SMH senior journalist and furniture retailer have lived in this beautiful shingled 1970’s family home for a lifetime raising a family.
The project has slowly evolved over the last 5 years focusing on staged external maintenance and external painting and shingle re-roofing. Late 2025 we were given the ‘green light’ to assess the top floor of the house, provide endless architectural opportunities and present the tree house design we have envisioned ever since our first site visit.
Client brief was to provide cohesion to a vast cavernous kitchen living, separate dining while incorporating a galley style laundry room and reconfiguring a family bathroom with our signature penchant for materials and finishes that nodded towards modernism.
We presented 3 rendered and 1:100 study model options at varying budgets from mid range to maximum to show opportunities, differences and a vehicle to open discussion about the refurbishment works.
Concept A $ Removing the wall between dining and kitchen and the use of low, and free-standing joinery creates the illusion of furniture pieces over the formality of a conventional kitchen. with a separate walk-in pantry.
Concept B $$ Opening the dining to kitchen with a warm tactile material palette with a galley style island unit kitchen centred in the space with work and lounge spaces to the perimeters window walls.
Concept C $$$ Create a cohesive unified open plan space with dining looking onto a monolithic central kitchen island unit. A breakfast bar located directly opposite with views to the outside while a laundry/pantry is cleverly concealed behind the linear kitchen joinery unit.
December 2025 the client selected Option A for its relaxed informality and not appearing to be a standard kitchen drawing reference to individual furniture pieces that you see in 20th century modernist homes. We look forward to bringing this to life in 2026.
CONCEPT OPTION A - Low scale individual joinery items, triangular island unit as hero piece to cook and gather, walk-in scullery, galley laundry and family bathroom. Cork floor, japanese tiles, quartz benchtop edged in brass, laminate joinery celadon blue, pistacchio and burnt orange combined with warm brown veneers. Terracotta, artisanal tiles are contrasted with high gloss D tiles and colour blocked wet areas.
CONCEPT OPTION A - Architectural study model scale 1:100
CONCEPT OPTION B - Dining kitchen wall replaced with a low linear bench with concealed pantry fridge to kitchen side. A galley style island unit kitchen takes centre stage with surrounding work and lounge spaces. A compact galley laundry and family bathroom. Materials and finishes of terracotta floor and benches, high gloss D tile kitchen forms complimented by artisanal colour blocked wet area tiling.
CONCEPT OPTION B - Architectural study model scale 1:100
OPTION C - An ambitious open planned kitchen living and dining space with a monumental terracotta island unit diving the space into kitchen and relaxed breakfast banquette. The main kitchen runs the full length of the room with discrete combined laundry and pantry behind. Marble crazing paving, terracotta tile work and mosaic tiles to work surfaces that complimenting dark walnut cabinetry veneers.
Concept Option C - Architectural study model scale 1:100
NORTHWOOD TREEHOUSE
REFURBISHMENT WORKS
1970’s timber clad and shingle roof three storey home requiring maintenance and architectural refurbishment
Concept Options A-C December 2025
DA submission February 2026