As with many homes built in the mid-century, a more formal way of life called for multiple rooms and closed off spaces—making the home’s original layout largely ill-suited to our more informal lifestyle, where it’s no longer a faux pas for guests to see you mixing cocktails or prepping a salad in the kitchen.
The clients wished to prioritise an open plan ground floor to link the kitchen, living and dining spaces, but with the ability to close off a formal sitting room. They also specified plenty of storage and practical spaces to accommodate a family of five with three growing boys. Answering this brief meant reworking the internal layout to create fewer, but more spacious rooms. The family wanted the spaces to feel larger than life and include generous entertaining spaces for them to enjoy.
The ground floor space is arguably the heart of the home. Housing the communal spaces—kitchen, pantry, dining and family room—where everyday life happens, it also connects to the outside terrace area via the Crittall-style bi-fold doors from IQ Glass. So it was important to link all these spaces together so that family activities and entertaining could happen at the centre of the house. One of the key moves was to create a central axis or focal point between these spaces that aligns through the kitchen hub and both island and pantry sinks, to form a vista across the full width of the house.
Another key consideration for this Australian couple was a connection to the outdoors. The ground floor extension provided the perfect opportunity for the kitchen and dining area to open out onto a terrace, and therefore maximise the full width of the property.
We allocated an outdoor kitchen with a built-in barbecue area that can be easily accessed from the kitchen and pantry throughout the year. Alongside a generously sized skylight, the bi-fold doors that line the Eyre House rear have the added benefit of enabling maximum natural light to flow through the spaces.
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