Soft Serve by YSG Studio
In the former Balmain Supply Store, YSG Studio transforms a 19th-century Victorian Georgian corner shop into an eclectic home full of art, texture, and colour.
Words: Emma-Kate Wilson | Photography: Prue Ruscoe
Photo: Prue Ruscoe
Photo: Prue Ruscoe
Soft Serve is a refined and warm home connecting family living within a Rozelle 19th-century three-storey sandstone building. Adding a soft-hued colour palette and array of textures and materiality, Sydney-based interior designers YSG Studio invites modern style to Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s delicate Art Nouveau flourishes and a repetition of timber framing.
Preserving the shop-front glass frontage, YSG reconceptualises the ground floor layout into an open-plan kitchen, living, and dining. Filled with textures from the sweeping linen curtains to a copper fridge and marble splashback, YSG begin the narrative of intriguing design that only increases throughout the levels.
‘As the building is heritage-listed, we had to get local council permission for many elements of the renovation,’ says Yasmine Saleh Ghoniem, YSG Principal. ‘One key challenge was getting permission to remove the sandstone wall that existed between what is now the kitchen and dining area, it was imperative to give the whole downstairs living area a sense of open connection.’
The kitchen is raised to meet the dining, creating a sunken living room that cocoons the family in moulded Marmorino seating, sculptural art, and modernist light fittings. Salvaged granite steps (bush hammered to mimic antiquity) lead up to the kitchen and dining, connecting the stained ebony timber flooring of the lounge to the travertine pavers repeated on the ground level.
The dining space is a series of departures to the glamourous salon, upper levels, and rear courtyard—the latter thanks to custom bi-folding doors. Upstairs, the floorplan was reconfigured to suit the family with a new master suite expanded with a bathroom and walk-in robe, while the former master becomes a grand bathroom with doors leading into the daughter’s bedrooms. Offering continuity, all existing timber floors were painted a mellow pale eucalyptus grey/green, picking up the natural hues in the distinguished sandstone walls.
Both a restoration and renovation effort, the project took over three years to complete, adhering to relevant heritage compliance of the 19th-century Victorian Georgina corner shop. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
Plush materials and sculptural forms can be found in the layered interior. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
Taking inspiration from striking stained-glass floral reliefs in original leadlight windows in a bedroom and at the base of the staircase, its delicate jewel tones are sprinkled throughout the house. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
“Above all I wanted the home to have a very tactile appeal. Myriad fabrics in nubby wool textures and silky finishes compliment the matt characteristics of the pitted sandstone walls and the sheen of the Marmorino surfaces as sun and shadow play upon them.”
Juxtaposing against the thick and heavy masonry of the architecture, layers found in the furniture and finishes add a welcome softness. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
The tactile home features layers of texture in the soft furnishings. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
Referencing the supply store’s re-incarnation as a women’s apparel and repairs business prior to its domestic occupancy in the late 1900’s, myriad fabrics in nubby wool textures and silky finishes compliment the matte and sheen characteristics of the pitted walls. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
The personalities of the home’s owners are expressed through the curation of furniture, artwork and lighting. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
Embellished in the distinctive YSG style, a mix of surfaces and textures invite opulence within the entire Soft Serve project, with Japanese-inspired timber framing enhancing the details. Such as the textured vintage seagrass wallpaper and tatami matting adorning the bedroom headboard, and in the kitchen, latticed timber cabinetry joined by lithe vertical supports under the leathered quartzite countertop.
Sandstone walls command the neutral colour palette highlighted by delicate jewel tones, akin to the stained-glass windows. In the master, subtle hints of blues — aquamarine in the patterned rug and custom fabric headboard and glimmery pearl iridescent blues in the ensuite. While soft hues of purple and violet repeat throughout the salon; the custom Tapetti Rug, alongside geometric Simple Studio curtains, and textural, shimmering Paul Rousso artwork.
With these opulent hues and materiality plus a palette of sandstone, timbers, and travertine pavers, YSG contrast and soften by including round tables, upholstered furnishing, batik-fabrics, and a hemp-rendered wall. As a result, soft Serve reveals over and over the balance of both eclectic design and comfortable family living—pushing the boundaries of what’s expected of both.
Retaining and restoring its original sandstone walls and thickened openings, the home captures the essence of its past. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
‘I didn’t want the furnishings to all look brand new – many timber pieces were sourced from vintage and second-hand sources, including the chairs in the study (pictured above),’ says Yasmine Saleh Ghoniem. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
“Overall, the spaces swell and expand through pattern integration: the square macro outlines of the over-sized pavers sync in miniature scale with the master ensuite’s mother-of-pearl mosaic tiles and the salon’s lilac open-weave curtains enhance flow.”
Bedroom details. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
Plush materials and sculptural forms can be found in the layered interior. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
‘Within the main bathroom, the diagonal bands of alternating tones of rose-tinted limestone tiles grant the illusion of sunlight streaming in,’ says Yasmine Saleh Ghoniem. Photo: Prue Ruscoe
YSG’s trademark maximalism extends to the bathrooms. Photo: Prue Ruscoe