We are here in Brighton, which is the bayside suburb of Melbourne.
The clients have been living in the Phuket Green Hills for the last few years before
they moved to Melbourne and what they wanted to bring into their new Melbourne home was
that lifestyle of being half outside and enjoying the garden and the green.
The original Victorian house had really good bones
and had a real sense of grandeur that we could still sense.
We wanted to bring back that grandeur, reinstating the original arch in the
hallway and some of the features like cornices and ceiling roses were reinstated as well.
The front of the house had more the formal garden,
as you know it from the street with our wrought iron fence that we reinstated as well. Whereas
the backyard and the morning garden and the sunken garden was meant to be lush and green and
there's curves and there's little step stones and different kind of structural plants.
The outdoor garden area was inspired by our clients house in Phuket, where they basically had
a similar area. The materials we used like concrete, timber
and the beautiful brickwork was very much inspired by what you would use in Asia.
They are robust materials, quite raw. We just wanted to bring in that reference but also
because they are just beautiful materials and create lots of texture and shadows.
The grey marble island bench is definitely a
centrepiece of the kitchen, meals, living and actually a masterpiece.
It's got a beautiful curve on the inside which is created by using tiny little fillets and
filling it in and polishing it out. I think it's really paid off and makes the room.
The natural light in the existing home is obviously a bit more moody,
mostly south east and west facing. You don't get the direct sunlight in there but I think that's
very common in the Victorian and it gives you that feel of the old houses and then
as you go into the modern extension, you have double story windows and north facing windows.
We have a morning garden that lets in the morning light, filtered through tree leaves. There's this
contrast of the light, airy extension versus the more moody and more cozy front of the house.
We believe that picking the right people and skilled people gets us to the goal
and we really appreciated Stoke.
We came to Stoke with a very strong design idea and Stoke basically sorted it out for us.
The design brief was to actually find a fireplace that could fit into the corner,
was sleek modern, but wouldn't actually take anything away from the total design of the wall.
In the living area here, we've got the MODE KS1150 Corner Fireplace.
Some of the best parts of this fireplace is that it does have anti-glare glass in the front
but then in the rear of the fireplace we have seamless, reflective panels which gives the effect
of the fireplace actually being longer and deeper as it's reflecting the fire. the DF700 ,which is
in the sitting room, that is a perfect fireplace to actually retrofit into an existing fireplace.
When you walk in the front door of this home, you can just tell that the quality is fantastic
from the design to the construction. I love the fact that you wouldn't think that this
is a young home, you would look around and think that it's been here for a long time.
The thing that I'm most proud of is their connection to the garden and the outdoor area
with the concrete. It's just quite an unusual element that you don't get to see
in Melbourne a lot and it just takes you straight into another place.