Transforming your dated brick home? Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding is the answer

As this year’s 1950s houses as seen on The Block 2023 have shown, you can transform even the most outdated property into a visual masterpiece through the magic of cladding. Three of the houses on this season used Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding to inspire a total transformation, so what are you waiting for?

If it’s good enough for House 2, House 3 and House 5…

Architectural maestro Julian Brenchley loves jumping on a new product, so when he saw the versatility and aesthetic charm of Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding, he just knew he had to make use of it this season. But instead of just one home, he ended up cladding three of the houses – all with different design applications and features.

“House 2 has probably the nicest studio, and the idea behind it was to match the front and back of the home,” Julian says. “Oblique™ really helped to solve the idea of having a vertical profile in the background. James Hardie has really nailed how to get the vertical look in a clean, modern sense.”

While using Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding for House 2 was all about verticality, particularly evident in the modern garage extension, for House 3 Julian says he took a more nuanced approach for how to clad the exterior.

“We looked at using the Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding to complement the other finishes of the house, which were a very thick timber,” he says. “So we used the Oblique™ Cladding in varying widths so that it looked a little bit more random, but in a similar aesthetic family to the timber cladding on the rest of the house and it really complements it.”

Similar in appearance to standing seam metal cladding, the easy-to-install Hardie™ fibre cement shiplap boards represent a durable, high-value alternative.

Exuding Australian modern charm

Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding is all about evoking a bold yet contemporary aesthetic whereby the deep grooves highlight a clean aesthetic, creating a bold statement in modern minimalism.

For homeowners who want to turn their dated brick properties into a façade that brings boldness to the fore, Julian says it’s the perfect option for a contemporary exterior overhaul.

“It does represent that contemporary Australian feel,” he says. “That’s really by being able to complement other finishes on a site, so it doesn’t stand by itself. It’s modern in that it can be adapted to many different things, and it’s quite sustainable.”

In addition to its durability, Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding is resistant to damage from termites, rot and moisture, and engineered to stand up to coastal and other harsh conditions. It’s also a low-maintenance product that comes pre-primed and ready to paint; painting timber dark colours can increase the risk of cracking and deterioration, but Hardie™ fibre cement has a different composition which means you can paint it dark colours as seen on The Block 2023, painting Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding in Dulux® Domino across all three houses.

It’s a product that will provide you with long-lasting beauty.

Varying sizes to suit all tastes

Perhaps more useful to Julian this year was the ability to use Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding in various board widths, which allowed him to apply a unique design palette to Houses 2, 3 and 5 without any of the styles bleeding into one another.

“For House 5, we were looking to have durable finishes on the ground floor and have them be part of a family of finishes,” he says. “The varying width of Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding brings home the family of finishes – it’s a great songbook to be singing from.”

When installed vertically on castellated battens, the shiplap joints allow for bespoke groove arrangements. With groove spacing sitting at 175mm or 275mm, when installed vertically, these distinctively different board widths allow you to bring a bespoke rhythm to your walls.

While there is a certain level of cohesion in using the same cladding product across three homes, the proof is in the pudding when you see each home standing next to one another. There’s a unique element to every façade, and the overwhelming feeling is that these truly are modern masterpieces – a far cry from their original 1950s brick exterior.

To see more of Hardie™ Oblique™ Cladding and how it can give your brick home the facelift it deserves, order a sample today.

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