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When renovating an older style home in a heritage precinct like this interwar property in Ballarat, there’s always the temptation to play it safe and follow convention.
But the owners of this Lake Wendouree residence enlisted Birthisel Wittingslow Architects with a slightly different approach in mind.
‘The clients wished to avoid having a house of “all-white rooms”,’ Birthisel Wittingslow Architects co-director Brett Wittingslow says.
Having just moved from a Melbourne apartment to the regional home, the retired couple was eager to incorporate their personality into the renovation — without disrupting the streetscape of ‘beautifully maintained’ surrounding homes.
‘The clients are also keen gardeners, so we sought to have an efficient and clever reworking of the existing internal spaces with a compact extension to maintain the size of the backyard,’ Brett says.
As a result, Birthisel Wittingslow Architects reconfigured the ‘dark rabbit warren of rooms’ around the lush backyard, only increasing the original building size by 6 square metres.
On one end of the house, there’s a private lounge room, and on the other, the dining room and kitchen are linked to the gardens by expansive sliding glass doors.
‘They wanted the house to feel intimate with clearly defined spaces,’ Brett adds.
‘While it’s not a “typical” way of doing things, this allows them to use the house as the seasons evolve in Ballarat from long hot summers, through to very cold winters.’
The architecture features a similarly unconventional yet playful details. The rear extension takes a contemporary reading on the heritage context, incorporating brick detailing and porthole window as a nod to the existing one facing the street.
Inside, every room reveals a different pop of colour. In the kitchen, warm timber veneer joinery envelops a vibrant green island as the bathrooms pair muted grey terrazzo floors with soft pink accents or deep burgundy walls.
The resulting house feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s bold yet understated, modest yet functional, and most of all, perfectly personalised to the owners’ lifestyle.
