A brick semi in Botany is reimagined around the everyday pleasures of home: cooking together, gathering around the table and opening the house to the garden.

At its heart, a deep timber window seat makes the connection tangible. Framed in warm timber and set into face brickwork, it is a place to sit between inside and out, with the kitchen and dining space close at hand.

The project brings new kitchen and dining spaces to the rear of an existing semi-detached home while retaining its familiar street frontage.

The planning brings together three bedrooms, a separate living room and a compact office area, with shared spaces opening towards the garden.

The design focuses on the relationship between rooms as much as their size: a clear route through the house, useful places to pause and a generous threshold to the outdoors.

The original front rooms and pitched roof establish the character of the home. Behind them, a lower rear addition accommodates the kitchen, dining and office spaces, with the deck extending their use into the garden.

The concept works with the long, narrow site: quieter rooms remain towards the front, the living room forms a link through the middle, and the rear becomes a shared space for meals, work and time outdoors.

Brick, timber and a welcoming threshold.

The proposed planting palette includes bottlebrush, native violet and star jasmine.

The original design palette specified brickwork to match the existing house, pale wall finishes, Surfmist metal roofing and a timber shade structure over the deck.

Together, these choices connect the new addition to the scale and texture of the original building.

The landscape design places the deck directly beside the rear living spaces, retains existing trees and combines lawn with planting around the garden edges.

The window seat gives this connection a human scale: somewhere to read, talk or watch the garden while remaining part of life around the kitchen and dining table.