memorial avenue

I l a m   |   C h r i s t c h u r c h

The Memorial Ave home had already been upgraded to a good standard — but its internal layout told a different story, a maze of hallways, oddly proportioned rooms, and wasted space that no amount of finish quality could fix. No matter how good the fit-out, the floor plan itself was always going to hold the house back — both to live in and to sell. 

a b o u t   t h e   p r o j e c t

With no appetite for extending outward, the answer had to come from within: consolidating scattered rooms into one large kitchen, living and dining space, fixing bathrooms and laundry that no longer worked, and untangling a layout where public and private zones bled into each other. 

The kitchen and living areas sat at opposite ends of the house, the master bedroom's planned ensuite would have killed off the only bathroom, and a whole roof space sat empty overhead.

The masterstroke was swapping the kitchen and master bedroom entirely. That single move pushed the master into a private, garden-facing corner of the house — complete with its own ensuite and a generous walk-in robe — while freeing up space for a big, open kitchen, dining and living area built around a large island bench. 

The laundry grew from a cramped cupboard into a full room with storage and its own back door, the bathrooms were replanned from scratch, and the main bathroom split off a separate guest WC. Upstairs, new structural beams opened up the roof space and tidied the old framing, turning dead space into a bright, usable area.

By stripping out the maze of hallways and awkward in-between spaces, the whole house started to flow properly for the first time. What was once disjointed and confusing became coherent — a light-filled, open kitchen and living hub at the heart of the home, a private master retreat away from it all, and simple, sunny spaces that finally connect the way a family home should.