With the drawings on the table, the project specified a huge amount of wood; from entire rooms lined in timber with steeply raked ceilings, to timber cladding and Stringybark flooring, as well as a timber staircase and deck.
With so much of this natural resource on display, each element demanded the highest level of craftmanship; all junctions, connections, lines and joinery required perfect consideration and execution.
‘A lot of the structural work was also going to be on show, so there was no hiding anything,’ he laughs.
There are big and beautiful items, such as the 2.7-metre Red Ironbark timber post supporting structural floor beams in the lounge and dining room. Its custom brackets and bolts appear to hover above the ground as it takes the weight for the post. Hamish invited Murray and the owner to hand pick it from Outlast Timbers, in Melbourne’s Bayside.
‘I got there first and saw the log that we eventually selected, and it just felt right,’ Hamish recalls. ‘The bolts are seen [and] the timber is shown.’
Extensive joinery is also a highlight. In particular, floor-to-ceiling shelving follows up the staircase, showcasing the owner’s extensive collection of old books. A perfectly placed round window faces the treetops, while upstairs, the roof kinks to give a nearby tree breathing room. At the owner’s request, the house also contains a rain chain to manage the roof runoff.
There is subtle craftmanship too, including a 10mm gap that follows the staircase from top to bottom, requiring laser precision to create a seamless shadow line. New products are given a run too, such as Danpalon, a multi-cell polycarbonate roofing product, which was used on the deck balustrade to allow natural light into the living room downstairs.