James Hardie x Style Sourcebook: a vision for your dream home exterior

It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice you have when designing for your build or renovation, especially with so much inspirational content right at your fingertips. That’s why, when you’re renovating your home, collating a mood board can do more than just inspire you.

It’s important to ensure that your materials, finishes, fittings and colour all work together to create a cohesive end product, and a mood board can help define - and refine - your vision.

But what happens when you’ve found the inspiration for your dream home exterior? You need to be able to break down the elements into actual products and materials, so that you can approach the rest of the design process feeling educated and empowered.

Enter the partnership between Style Sourcebook and James Hardie, which has one overarching goal: to connect renovators and new home builders to endless design possibilities. By introducing you to a variety of look options - for both your interior and exterior spaces - you can build up a mood board that will act as an invaluable visual guide throughout your entire journey. The Style Sourcebook platform works to give you an innovative and interactive opportunity to create mood boards for your dream home look, using real products from a huge range of retailers, which now includes James Hardie.

Take inspiration from The Stables' Scandi Barn Mood board

When renovating or designing a home, the interior is often considered first; however, with street appeal becoming more of a focus, the wide range of James Hardie exterior cladding solutions on the platform can help to further drive that interest. It’s important for homeowners to prioritise exteriors just as much as interiors in the design process to gain that street appeal they desire, and the tool now offers the integration of design for both spaces.

It's as easy as drag 'n' drop

Style Sourcebook goes further than just visuals, by allowing you to use real products from James Hardie and other trusted retailers that you had planned to turn to.

According to Lisa Cousens, Founder of Style Sourcebook, the idea is that homeowners can mix and match across virtual retailers.

“Often, that can be very time consuming, if you’re doing it offline: having to get swatches and samples,” she says. “So our key feature is a drag and drop mood board tool that enables you to mix and match products.”

The partnership with James Hardie solves a key problem: the site had been able to facilitate the interior design needs of homeowners, but the exterior choices were not always able to be cohesively connected.

Style Sourcebook also allows you to break down all of the components of your exterior, into real products and materials. This means you can better visualise your paint, lighting and cladding - all in the one place, bringing your renovation or design vision to life with ease.

For example, if you’re looking for a Modern Coastal-style in and out, you could consider weatherboards, such as Linea™ weatherboards by James Hardie, which are just one click away. Or, if you’re wanting a modern design that favours clean lines, such as the Box Modern look, then your cladding of choice may be Hardie™ Fine Texture Cladding. Either way, this collaboration allows you to get the best idea of what your finished product will look like, by linking the vision that you want with the specific materials needed to achieve it.

Be inspired by Villa Styling's Modern Coastal Mood board

Defining your vision and sharing it with your community

Your Style Sourcebook mood board can operate as an interactive shopping list that you can share with your building or design team, and allow you to pull together a vision. They also provide a constant reference point across the build, ensuring that everyone is on the same page about the specific wants and needs of your home.

According to Lisa, “Interior designers or specifiers within the builder find it useful if the consumer brings their mood board to their selections appointment, and says ‘this is the look I’m thinking of.’ It helps them start the conversation and narrow down the choices,” she says.

With new trends constantly emerging, your mood board can be the best place to identify the look you will eventually choose for your home. There are a few examples of dominant trends on the platform. Lisa also points out that Modern Coastal has been a recent popular style. You can use the site to achieve this look, through putting together light coloured Linea™ weatherboards, with bulky Axon™ Cladding around the window frames, to nail a chunky, boho look.

Another style that leaps out on the site is the new, minimal Japandi, which focuses on clean aesthetics. If you’re wanting to recreate this style, you could search for cladding products such as Hardie™ Fine Texture Cladding. These subtly-textured panels can be arranged to give a striking, yet pared-back look - perfect for Japanese and Scandinavian-inspired homes.

Studio Black Interior's Box Modern Mood board

Your style evolution, courtesy of Style Sourcebook

The Style Sourcebook design community displays the latest trends by showing you the creations of interior designers, and other at-home renovators. That way, you are exposed to new and innovative ideas for the exterior of your home. By featuring certain products on the site’s homepage, Style Sourcebook can introduce users to new looks and styles that they can then replicate in their own homes, helping users to be inspired by new and emerging exterior design trends,

With James Hardie and Style Sourcebook teaming up to help you create the facade you’ve always wanted, it’s never been easier to realise your renovation or design vision.

Get started now! Head to Style Sourcebook and create your mood board to start to bring your vision for the exterior of your dream home to life: Style Sourcebook External Cladding