THIS IS THE LIFE
The owners’ three children are now aged between 19 and 24, and the home’s layout works perfectly for a household of adults. “We all have our space,” says the owner. “You might not want the bedrooms so spread out if you had little kids, but we absolutely love it.” The living areas are bathed in the most glorious morning sun, she says, and the balcony gets plenty of use. “This is a 1920s house and we’re thrilled with the way Brooke has updated it.”
The owners of this house in Sydney’s east are very open to change, a trait reflected in the fact they’ve been renovating, expanding and tweaking their home on and off for the past 11 years. Architect Brooke Aitken was initially engaged in 2009 to improve the family friendliness of the house and to deal with a very tricky issue: the ceiling of the bottom floor was just too low to allow the space to be functional. Brooke’s solution was nothing short of ingenious: raise the ceiling to create an elevated platform for the living area above. It has since become one of the home’s best-loved design features. “My primary focus was to gain height underneath for the lower storey, but it also allowed me to create some floating planes in the living area and to play with the Japanese aesthetic that the owners love, having spent a number of years living in that country.” Two precisely mitred, broad timber steps now lead up to the living area, neatly defining the space and making it feel cosy and intimate.
The kitchen, which suffered from poor connection to the living spaces, was also overhauled within the scope of those works. Now, the owners have a beautiful, clean-lined kitchen that looks and feels contemporary and showcases a beautiful interplay of materials. On the cooking side of the kitchen, the benchtop is made from a jet-black stone; on the sink side, the benchtop is 7-millimetre stainless steel that flows out to a black-japanned timber counter for casual meals and morning coffees. “I wanted to play with the thinness of the stainless steel and the thickness of the stone and timber. The materials are having a conversation with each other,” she says.
In the dining area, banquette seating in a highly durable Designers Guild fabric acts as another plane, extending right out to the room’s edge. This space is notable for its striking moon-inspired Marion Borgelt artwork that again offers a nod to the family’s love of the Japanese way of life. “To me, moon viewing is a very Japanese thing to do,” says Brooke, “and this is a moon that’s waxing so you’re getting a slash of beautiful purple as you walk around it. I think it could be the perfect sculptural form for this spot.”
As part of the initial renovation, the bedrooms were updated, and a pantry and ensuite added. Downstairs, with the ceiling height now less oppressive, a bedroom and living area were created, and a small bathroom added next to the laundry.
Shortly after this, a new timber and steel balcony was put in off the living area and a circular staircase installed to provide a better connection between the house and its backyard and pool. A few years after the first works were completed,
and with the couple’s three children fast becoming young adults, the owners asked Brooke back to adjust the house for a third stage of works, including reroofing the garage and modifying the front of the house to create a beautiful outdoor area with a fire pit.
The entry was enlarged to accommodate a striking Dean Home artwork and one of the bedrooms extended and transformed into a formal living room. The fourth – and final – stage of renovations was completed in 2020, with a powder room added and the top floor balcony modified slightly.
“You could call this a bionic house because it’s changed so much and so often,” says Brooke. “One of the owners is a person who really loves and embraces change. She’s always thinking about how the house could be tweaked to suit her family at that point in time.”
Throughout the whole process of working on this house, Brooke has imbued it with a contemporary, subtly Japaneseinspired aesthetic. “I didn’t want to do anything that was going to date,” she says. “It’s clean and subdued, classic and minimal. I really doubt the owners will want to change it any further now, but we never say never!”