Hortense means "of the garden", which perfectly captures our vision in transforming our 1930's Spanish Mission home in Adelaide's inner southwest. We bought this house because it sat on an expansive 875m2 block that cried out for a productive and bio-diverse garden. It is also perfectly situated for convenience and sustainability with excellent public transport, bike lanes, a wonderful community and many services nearby.
What was missing, however, was a direct connection from the house to the outside and enough space for our growing family. We asked Jon Lowe to design a renovation focused on four key requests: to create flow between living spaces and the garden, to ensure the spaces are flexible to evolve over time, to provide more storage and to future-proof our home from a sustainability perspective.
The result, completed in 2025, has exceeded all of our expectations and transformed the way we live in the house. The renovation includes a flexible living/dining space that bathes in natural light from soaring north facing windows, a laundry/mud room with ample storage, two gorgeous bathroom (including a tub with a perfect view of the backyard) and a highly functional galley kitchen that has become the heart of the house.
Based on the philosophy of "just enough", we reused the existing floor plan (where possible), minimally extended and used lower cost materials. Sustainability features includes removing our gas connection and installing an induction cooktop, heat pump and water tanks. Clever orientation means that the house receives passive heating via the polished concrete slab in winter and high performing double glazing and insulation means we rarely need to use heating. In summer, we mostly leave the large sliding doors to the garden open and take advantage of the cooling westerly winds. We often eat outside, where smart design means the deck doubles as a bench seat.
We are thrilled with our updated house and now are focused on plans for the garden.
