Renovator's Notebook: Second Chance

A bright-eyed young building designer saw great potential in an unloved worker’s cottage.

- Elizabeth Wilson

Some of Janik Dalecki’s friends made unkind jibes when he purchased a fibro cottage in a riverside suburb 5km north-east of Perth’s CBD. “They thought I was crazy and joked it was a bowl-over house,” says Janik, a first-home buyer.

True, the 1940s two-bedroom worker’s cottage had seen better days: two poorly executed additions (one in the 1970s, another in the ’90s) had ruined its character, and there were visible signs of deterioration everywhere. But it was exactly the kind of project this 20-something renovator had been looking for.

“I’d been hunting for an older home I could restore and rework,” says Janik, who runs his own building-design company specialising in the adaptive reuse of existing dwellings. “I knew the back of the house could be opened up to the north-facing backyard to create a gorgeous open-plan living space with lots of light and sun.”