with how wonderful their Murrumbateman home is.
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And they aren’t the only ones who love it either, with the property recently taking out the People’s Choice Award at the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2015 ACT Architecture Awards.
“The brief was to build our dream home,” Valeria told the Tribune.
“And this is what we’ve done … we feel very special coming home every night, we feel like we are coming home to a luxury residence.”
Both Valeria and and Leszek work in the ACT, but relish the country lifestyle that Murrumbateman offers.
“We’re both career people in town and we come home to a more physical environment where you live for the moment, which is such a nice alternative to living in the intellectual and career world here in Canberra, and we love that [this home] gives us that balance.”
After initially buying the land 14 years ago, the couple first met architect Nabil Adhami in 2010 and in 2014 they moved into a spectacular new home.
Mr Adhami said he has enjoyed working with the Szychowski pair over the last four and a half years, and he loves the home.
“The final product is incredible,” he said.
“In the last 15 years that I’ve practiced as an architect, Val and Leszek’s project only comes around once every ten years and what that means is you have a client who has an appetite for a unique design and enjoys coming on the journey with you.
“It was a build that really gave us a licence to practice creativity.”
Valeria said while the process has been a costly one, it’s an investment they are more than happy with.
“We basically borrowed as much as we could to build this home because we just said ‘look this is our future, we plan to retire here’ and we decided that the cost was no object other than we could only borrow so much.
“But really, it’s a small price to pay for such a positive change in our lifestyle and our move out there has been life-changing.”
The Szychowski residence was one of 17 architectural projects in the running for the People’s Choice Award and the winner was announced during the ACT Chapter awards night at the QT Hotel recently.
More than 2000 people voted for their favourite project and voters had the opportunity to outline why they loved their favourite project in 25 words or less.
Valeria said she loves her home, the natural light it offers and how welcoming it is.
“We were elated when they announced that we had won the people’s choice because it just validated that we weren’t the only ones who thought the home was special.
“Don’t talk about the window cleaning, though,” she laughed.
“But that’s just one of the risks you have to take if you want to enjoy the home, you have to be prepared to put the effort into maintaining it. In saying that, we wouldn’t change a thing.”