Home and away

There’s nothing quite like a dark and wood-heavy 1990s renovation in a Paddington terrace to inspire an owner to embark on an ambitious refresh. So, when the owners of this Paddington St property bought it five years ago, a renovation to bring it into the new century was always on the cards.

“This was a full renovation of an existing terrace,” says Jen Humphry, from Modify, who was given the task of rescuing the property from its gloom. “In this case the renovation involved no change to the number of bedrooms, but we did add an ensuite bathroom to the master and we also added a bathroom to the large attic space, so the house went from four bedrooms, two bathrooms, to four beds, four bathrooms.”

The terrace, built in 1889, had been “renovated poorly in the 90s”, Humphry says. And while the bones of the house — with its 5.6m frontage, three levels including attic, harbour glimpses and rear courtyard with parking for two cars — were fine, it was time to rethink the look, feel and function of the home.

“Our clients wanted to really modernise the home while celebrating the original features that remained in the front areas,” Humphry says. “Our clients live overseas and use this as their base in Australia. They have grown children and also grandchildren and they wanted the home to be beautiful but at the same time comfortable and functional.”

To reinstate the house to its former grandeur, Modify focused on a few areas in particular: rescuing heritage showpieces from their parlous state, and building a state-of-the-art kitchen in which the couple could entertain.

“We started by refurbishing the beautiful existing fireplaces to make them working fireplaces to be enjoyed in the front of the ground floor and also in the study upstairs,” Humphry says. “And during the renovation we removed tiles from the rear portion of the home and added kauri pine to marry in with the original kauri in the front areas and upstairs.”

The owners placed particular emphasis on creating an extraordinary entertaining area, so careful planning went into not only the redesign of the kitchen but the choice of equipment.

 “They love to cook and their brief was a minimalist and clean-line kitchen that was fully stainless steel as a statement in the home,” Humphry says. 

“The kitchen cabinetry was paired with a fabulous stainless steel Wolf oven and stainless steel sub-zero fridge/freezer and wine fridge combo. This kitchen is used a lot and is a fabulous celebration of this minimalist and clean lines style.

“The living area behind the kitchen is a juxtaposition with warmth using American oak joinery to pair with the kauri pine floors. Steel frame doors were also added to the rear of the home to tie together the modern look and feel.”

Meanwhile, work was put into creating the new bathrooms and recreating the existing bathrooms into more modern iterations.

“The bathrooms were re-planned and striking dark Salvatori stone was used throughout. The stone was used on floor and walls for a seamless look and feel paired again with American oak joinery for softness.

“Interestingly, the laundry was incorporated into the largest upstairs bathroom behind cabinetry as our clients wanted it on the bedroom floor for practicality — a trend we are seeing more and more as people use dryers rather than outside hanging these days.”

Humphry says care was also taken in selecting the mood lighting used throughout the home, to bring out both its warmth and its grandeur.

“Lighting was an important part of the brief and significant in changing the mood of the home entirely,” she says. “The clients wanted to have a relaxed lighting feel and also highlight their incredible art collection. We used a combination of iGuzzini and Viabizzuno lighting throughout as well as stunning feature lights from Apparatus of New York.” 

Finally, work was done to bring the exterior of the home up to date.

“The home has a lower ground garage with basement storage going up underneath the home. This was quite dingy, so we added stone flooring and lighting to make the space more usable. And lastly, the rear courtyard was re-tiled using a filled travertine, and additional planting was added to create privacy and to soften the hot and sunny rear yard to ensure it was usable.”

Humphry says the terrace is now a contemporary and cherished family home, ready for family use when its owners are in Australia.

“The clients absolutely love the finished product and use it as often as they can,” she says. As you most definitely would.

PADDINGTON ST TERRACE

Design, construction and maintenance: Modify 

Photography: Simon Whitbread