00:04My client for this project is a young couple. This is their first home and they
00:10are unashamedly minimalists. The apartment had been untouched for the
00:15best part of 50 years. It had very very strong 1960s and early 1970s design
00:21cues. The clients really understood and knew what they wanted. Importantly that
00:28was to maintain that very 1960s, 70s sensibility.
00:38This apartment is very near Rushcutters Bay Park and Rushcutters Bay Foreshore.
00:45It's very close to the city of Sydney and it's in a really wonderful walkable
00:49neighbourhood. This building was built in 1970. The first point of their
00:58brief was to have something very open, light and airy. In the kitchen space they
01:02wanted to use a lot of timber elements to sort of hark back to that mid-century
01:06style retro appliances where possible. And they're also very interested to have a
01:10breakfast bar come dining area. So that was a very important part of their brief.
01:16The apartment was in original 50-year-old condition. There was carpet throughout and in
01:22the contained kitchen was linoleum. It was a very retro and very original untouched feel.
01:28This was always a studio apartment just with a separate kitchen. The only change that we made
01:33to the floor plan was to remove the walls that encapsulated the kitchen to make a larger open space.
01:43When you enter the apartment you're immediately hit with a really lovely warm and honeyed light,
01:48bouncing off the timber and the cork flooring and the warm colours within the apartment.
01:55There are concealed cupboards for umbrellas, bags, shoes.
02:00There is a folding wall seat that makes use of the space that is otherwise void.
02:06And there are some playful mid-century style wall hooks above the folding wall seat.
02:12Very common in 1950s through 1980s was cork flooring and cork is a very sustainable material and it's
02:19great for acoustics so we've opted to use cork in this apartment.
02:23In the living room the function wall consists of a built-in sofa. Underneath the sofa are some
02:30drawers with mirrored fronts so they look almost like they're not there and the sofa is lighter.
02:36Over the top of the sofa is a built-in queen murphy bed. When the bed is pulled down it
02:42rests on the
02:43ottoman of the sofa. For one occupant there is a fold-down bedside and for the other there is a
02:52built-in and recessed storage niche. Conveniently the wardrobe is one and a half times a conventional
03:00depth because it marries with the front face of the sofa and that means that we can hang clothes
03:04all the way along the front and then have folded storage all the way down the back.
03:11The mustard of the wardrobe matches really nicely with the mustard on the pendant lamp.
03:16The handles for the wardrobe and the handles for the fold-down bed are all custom-made in the same
03:21timber as the kitchen joinery. Directly opposite the sofa is a mix of open shelving for books and
03:28concealed storage that makes use of the double depth island. They had no need for a television.
03:33The clients had a direct liking for teak and we have used the Australian grown equivalent which is
03:39Tasmanian blackwood. A breakfast bar divides the kitchen from the living space and features a dining
03:46area for two people. The breakfast bar is supported by a bespoke raw brass leg. The laminate bench top
03:54adhered to plywood is in direct reference to mid-century style when laminate bench tops were very common and
03:59often featured a timber edge. The mirrored niche is a play on the old mid-century room dividers and the
04:07mirrors really bounce that light around and bring that sense of space to the kitchen.
04:13The tambour door unit is great because when the kitchen is in use you simply slide the door up and
04:17have all of those things at hand. There's bulk overhead storage over the kitchen. The brown tiles
04:24used throughout the kitchen and the bathroom are direct reference to the tiles that were here prior
04:29to the removal of the old fit-out. There's a series of small sconces fitted to the ceiling and to
04:35the
04:36walls that is a 1970s design. The timber surfaces wrap from the kitchen around the bathroom. A custom brass
04:45reveal lines the bathroom entry threshold. The walls are tiled floor to ceiling in a small mosaic
04:53that reference the old kitchen tile. We used custom terrazzo tiles on the floor. Brass detailing is
05:02consistent in the bathroom. The bathroom cabinetry has numerous integrated LED lighting and an intricate
05:14handle detail for opening the bathroom cabinet without putting fingerprints on the mirror.
05:20We've used curves to vary the depth of the bathroom joinery so that when you're using the area above the
05:26basin the depth is narrower and then for open shelving the depth is accentuated. We've varied the handle
05:34detail in the bathroom because it's a different space to the rest and we've opted to use a hole.
05:42Together with my clients we've taken a fairly restorative approach to the renovation of this
05:46apartment. It hadn't been touched in 50 years but with this renovation we've ensured comfortable
05:52occupation for the next 50 years. It's been upgraded with with modern technology and new services we've
06:00used custom furniture and overlapping functions to achieve a really tailored space. We've basically
06:06given this apartment a second lease on life.
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