Stephanie McDonald reports on how one architect infused a lively sense of warmth into a 20th century semi-detached cottage and brought the outdoors in.
Blake’s brief for the project was to renovate and extend an early 20th century semi-detached cottage in inner west Newtown in NSW.
Jason Blake’s brief for the project was to renovate and extend an early 20th century semi-detached cottage in inner west Newtown in NSW. Characterised by narrow streets and older style cottages and terraces, the suburb is a hub of cafes and restaurants and is slowly experiencing gentrification.
Although the client wanted to renovate the cottage into something more contemporary, they also wanted the renovation to respect the heritage character of the existing house and provide simple, contemporary spaces at the rear.
To keep with the building’s heritage, Blake, from Jason Blake Architecture, chose to extensively use timber in the project — for flooring internally, an outdoor area, decking, wall panels, windows and doors — namely due to the product’s ease of construction, its economy, low impact, carbon positive feature and the ‘warmth’ of natural materials like timber.
“We kept resilient, no maintenance materials such as masonry for the ground floor, with a lighter weight timber-framed first floor to reduce the scale of the addition and add interest,” Blake says.
“Using timber for the wall, floor and ceiling of the outdoor room livens and simplifies the space. We also utilised timber decking over a concrete slab for the outdoor room, with a timber decking ceiling lining and privacy screen.
“The spacing of the screening and ceiling is fine tuned to suit the location — the orientation of the space (sun control) and the degree of privacy required.”
To future-proof the timber from deterioration and provide protection, Blake used Tallowwood with a Sikkens high grade finish on the decking timber to ensure the longevity of the material from the outside elements.
The plywood ceiling to the first floor was glued and brad nail fixed with a 10 mm shadow joint. For the flooring, Blake says he always uses a maximum 110 mm board as it reduces and almost eliminates cupping whilst also utilising more of the tree via a smaller section size. This translates into less waste.
Lynns Building Materials at Taren Point provided all timber.
Blake specified Blackbutt feature grade for the flooring, which he says was chosen for its warmth and ‘liveliness’ through gum veins, fiddleback and knots and it has less wastage, compared to Select timber.
Externally, Blake used Wattyl Solagard in the colours Deep Henna and Jasper; Sikkens Cetol deck light oak to the timber decking, screens and ceiling to the outdoor room; and Sikkens Cetol HLS to the cedar windows and doors.
Internally, the Blackbutt timber floor was finished with Synteko Classic in matte, which Blake says is resilient, has no edge bonding and is an easily repairable finish.
The timber frame in the project provided Blake with fast, economical construction. “LVL in lieu of steel saved dollars and enabled the carpenters to keep moving forward, saving time,” Blake says.
The renovation included a new bathroom within the original section of the house, a new living/dining area, new kitchen and laundry spaces and a new main bedroom with ensuite, in addition to a living space exclusively for the parents.
Blake also placed natural heating, lighting and cooling via appropriate orientation high on his agenda. This included breeze paths and shading to the windows.
The outdoor room eventually became the most important aspect of the project. Blake says “A lot of time was spent detailing the pocket sliding doors, retracting Centor flyscreen and the decking/slabs to allow for a seamless transition from the living room to the outdoor room.”
Despite the extensive use of timber, Blake says no problems cropped up during the project, although the box gutter along the party wall presented some challenges for fire-rating, which was resolved with fire-rated plasterboard and some clever framing.
During the project, Blake learnt that a patient client with a high tolerance threshold can live in-situ through a renovation. “I wouldn’t generally recommend it though.”
