Perceptions of space

 I am spending a week 'on holiday', house-sitting for a family member. She has just moved in but even in these early days it is interesting to see how she has conceived the spaces in this much larger home and how this differs from the more multifunction spaces in my own one-bedroom apartment.

The most noticeable feature of her house is the spaciousness, from the moment you come in to the large entrance hall, with its beautiful timber staircase as the focal point. From here, the reception rooms open out in an open-plan arrangement with three zones, demarcated by a fin wall and a change in level.

The lounge with a 1m level change

 From the entrance hall, your view is attracted to the area that she has designated as her main reception area, the lounge. She has on order a much larger couch and we still have to put up all her pictures, but it is already looking very inviting, with the dramatic view through the wooden sliding doors.

The dining area

Directly to your right, on the same level as the entrance, so overlooking the lounge, she has located her dining area, with her mid-century furniture passed down from her grandmother complementing the timber flooring. She reupholstered the dining chairs herself, with fabric following a botanical theme that she plans to use unify the whole house.

The craft and music room

To the left of the entrance hall is a second reception area, which she plans to dedicate as a music and craft room. She gave two very old pieces of furniture a new lease on life by repainting them in the same forest green colour as the accent wall in this space. Her idea is that this should be the coziest room of the house, perfect for long evenings working on her needlecraft projects or playing Taylor Swift on her keyboard and guitar. This room also has a full wall of timber sliding doors and windows that open out onto a wooden deck, slightly elevated from the rest of her small garden.

Looking down at the deck 

Upstairs are three bedrooms, one of which she plans to use as her study, with a spectacular view over the jacarandas and across the extensive manmade forest of the northern suburbs. This room has its own balcony for sitting outside to read or work on her laptop in the glorious sunny days of our winter.

The balcony opening off the study

The main bedroom has a very dramatic pyramidal ceiling, and this room also captures the view to the north, with its own balcony. As with the reception rooms, the study and main bedroom each have the whole of the north wall taken up with glazing - sliding doors and windows in the same natural timber. In the main bedroom, this wall has sliding-folding plantation shutters, which with the palm trees gives a very tropical feel to the room.

Plantation shutters in the main bedroom.

The third bedroom will be used as a guest room, with its built-in desk and wall of wardrobes. This room overlooks the entrance, so to increase privacy, she plans to install a stained glass window made several years ago by Elizabeth Beard. 

The most distinctive feature of the house is the dramatic view that is cleverly exploited in the layout, with the four main spaces each with a wall of glass and its own dedicated outdoor area. This is perfect for the climate, north-facing with the lower floor windows shaded by the upstairs balconies to optimise the natural light and sun angles, as discussed in a previous blog.

The dramatic view from the main bedroom, framed by two palm trees

The spaciousness is the dominant theme of the house, both in the actual floor area and in the sense of space that is conveyed through the open-planning of the reception areas and the masterful exploitation of the view. This is carried through in the enviable amount of storage space - from the large and well-appointed kitchen, through to the wall of cupboards and shelves at the top of the stairs to the dressing room off the main bedroom. 

It really does feel like being on holiday here - such a contrast with my one-bedroom apartment close to the centre of the city, with its views onto a busy road!