PROJECTS

Giralang, ACT

Home renovation in Giralang, ACT

A house that wasn't utilising space

Old Canberra home, three bedrooms, designed with a Canberra architect. The problem wasn't any one room. It was that every room had its own four walls and its own door.

A tiny kitchen, boxed in. A tiny dining room. A separate study, a separate powder room, a laundry the size of a cupboard. All that separation was wasting space, in the walls between the rooms as much as anything.

The brief was to open the kitchen, dining and living into one connected space and put the wasted area at the back of the house to better use.

What used to be a small dining and living zone became a new bedroom instead, taking the house from three bedrooms to four. That is a real jump in what the home is worth, from space that was already there and going to waste.

The old bathroom and powder room combined into one larger family bathroom. The laundry got renovated too, with one door leading into it and a second, semi hidden door through to the new bathroom.

Blackbutt flooring, and a black kitchen with white stone benchtops. I'll be straight with you, dark kitchens usually put me on edge. Every fingerprint shows, every bit of grease sits there on show. But when we put it all together, the contrast against the blackbutt timber was amazing.

The laundry ended up my favourite bit, if I'm picking one. Smoked mirror splashback, small downlights, and it opens straight onto their outdoor entertaining area, so it doubles as somewhere to keep the drinks when they've got people over. Almost a little bar in a laundry. Not something people ask for often, but it worked out beautifully.