Home Stories: Tara Preston and Nilofar Shadmaan

Posted on 27 September, 2019

In this edition of Home Stories, Ashley Feraude finds himself enjoying a surprise wine tasting at the Narrabundah home of Tara Preston and Nilofar Shadmaan.

“Hmm, I don’t know about this wine. It’s nine years old so should be fine but seems a little too sweet. Let me find another bottle—we can’t take it with us, so we might as well work through the collection.”

It tasted fine to my uneducated palate, but Cass and I were more than happy to enjoy a surprise wine tasting at the Narrabundah home of Tara and Nilofar.

“Ah yes, this one is much better and not as sweet,” said Tara. And so, with that, we toasted to Tara and Nilofar’s upcoming move to The Hague in the Netherlands and goodbye to the house they made their home in Canberra.

Tara and Nilofar bought their cute Narrabundah weatherboard cottage in 2009 from a traditional Grappa-swigging older Italian couple who kept it in its original ‘70s glory, complete with shagpile carpet, cream tiles and wooden wall panelling.

Furthermore, the owner liked to keep a lot of chooks behind a maze of fences that used up the entire back yard and pretty much concreted everything as deeply as possible.

Despite all that not really being Tara and Nilofar’s vibe, they fell in love with its potential to become their dream home. It should also be said that Tara being a draftie (which I have now learned is actually a building designer) was a huge help—she knew what could (and should) be done to bring the house out of the retro and up-to-date with current creature comforts.

Aside from the cosmetic changes like painting walls and adding new carpets, the majority of the work went into opening up the living spaces, reorientating the kitchen and laundry and getting rid of that backyard chicken labyrinth.

“When we were getting rid of the chook house, we pulled out something like 16 cubic meters of concrete!” laughs Tara. “Everything was about three times deeper that it needed to be.”

They told me a story about how a car crashed into their 50cm high concrete and chicken wire fence—the fence didn’t have a dent while the car was written off. While the owner’s hang up over concrete from working on the Snowy Hydro Scheme may have been a bit over the top, it protected the home alright! Imagine how safe those chickens must have been.

You can probably see from the photos that neither Nilofar or Tara are into the modern stuff. Instead, they celebrate what they like and make sure they feel at home.

The dark red feature walls give intimacy to the open rooms, the mixed-style furniture a lot of contrast, and the prominent artwork on the walls those real hero eye-catching moments.

That Eames reclining chair is Tara’s pride and joy while the contemporary Indigenous painting above the fireplace is Nilofar’s. Both were bought as presents to celebrate birthday milestones for each other, using a rather clever funding model—rather than everyone getting a bottle of scotch or a voucher, all their friends chipped into getting a gift for the home that they will use or see and admire every day. And they do.

The reason I know this is I DJ’ed for both of these birthdays and would have done so at their wedding if it wasn’t for my partner’s cousin having a wedding on the same night. I’m sorry that I missed it, since these two definitely know how to have fun.

In fact, we met when I used to DJ back at Kingston’s Lot 33 in the day. The details are hazy but, somehow, we’re all friends years later. And I’m hoping that friendship will last the distance as Nilofar fulfils her dream role in government relations in The Hague while Tara continues to get her draftie on remotely.

The news of them leaving was bittersweet—just like that first bottle of wine—but Cass and I are really excited for their new adventure.