02Fremantle · 2024
1950s cottage, full renovation
Rewire, replumb, new kitchen and two bathrooms. Original jarrah floors and ceilings kept and restored.
- Floor area
- 146 m²
- On site
- 11 weeks
- Contract
- Fixed price, held
01Mount Lawley · 2025
Rear extension and open-plan kitchen
Double-storey rear addition to a 1930s brick-and-tile — new kitchen, family room and two bedrooms above.
- Suburb
- Mount Lawley
- Type
- Two-storey rear addition
- Added
- 78 m²
- On site
- 14 weeks
- Contract
- Fixed price, held
- Occupied
- Owners stayed in
Before — 1938 originalAfter — 2025 addition
01The brief
A 1930s brick-and-tile on a narrow Mount Lawley block, four people and one bathroom. The front rooms were the reason they bought the house and the reason they would not knock it down. The back half was a lean-to kitchen and a laundry you had to walk outside to reach.
The brief was straightforward to say and difficult to draw: double the living space, add two bedrooms and a second bathroom, and make it look like the house had always been that size.
02The constraint
A 9.5-metre frontage and a heritage precinct
The block is 9.5 metres wide with a right-of-way behind it, which rules out craning anything in and limits how far a ground-floor addition can spread. Going up was the only way to get the bedrooms.
Mount Lawley's character retention area meant the addition could not be visible from the street. We set the upper floor back 6.2 metres from the existing ridge and dropped the new roof pitch to 22 degrees, which keeps it entirely hidden from the footpath while still reading correctly from the rear garden.
The original roof was unbraced and the internal walls were single-leaf brick, so the upper floor loads had to be carried on a new steel frame that lands on new pad footings, threaded through the existing house without touching the front rooms.
03Scope of works
What was actually built.
- 01New steel frame and pad footings carrying the upper floor
- 02Ground floor: kitchen, family room, scullery and internal laundry
- 03Upper floor: two bedrooms, bathroom and a study nook
- 04Roof extended in matched Marseille tile, 22° pitch, set back from the ridge
- 05Full rewire of the rear half and new switchboard with RCDs
- 06Original jarrah floors in the front rooms lifted, protected and relaid
- 07Rear elevation in recycled red brick matched to the original coursing
04Outcome
Fourteen weeks on site, and the contract price did not move. The owners stayed in the house for all but eleven days of the build, which covered the roof-off stage.
From the street the house is unchanged. From the back garden the addition looks like it went up in the 1930s with the rest of it, which was the entire point of the brief.
“We had three builders quote the extension. Karri were the only ones who told us what would not work and why. They finished a week early and the price never moved.”
Service on this build
This was a home extensions job. Ground-floor and upstairs additions that match the original house rather than argue with it.
Also on fileAll projects
- 03Duncraig · 2025
Alfresco and outdoor kitchen
Gabled alfresco matched to the existing roof line, with a built-in kitchen, storage and limestone paving.
- Covered
- 42 m²
- On site
- 5 weeks
- Contract
- Fixed price, held
The next step
Come and have a look at the house.
Free to have us out, about an hour on site, and you leave with a written summary of what is feasible and a realistic budget band.