This sense of clarity carries through the ground floor. A custom sideboard runs along the shared living and dining space, working hard as bookcase, dry bar and storage while also becoming a place to gather “little artefacts of life”. Large steel-framed doors stack into pockets and open with a zero-threshold transition to the garden terrace, allowing everyday life to spill easily outside. The aim was for the house to feel effortless to use, simple to move through, easy to keep tidy and generous enough to absorb the rituals of family life without ever feeling precious.

Materially, the house is anchored in the clients’ histories. Both grew up in farming communities in rural New South Wales, and we wanted to bring a quiet echo of those landscapes and houses into their Melbourne life. The kitchen island embodies this most clearly. From the very first meeting it existed as an idea – a robust farmhouse kitchen table around which family life could orbit – and it gradually resolved into a crafted island bench, with timber detailing and softened edges. It forms the true heart of the home, a place for cooking, homework, morning coffee and late-night conversation all at once.