Character Home Extension Perth: adds new life to a Californian Bungalow

Character Home Extension and Renovation in North Perth

Amerex designed and built a Character Home Extension and Renovation to this classic Californian Bungalow style character home in North Perth. With a young family on the way, the clients were anxious to get started on their project very soon after buying their new home. Amerex provided excellent design advice, drawing on their many years of experience with homes of this era.

The scope of this character home extension and renovation involved adding 2 new Bedrooms, a Bathroom, Laundry, an Ensuite (which is so stunning you have to see it to believe it), and a Walk-in robe. In the existing areas of the home, a comprehensive renovation was performed on the existing Kitchen and Living areas re-using existing space.

This project came with some challenges which included designing around the existing deck which the owners wanted to keep. Amerex happily adapted around this, and new Doors to lead out onto the deck were cut into the existing brickwork to make the openings much wider, and to allow the flow from inside to outside to be more inviting. There was also a challenge in matching the new brickwork with the existing brickwork and mortar, however the result turned out to be an excellent match and the owners were delighted.

Amerex were also able to exhibit their renowned ability to show attention to detail and being heritage sensitive by re-using and renovating existing leadlight windows, frames, and window sashes. The end result being that it is hard to tell in some areas what is new, and what has always been there.

All new areas of the home included character features that provided a nod to the heritage of the original character home. These included polished jarrah floorboards to match the existing, custom timber joinery, high ceilings, fancy cornice, and architraves to the match existing. Matching gables were constructed externally, and as such the heritage streetscape character was faithfully retained.

‘We purchased our property December and in January welcomed our second baby and just a few weeks later we were muddling over drawings and plans with Steve and his designer Loreta. It didn’t take long after that to have the approvals in place, and demolition and construction underway. We moved in early Nov that year. The schedule was very important to us, as we need to move out of our rental and our family and dog all needed more space so we were very eager to move into our new home. We were pleased with the 10 month turnaround. We were very pleased that we were able to utilise some of the older leadlight windows from the original home and we were very pleased to introduce significantly more natural light into the kitchen and living area. Steve and his team are very proud of their work (carpentry in particular) and we were particularly impressed with his attention to detail.’

Names withheld (at request of owners for privacy).