Renovations
Hardie™ Axent™ Trim adds designer detail to exterior cladding on The Block 2024
The Block
Julian Brenchley
Like jewellery to an outfit, design details on your home’s facade create interest and definition. These important little elements are key to telling the style story of your home, while helping the design feel resolved and complete.
In this article, we’ll explore the design opportunities offered by adding window trims, why Hardie™ fibre cement is a strong option over traditional materials, as well as touring successful facade executions from The Block 2024, plus essential installation tips and advice.
And remember, if you find this article helpful, you can download even more house renovation tips and advice in our Best Home Transformation Guide, which we created to help both homeowners and trade professionals on their home renovation or new build journey.
Design opportunities offered by versatile window trim
Without thoughtful design, a home’s facade can look like a children’s drawing; a basic little block with squares for windows, devoid of ornamentation.
In reality, a home’s surface is indeed a blank canvas upon which many layers of interest can be added, starting with exterior cladding and window trims and, depending on the style you choose, including details like lighting, balustrades, fretwork and even tiles.
But one of those products offers real versatility in how it’s used.
“Hardie™ Axent™ Trim saves builders a lot of heartache. You can use it around windows and on corners; to cover over joints in panels; to create board and batten. It’s incredibly versatile and very friendly to the builders,” says The Block 2024 architect Julian Brenchley.
Design opportunities of window trim
Hardie™ Axent™ Trim offers a fantastic opportunity to enhance the architectural character of your home without a significant investment.
Window and door trim: Adding trim around windows and doors creates a framed, elegant look that adds depth and visual interest to the facade, giving it a high-end appearance. Its clean, modern lines can be customised to match your style.
Board and batten: Use trim to add vertical emphasis to your home's exterior by embracing the Modern Farmhouse look, embodied by board and batten. Using the trim as the vertical battens or ”lines” brings a sense of height and visual dynamism and adds a classic farmhouse or coastal touch that feels timeless.
Creating geometric shapes: Using trim to create interesting focal points and patterns, including grids and geometric shapes, offers something unique and a little bit different.
Why choose Hardie™ Axent™ Trim over traditional timber?
Hardie™ Axent™ Trim adds the perfect finishing touches to a new home or renovation, and ensures your window trims keep looking as good as your fibre cement weatherboards.
Julian Brenchley was extremely impressed by the continuity and confidence offered by this versatile product.
“The boards are consistently straight,” he explains. “With traditional timbers, the mill can vary the size of the board, which is a real pain for the carpenter on site. When you get the Hardie™ Axent™ Trim, it’s perfect.”
And the fewer surprises on the set of The Block 2024, the better! Here are the top reasons homeowners, architects and builders love it:
Solid and beautiful: It helps to create the impression of solidness and crisp clean edges, making it ideal for edge treatment around window and door frames, as a finishing touch to cladding internal and external corners, and as a design enhancer for butt joints.
Long lasting: Hardie™ fibre cement offers the charm of timber while being resistant to shrinking, swelling and warping, meaning it retains its looks for longer.
Tough and durable: It is engineered to stand up to our harsh Aussie environment, including coastal conditions. It is fire and rot resistant and is resistant to damage from moisture and termites.
Versatile: It’s available in 89mm, 70mm or 45mm widths and 19mm or 38mm thickness options, and is available in 3000mm length to suit common wall heights.
Case study: House 1 on The Block 2024
House 1 on The Block 2024 celebrated the much-loved and versatile board and batten style, adopting a mixture of embedded sand-like texture of Hardie™ Fine Texture Cladding against the smooth Hardie™ Axent™ Trim battens.
“It really is as simple as a board and batten,” says Julian Brenchley. “We chose Hardie™ Fine Texture Cladding with the Hardie™ Axent™ Trim batten over the top. It gives a profoundly cool look to the facade.”
The best part? Hardie™ Axent™ Trim gives windows an architectural look without the huge cost.
Case study: The Block Houses 2 & 4
We saw two stunning homes exhibit a Modern Coastal expression of Mid-Century Modern with The Block Houses 2 and 4.
On House 2, crisp Linea™ Weatherboards bring together a minimalist-meets-coastal aesthetic, with Hardie™ Axent™ Trim used as battening.
Aligning the battens with the windows and weatherboard edges provides a unique architectural detail. The vertical battening brings balance to the strong horizontal weatherboards, drawing the eye up.
Hardie™ Axent™ Trim was used in a similar way on House 4, where wide, deeply grooved Stria™ Cladding was laid horizontally.
Installation tips
Window trim and board and batten are just two of the exterior design features that can be brought to life with the versatile Hardie™ Axent™ Trim, which is simple and easy to use. Ready to get started? Refer your builder to our handy Installation Guide, which has all the details on how to use the product, including tips and advice for board and batten spacing.
Considering a home renovation or new build with Hardie™ Exterior Cladding? Get inspired by the new season of The Block and download our Transform Your Home Guide for more ideas.
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