2017 Gladesville Cottage renovation

This existing weatherboard house had been renovated in the early nineties with quite an unusual and unpractical rear extension. Fortunately, the existing front weatherboard cottage, with its great character and charm, had been spared. This allowed the existing front four rooms of the weatherboard house to be retained and the earlier extension completely demolished and converted into a contemporary rear extension.

The project consisted of a renovation of the existing weatherboard cottage with one of the existing rooms being converted into a master bedroom with walk in robe and ensuite. A second room was converted into a study/home office with a built in robe and the remaining bedrooms were given a facelift. The design was for a new single level rear extension with an open plan kitchen, dining and living room with full height and length glass windows. The extension looked out over a fully tiled pool and had rear sliding doors that opened up on to a large alfresco area and the rear back yard.  Also included in the rear extension was a separate media/rumpus room, butler’s pantry, wine cellar, laundry and powder room.

The client is an interior designer who had worked on a previous project completed by Genuine Building Services. She was impressed by the quality, pride and care taken that she had seen firsthand. She also wanted to work with someone who could take her ideas and concepts and achieve the fine details and flush finishes that she desired. The drawings were only prepared and approved for a Complying Development Certificate (CDC). This meant that they were not detailed drawngs so there were still a lot of decisions to be made. The builder worked through the client’s ideas and concepts for the finishes and details of the house during the pricing stages to build a complete scope of work for the project so a fixed price contract could be achieved.

There were several challenges in relation to this project. Access was limited to a single driveway up the side of the home with an existing carport that needed demolishing so excavators could access the rear yard to dig the pool and remove parts of the existing slab from the previous extension. Originally the enginner had allowed for a new slab to be constructed for the rear extension. The builder contacted council to obtain the original engineering plans and identified that a significant portion of this existing slab could be retained and sections added on to it where the new building extended past the existing slab. This saved the client a significant amount of money. In addition he discovered that the existing flooring was very out of level. To rectify this, sections of the existing cottage were re supported and all floors were releveled. At its worst there was 70mm from one corner to another.

The biggest challenge and success of this project was the significant work the client and builder did together to turn design concepts and ideas into a reality. This involved weekly site meetings between the builder and client where ideas were discussed and workshopped, the builder went away, researched this further and drew up sketches for the client to approve. Whilst the builder was working towards her vision, he had a lot of input and ideas that were included in the design and finishes.  The builder found great pleasure in being able to work with someone so closely on this level to achieve their dream home whilst building a very solid friendship with the entire family. It has been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding projects Genuine Building Services has been involved in.  We would like to thank the clients for the opportunity to be involved in this amazing project.