The project began with excavation to a section of the waterfront garden area to accommodate the construction of a new structure known as the Summer House, it is located on the site of the original coach house. The Summer house is comprised of large entertaining space to the first floor with a 3-car garage and basement area on the ground floor. A suspended slab supports the steel portal frame for the single span double hipped roof to create the open plan layout of the summer house.
Glass walls with full height aluminium stacking doors on the North, East and Southeast elevations makes the summer house open and the wrap around Acoyer deck with glass roof open up the building to natural light and the prevailing north east breeze.
The roof of the Summer House is completed with a standing seam colorbond steel roof, Internal fit our includes engineered oak floors, Timber and stone kitchen and Timber V groove ceiling linings to the rake of the roof to create the extra high vaulted ceiling.
The next stage of the project was the restoration of the Heritage listed house to the front of the property.
Ravenscourt was first built in 1840 as a modest cottage which was then added onto between 1875 and 1885 to meet the form is takes today. Over the years many additions were added and our clients brief was to return it to the form it took in the 1880s.
Strip out works included removal of the enclosed rear verandas, enclosed kitchen and bathrooms that had been added to the front of the building on the original veranda, and removal of internal elements not in keeping with period of the house.
Modification of internal walls and floors were made to suit the new layout and provide modernisation of services with all walls and ceilings being repaired and restored using tradition methods of timber lath and plaster. Traditional lime render areas were restored using lime based render products and the exposed original sandstone walls were treated to dry the stone and desalinate.
On the upper floors, a new structural steel portal frame was installed to recreate the rear verandas with the original wrought iron balustrade, columns and fretwork reinstalled after being removed from site to be repaired and repainted. The structural steel was designed in a way to support the original columns and iron work in a way that the original ironwork is not carrying any building load and is essentially a facade.
The front Juliet balcony was reinstated in its original position with reclaimed balustrade panels that were modified to meet current building code compliance. New glass windows in aluminium frames with louvers below the balustrade level were installed to enclose the rear verandas. The Iron spiral staircase that leads to the widows walk was sand blasted and restored along with access restored to the widows walk deck and a new flag pole.
The original 6 pot chimney to serve the 6 fireplaces in the centre of the house was re constructed while all 9 fireplaces in the house were serviced and reconstructed to function as either wood burning or gas heating. A new Slate roof with traditional lead roll top ridge and hip capping was installed on the main roof along with new copper bullnose roofs to the verandas.
Internally all original timber skirtings and architraves were restored and repaired, missing pieces were matched, and new decorative timber brackets were hand carved from Australian Red cedar sourced from Port Macquarie. All cedar doors, frames architraves and the original cedar staircase were hand repaired and French polished.
Overall the project has been restored in a manner trying to stay true to the original fabric of the building while updating the functional parts of the home to meet the modern needs of the family. Our client’s brief was to reuse as many of the original elements from the original house in the renovation and this was achieved by re purposing floorboards, skirting, architraves and wainscoting detail from rooms that were being converted to other purposes such as wet areas and re using these in a traditional manner. Much of the original fabric such as sandstone, original timber ceilings, timber lintel beams were cleaned up and left exposed to tell the story of the original house. Even an Australian cedar decorative timber archway that was discovered buried in a wall was restored and re installed in the main entry hall.
It has been such a pleasure and very rewarding experience for the team to work on such an iconic project in the local area of Birchgrove and to get such positive feed back from the local community we are so proud of the end result achieved for this wonderful family, the asset will last a further 100yrs and beyond.
