Setting the scene

The home is situated on a quiet tree-lined street in Narrow Neck and after living there for a number of years, the owners felt they had outgrown their family home.

It wasn’t really suiting their social lifestyle and their two grown teenage boys who desperately wanted a pool and outdoor space to lounge in away from the parents.

There wasn’t enough storage – the original laundry was in a cupboard off the main hallway.

Blinded by the light

The existing kitchen was unbearable to use in the summer afternoon due to the materiality used and the windows on the back wall that would stream the afternoon sun through onto the shiny stainless-steel benchtop that would literally reflect and blind them when prepping snacks and dinner meals.

The old kitchen was small and was built on the fire wall with a low raked ceiling, which was lower due to the height-to-boundary wall requirements by council.

The lower wall height allowed was 165cm, which meant the owners were constantly banging their heads on the rangehood when cooking; plus, the low height did not provide space for sufficient storage for food and kitchenware as it limited vertical storage in the original kitchen with this low wall / raked ceiling inside the cupboards.

New extension

I worked closely with the owners to design and push out a new extension for a much larger kitchen, dining and main lounge that would include a scullery and laundry in the new design.

This allowed for a separate media room and large outdoor covered space that will eventually house an outdoor kitchen with built in barbecue for stage 2 of the extension.

All of this was captured and our architect was then able to proceed with the consent drawings, once the owners were happy with the final designs and the necessary storage requirements were met.

Rewarding trade off

Essentially, the owners were willing to sacrifice lawn space for larger kitchen and living spaces.

The long hallway gives you that glimpse to the heart of the home when you enter through the front door.

Reaching the end of that hall, you now enter into one shared social space – taking in the dining room, kitchen and lounge.

In turn, these main living spaces open out and connect to the outdoor entertaining area and pool.

Reallocated space

Off the kitchen what was previously a bedroom has been repurposed for the scullery, laundry and separate media room – here, we custom made and introduced 3m-high reeded and timber doors to connect back with the kitchen.

The kitchen acts as the social heart of the home – it forms part of the dining space and part of the living space as well as connecting to the outside entertaining space.

We have designed and allowed for an outdoor kitchen for phase two of the renovation build extension.

I think it’s really interesting how we kind of conceptualise homes – typically you’ll draw diagrams to allow for particular kind of relationships to place or to frame certain views or to bring light in in certain ways.

Together and separate

In this instance, we obviously did that but we also diagrammed the way that people would live together and how they could share spaces together and how to create a sense of calm and a sanctuary for family members to socialise in while also having the ability to be separate from one another.

One owner loves to cook, but he also likes his own space and not be interrupted or nor to have his cookware taken. 

So, it was important that we took this into the new design and defined the spaces clearly between all the tasks the owners required.

Now, the children have their own station for making lunches and afternoon snacks while the owner has his own prep and cooking spaces.

There is a coffee and appliance station in the scullery, while laundry and washing up has been segregated – as well as the bar on the end of the kitchen for entertaining.

It was an extensive list of requirements but we achieved it all successfully and stylishly.

A space and place for everything

Essentially, the new kitchen is extremely well organised.

The boys can be grabbing their lunch boxes and all their snacks designated inside the scullery with the fridge close by and positioned at the entrance for dual access.

With the dual Dish Drawers and sinks there are plenty of options for washing and cleaning up.

And then having that readily accessible, hardworking laundry space really allowed us to plan a more flexible space and allowed for a kitchen, scullery and laundry that could be used by multiple family members all at once.

Head room and space allocation generally

The owner-chef’s cooking zone has ample drawer storage for cooking utensils and pots and pans and we selected a down draft in lieu of an overhead extractor, as we had plenty of depth but not the height on this wall.

So the owner could still have ventilation when cooking without knocking his head.

Dry food storage has all been integrated behind cabinetry doors in the form of a Blum space tower in the kitchen and additional food storage in the scullery.

I like that the Hafele pivot door allows the flexibility to close off the scullery and laundry area when needed.

Social seating around two sides of the island allows for relaxed dining and conversations.

The bar can be multi purpose or re purposed for other things such as a baking pantry, coffee station – we future proofed in this regard, allowing for plugs in this area, giving the homeowners this flexibility.

We took out the old windows above the kitchen back wall and lined these walls with the timber paneling.

Taming the sun

This was done to change the trajectory of the afternoon sun from streaming through at this angle, which had been problematic in the past for the owners.

We opted for skylights in the roof line for natural light overhead.

The other consideration we needed to address was the benchtop materiality – we chose Taj Mahal in a matt finish, so it wouldn’t reflect in the way that the stainless steel had.

Using this timber panelling on the height to boundary walls also gives the illusion that the kitchen is longer than it actually is, a sense of length and soaring heights giving balance and proportion to the overall kitchen.

For the cabinetry,  we chose a matt finish for the Thermawrap and the veneer was oiled to further avoid any glare or shine.

It was really important to have appliances that gave us that sense of design and freedom, and that would support a large family and friend gatherings.

We needed really practical, pragmatic appliances, including a large fridge and the dual Dish Drawers that are integrated into both the kitchen and the scullery for ease clean up.

Scalloped and connected

Further attention to detail can be seen in the island and adjoining lounge space in the scalloped profile by Laminex for connectivity, along with wall hung storage and floating shelves above.

 

Material palette – simple and calming

The material pallet of the house is consciously simple and calming; it has been layered with texture to bring depth, warmth and interest.

We have used soft tones of blonded timber for the floors, scalloped wall panelling, stone, reeded glass and organic pearlised organic tiles in warm tones – giving a Zen sanctuary like feel to the home.

There is always such a great sense of delight coming into the house, circling around the outdoor and looking back into the home and feeling that sense of theatricality – it’s the formal nature of the how the gabled roof form soars up above you, contributing expansiveness to the home and allowing natural light to flood in.

The owners enjoy their new kitchen and love that they can fit all their family and friends into the kitchen and main living spaces on a wet day, when they were unable to use the outside without it feeling cramped.

Some challenges

The deep, but low height to the boundary fire wall – we had to rebuild and extend this fire wall / height-to-boundary wall with the low raked ceiling – essentially, we had to push this height as much as council and the builder would allow and sign off on.

We managed to get another 200mm which made all the difference.

Sometimes you just have to push the boundaries, and we were glad we did!

The precision work required for the feature wall in the connecting lounge space was another issues. 

Here, we installed the cabinetry first, and then hand cut the Laminex scalloped wall paneling secondary to fit around the cabinetry pieces – the ned result is amazing and was worth the team work.

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