Great Heights
This renovated Sydney home combines traditional features with refined modern sensibilities, playing with scale and basking in natural light.
Interior design Linda Scott / Drafting Precision Planning / Photography The Palm Co / Words Casey Hutton
The brick facade of this home was once a confused jumble of cottagey window fittings and dated white latticework. Linda Scott and her husband Maurie, who bought the home three years ago, completely transformed the frontage, switching out clashing decorative elements in favour of a more streamlined, classic design.
Visitors to the home, which is situated in heritage-zoned Balmain, are now greeted with a stylish exterior as they make their way across chequered tiles to the front door. All the brickwork has been repointed and acid washed, the garage door and driveway updated, the roofing replaced, and new gardens added. Window glass in the front bedroom was substituted to match the original side lights that flank the entrance, and the walls were repainted in Dulux ‘Domino’.
““Our vision was to maintain the front of the house and add an extension with huge ceilings and steel doors opening onto a level courtyard.” ”
Across the threshold, the interior has been meticulously upgraded and extended. When Linda and Maurie bought the home, it had a timber lean-to attached to the brick structure. They opted to demolish the back section and add a new lounge, dining room and kitchen, which is overlooked by a mezzanine floor. “Our vision was to maintain the front of the house and add an extension with huge ceilings and steel doors opening onto a level courtyard,” Linda explains.
The original part of the home was reconfigured, accommodating two bedrooms, a bathroom and laundry downstairs, and a primary bedroom with ensuite plus a fourth bedroom and main bathroom upstairs. While classic features such as ceiling roses in the bedrooms and arches on the facade have been preserved, the home effortlessly transitions into a cool modern entertainer.
Moving into the new extension, five stairs descend alongside a curved wall and the space opens dramatically; the kitchen, lounge and dining area measures 9 metres by 8 metres, while 6-metre-high ceilings flood the room with natural light. Second-hand bricks introduce warmth alongside white walls and polished concrete floors, and steel-framed French doors, at 3.5 metres tall, perfectly match the room’s soaring proportions.
LINDA’S RENO TIPS
Start with a mood board.
Hire a good builder.
Be clear about what you want, communicate with your builder, and leave nothing to chance.
Try to be on site every day if you can.
The home embraces contrasts between old and new, dark and light, textured and smooth, straight lines and curves, as it melds industrial, traditional and contemporary elements in a chic cosmopolitan mix. “I love the look of old and new,” says Linda. “I don’t find it jarring at all.”
The couple made adjustments in the old part of the house to balance the extension’s approach to scale and materials. “We replaced all the doors so they are above standard height,” says Linda. “The two bedrooms on the downstairs level have a set of solid antique double doors, which I sourced from a timber yard. All the doors have timber moulding on the fronts, giving them a classic look.”
In designing the interior, Linda took inspiration from celebrated New York creative Athena Calderone, whose sumptuous Brooklyn brownstone is the backdrop for her lifestyle site EyeSwoon. Calderone’s influence is especially evident in Linda’s monochrome kitchen, with its Shaker cabinetry and oversized island bench. “The most challenging part of the reno was installing the marble concrete shelf,” Linda notes. “Loads of steel brackets were required to support the weight.”
Linda counts the French doors amongst her favourite features of the home; they beautifully frame views of the garden and give easy access to the back garden for entertaining.
“Previously, the backyard was just lawn with broken-down fencing and a huge, hideous fishpond,” says Linda. Now, it’s a lush, relaxed courtyard with a Mediterranean feel. “I love its solid curved seating, pizza oven and crazy paving – not forgetting our 30-year-old olive trees, which required about six men to carry in.”
Fun fact - Linda and Maurie are Bonnie’s parents (from Three Birds Renovations)! They recently filmed a video tour of their home with lots of helpful nuggets of renovation wisdom. Happy watching.
