After lifting the house, the major structural work began to double the size of the house. This including building in under the house and extending the southern wall of the house to create a large open plan kitchen, dining and lounge area. As you can see from the photos we kept the existing roof line, and installed a wrap around verandah to make the most of the views and extend the outdoor living area. Our little house was about to get a lot bigger.
The plan for the extension was to make it blend with the existing house rather than create a clear distinction between old and new, which is quite trendy at the moment. Our thoughts were, while the house was not heritage listed, the reason we loved this style of house was because of its classic design elements. Creating a modern extension, without careful consideration, could 'overwhelm' the existing house (particularly as the house is on a corner block) and destroy the simplicity of design that characterises the Queenslander house.
Thus we decided to use reclaimed french doors and swivel fanlights on the eastern wall of the lounge to maintain the visual integrity of a series of french doors, both upstairs and downstairs, leading onto the verandah. We also installed simple bifold doors with fixed fanlights on the southern side, leading from the lounge and the dining rooms onto the verandah, in our attempt to create a sympathetic design element. The original pot bellied stove takes pride of place at the end of the hall against the wall, creating a visual division between the lounge and dining area and hopefully, the union of the more modern element with the traditional designs elsewhere in this living space.
We also took the opportunity to install a large rainwater tank under the downstairs southern verandah to help reduce our reliance on town water. Two retaining walls were also put in place to help redirect water flow from the top to bottom of the slope and allow the house to nestle into the top of the slope and reduce the overall height of the house at the southern end of the house. The retaining walls also allowed us to avoid having a terraced garden space as we now had a more useable flat surface from which to step off the downstairs verandah in the garden (see landscaping section of the blog for further details).
Once the scaffolding went up, the
The plan for the extension was to make it blend with the existing house rather than create a clear distinction between old and new, which is quite trendy at the moment. Our thoughts were, while the house was not heritage listed, the reason we loved this style of house was because of its classic design elements. Creating a modern extension, without careful consideration, could 'overwhelm' the existing house (particularly as the house is on a corner block) and destroy the simplicity of design that characterises the Queenslander house.
Thus we decided to use reclaimed french doors and swivel fanlights on the eastern wall of the lounge to maintain the visual integrity of a series of french doors, both upstairs and downstairs, leading onto the verandah. We also installed simple bifold doors with fixed fanlights on the southern side, leading from the lounge and the dining rooms onto the verandah, in our attempt to create a sympathetic design element. The original pot bellied stove takes pride of place at the end of the hall against the wall, creating a visual division between the lounge and dining area and hopefully, the union of the more modern element with the traditional designs elsewhere in this living space.
We also took the opportunity to install a large rainwater tank under the downstairs southern verandah to help reduce our reliance on town water. Two retaining walls were also put in place to help redirect water flow from the top to bottom of the slope and allow the house to nestle into the top of the slope and reduce the overall height of the house at the southern end of the house. The retaining walls also allowed us to avoid having a terraced garden space as we now had a more useable flat surface from which to step off the downstairs verandah in the garden (see landscaping section of the blog for further details).
Once the scaffolding went up, the
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| The scaffolding goes up in preparation for replacing the roof, replacing the cladding and finishing the verandahs |
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