City Beach Extension

Duration – 7 months | Westridge Construction

City Beach Extension Project Brief

Dana and Stuart approached Westridge Construction to help them transform their beautifully located City Beach property into a dream home that takes advantage of the beautiful Perth climate and the exceptional views that the property offers.

The home was a single story home and the clients engaged us to renovate the ground floor and add a second story addition to the existing structure.

Due to the lovely location of the property and the elevation that it sits on, Dana and Stuart wanted us to create a home that took advantage of the abundant natural lighting and ventilation. They wanted a bright colour scheme and an open-plan feel, maximising and combining indoor and outdoor entertaining spaces using bi-fold doors and surrounding decks.

Our City Beach Extension Approach

We met with Dana and Stuart early in the piece to discuss their goals and objectives and so we could also get a feel for the property size and location.

As builders, we need to take into consideration things that might get overlooked in the design phase. As you can imagine, things like structural integrity are especially important to investigate when adding a level to a home.

We also need to discuss the clients’ design and the finishing’s they desire. As builders, we have a lot of experience in these areas, so we like to share our experiences and offer advice accordingly. Often, practical alternatives need to be presented in order to avoid impending speedbumps. Again, it’s always better to address these things early in the piece, rather than when they become a problem.

Once everyone was on the same page, we scheduled the project and moved forward with development.

Obstacles We Overcame

There were a few significant obstacles that Westridge Construction managed to navigate throughout this project. In our experience, there is always a way around things, it just takes thought and planning to ensure that the best method is executed.

Internal Lift

It’s not often we work on residential homes that have an elevator in the design brief. In a new home, installing a lift is relatively simple, however, when installing a lift on an existing home that has a brick first-floor structure and a timber second storey addition, there are challenges.

In order to achieve this feature, we needed to liaise with the architects and the engineers in order to come up with the best solution. The lift runs from the carport to the second level, so we had to consider security, safety and of course design limitations and regulations.

Waterproofing

As is often the case with any extension, or addition, waterproofing MUST be addressed.

This City Beach extension was no exception as the second level has beautiful decking that runs right around parts of the home in order to maximise living and entertaining space.

Decks are not (nor are they supposed to be) waterproof and with parts of the deck extending over lower level rooms in the home, we needed to come up with a waterproofing solution that enabled water to drain from the top level, while keeping it from penetrating the lower level.

We liaised with the designer to come up with some creative detailing, using flashings, cappings and membrane to achieve this.

Lift access to living area on level one

One section of waterproofed decking

The City Beach Extension Outcome

As you can see from the images in the various galleries, this project was a blinding success. The client is thrilled and we are also over the moon with the outcome.

If we had our time again, we would definitely have commenced the building in the summer as we had a few weather-related hold-ups along the way. On reflection the three things that really stand out to us as the builders are:

The Lift

Retrofitting an elevator is a significant challenge and something we don’t get to do a lot of. Regardless, the installation went off without a hitch and what we initially thought was going to be a challenge, turned out to be a relatively simple addition to the home.

The views

Sometimes you can just tell from the minute you show up to a property, that the outcome is going to be outstanding. From years of experience and working in the area for so long, we knew that this City Beach extension and renovation was going to deliver on spectacular views on completion.

The way that the top floor has been designed makes the floor space seem considerably larger. Bi-fold doors create an amazing ‘airy’ feel to the home, which on warmer days is simply amazing. Then the views from the top floor offer an almost panoramic view of City Beach and it’s surrounding area. The views are breathtaking.

Fulfilling our clients’ dream

Completing any project is rewarding, however this one was especially gratifying. The transformation of this home from before to after has been truly remarkable and as a result, the transformation on the clients’ lives has been significant.

Imagine going from occupying a humble single storey home to all of a sudden living in a beautiful two-storey, magazine worthy home with a pool and an elevator.

We’ve loved seeing how happy our clients are now that their dream home has been built for them. It’s a very rewarding feeling.