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Transforming quirky wooden pole home into crisp beach house

Tim Teale
last year
last modified: last year

Looking for your specific ideas/suggestions for this 1989 wooden pole home renovation (original plans attached).


My fiance and I are 28yrs and plan on starting a family soon; we envision this house as our family home.

We've spoken to multiple architects / interior designers but want more ideas before moving forward, as this is quite a unique house with obvious restrictions (big timber poles).


We want to keep the scope broad to allow creative spirit in your suggestions, although you can see in the below video we've done some landscaping already.


Ideal theme: Bright, white, beachy, crisp yet homely & comfortable


Areas we'd like to address:

1. The staircase (positioning + style)

2. Kitchen/Laundry/Butlers pantry and dining

3. Upstairs layout (master bedroom/ensuite + WIR)


Some random inspiration: https://www.pinterest.com.au/tcteale/pins/

Video walkthrough (downstairs only): https://youtu.be/lQoyWEtW4Z0




Comments (11)

  • bigreader
    last year

    You’ve asked for ideas and nominated areas you’d like ideas before but you haven’t indicated what end point you’re after. What are the ideas supposed to help you achieve? Moving the staircase is a very expensive exercise. Is that the level of budget expenditure that you’re prepared for?

    Tim Teale thanked bigreader
  • Kate
    last year

    Looks a great house. Can you post larger versions of the floor plans please. One photo of each.
    Have you thought where u would like stair to start?,

  • Kate
    last year

    Working without dimensions and looking at video, the lounge appears to be lovely on the right of the front door. The downstairs is all open but really large. I would close to the space to left of front door to be its own room. This could be media, study, gym whatever you need. I’ve moved the stair to the left so it is not blocking view from front to back from front door
    The kitchen plan is a thought as don’t have dimensions and not sure what you are seeking to do. Adding an island will prob remove some storage.

  • Tim Teale
    Original Author
    last year





  • Tim Teale
    Original Author
    last year

    @bigreader - We are open to spending around $100k downstairs to make it right! - Whether or not that allows us to move the stairs is a different story.


    We are after some layout ideas like Kate has shared. Just hoping to consider 'out of the box' ideas an perspectives :)

  • Tim Teale
    Original Author
    last year

    @Kate - thanks so much for taking the time to put this together! - I've attached some more photos as requested. Closing in that area is a really interesting idea, no one has thought of that yet! :)

  • Kate
    last year

    Next question. Could you close one external laundry door and if so which one?

  • Tim Teale
    Original Author
    last year

    Hmm… we like the laundry/toilet in a seperate space to the kitchen, its quite large so thinking about using as a butlers pantry / walk in pantry.


    We somewhat like the 2 door access but if we had to remove one, it would be the one leading to the deck.

  • Kate
    last year

    I hadn’t picked up on the toilet. Matching the stair move, I would move the kitchen to match allowing for pantry in laundry, good to have space there and otherwise it will be tight with doors and toilet in the space to add pantry.

  • Tim Teale
    Original Author
    last year

    Very creative thinking @Kate!! - Love the idea of moving the wall. Fortunately, non of the walls are load-bearing! :)


    It looks like you still like the 'U shaped kitchen', we were thinking something like a stand-alone island horizontally, Do you think that could work?



  • Kate
    last year

    The photos appear to be stretched vertically making width of kitchen appear bigger than the dimensions say. Over the width of kitchen you have 2770 between posts or 3070 (lounge wall to window wall) if I’m reading plans correctly. So 600 deep for appliance wall along lounge (existing), 1000 walkway, 900 island with breakfast bar takes you to 2500 making it too narrow for walkway between island and windows.
    Can you measure the actual kitchen?