Beyond restoration of the exposed brick façade and roof tiles, major wall demolition took place downstairs, removing a rabbit warren of rooms including one partition enclosing the galley-style kitchen to create an expansive living area. Now doubled in width, the kitchen conjoins our newly designed Mies van der Rohe-inspired pavilion of glass capped with a brass canopy (housing a lounge room and breakfast nook). Casual dining now flows from the kitchen via a new widened entrance, further enhancing our client couple’s watchful connections to their young children. They also requested a private home office and an intimate cellar lounge.
Generous new applications of stone express the monumental largesse of the project, dramatically defining the re-modelled bathrooms and key interventions downstairs. Within the kitchen, we blended bold geometries to craft a robust island with opposing concave and convex end supports from travertine and verdant Tugela marble. Its upturned half-bullnose surface adds an elegance that responds perfectly to the cool stainless steel joinery surrounding it. Upstairs, the master ensuite’s dual vanity also features this upturned curve.
Inspired by the way Italians handle the attrition of time by patching damaged stone with different coloured or patterned stone when they cannot find a match, all bathrooms feature couplets of stone varieties cladding walls in mis-matched panels, also carving out basins. The direction of vein patterns alternate to enhance this patchwork effect.
Highlighting our re-design of the staircase that replaces a wrought-iron balustrade with a sculpted curve finished in polished plaster, two steps (one featuring a carved radius) feature lavender-hued quartzite that also clads the neighbouring powder room’s walls. Lighter touches include new wide oak floorboards unifying both levels, adding an understated canvas upon which chalcedony, Egyptian blues, aquamarine and dusty pink carry across soft furnishings including our custom colour block floor rugs with plum highlights.
Enhancing our contemporary interventions, upon white walls downstairs we added panels of wire-brushed oak, cutting angular corners to fit around existing details including corbels. Coating them in a light finish of brighter white with highlights of silvery grey in the hallway traversing the staircase, they gently shimmer, exposing the timber’s natural grains. A diluted aquamarine panel lines the breakfast nook – jutting out slightly from the wall’s corner edge, and a deeper silvery tone articulates the panel framing the new corner return of a wall we removed, opening connections from the kitchen to the family dining room.
Raw oak door frames and complementary streamlined doors were installed, in contrast to the home’s original ornamental features, while we replaced decorative skirting with minimal trims of oak in oversized heights (some laid in panels of mis-matched woodgrains). We also unified all original decorative details (from fireplace mantels to window architraves), coating them in a subliminal white shade and avoiding the custom of highlighting these trims in bolder shades. Overhead, metal flickers in new custom lighting fixtures crafted by local Melbourne artisan, Volker Haug, shedding light on the home’s internal dialogue between past and present eras in its subscription to a ‘last forever’ notion of modern design.
Photography by Sharyn Cairns
