Forward Thinking

A versatile extension has given this character cottage in Perth a new lease on life – and plenty of room for the family to grow.

- Rachael Bernstone

After four years spent living in Sydney, architect Davina Bester, director of Milieu Creative, and her husband Aaron were planning to move home to Perth. They dreamt of a heritage house near the beach, perhaps something of a project so they could put their stamp on it and create a forever home for themselves and their young daughters India, nine, Mila, seven, and Harlow, four.

The house they settled on – a three-bedroom brick cottage built in the 1920s and owned by the same family throughout its history – didn’t present particularly well to potential buyers. With her trained eye, however, Davina saw plenty of potential under the layers of paint and tacked-on additions.

“I wanted to remove all of those additions and reinstate the heritage character in the original front rooms,” says Davina. “We also planned to add a lightweight timber-framed addition at the rear.” The build took 18 months – slightly longer than expected – but the result is a wonderful marriage between old and new.

“We basically had to rebuild the house from scratch,” says Davina. “We pulled up the jarrah floorboards to install a concrete slab, replastered all the walls and repointed the brickwork. We also reinstated the front verandah, adding the decorative timberwork, to create a sunny place to sit outside.”