Stepping lightly

A gracious Victorian terrace in inner Sydney makes an illuminating move into a brighter, more inclusive way of living without shedding its beautiful heritage facade.

Behind its prim and pristine classic facade, this grand Victorian terrace in Sydney’s inner west really lets its hair down as a versatile, practical home for an extended family. But that doesn’t mean good style has been shown the door – form and function are as intricately interwoven as its elegant iron lacework.

When the owners bought it in 2015, the terrace was tired and dark, despite being on the end of a row with windows on three sides. Serial renovations at the rear had left it with a grab bag of rooms and little sense of flow and connection with the outdoors. “But you could tell it had good bones and the potential to be a grand and beautiful home,” says Heath Baldwin of interior designers Baldwin & Bagnall who, with colleague Hayden Bagnall, set to work on the interiors. Despite a terrace’s typically tight parameters, due to the relatively wide frontage and the deep block, the duo and architect Julian Brenchley of Brenchley Architects had room to move.

“We asked them for a comfortable family home with no fuss that didn’t look like a mess once something was out of place,” say the owners. “We wanted somewhere we could live without it being too precious, that also married the old and new, as we loved the original features but wanted mod cons and finishes.”

The terrace’s “vertical” living, says Julian, had to accommodate a parents’ retreat and two children’s bedrooms on the second level, plus a private space for the oldest child on third level in the attic space. And, in true Packed to the Rafters style, as this is a multigenerational family, a discrete and “dignified” living space for the mother of one of the owners was created in the original section of the house by the front door.