Nahtanha and Rhys have a young family and an old home with lovely period style features in an established suburb of Adelaide. Their new extension included a generous amount of space for an open-plan kitchen/ living/ entertaining area. From a design perspective, it was a blank sheet. But all their ideas drew was a lot of blank stares before they came to SpaceCraft Joinery.

The mainstream cabinetmakers Nahtanha and Rhys originally approached were reticent to stray too far from their modularised comfort zones and do anything outside the norm. The couple’s idea of using reclaimed Baltic pine floorboards in the joinery was assigned to the too-hard basket and their quotes ignored the concept.

When they came to us, however, they could see from our previous work that we love thinking outside the melamine box. And whilst this wasn’t something Nathan had ever done before, he readily agreed to build the reclaimed floorboards into his design. Maintaining their gnarly appearance would make them much more difficult to work with. But these are exactly the sort of fascinating challenges that get us out of bed every morning.

As it turned out, minor frustrations aside, our team relished this project. And we hope the feeling shows in the end product. The overall design Nathan came up with creates a multi-purpose, open-plan space for this growing family with lots of room to grow and entertain, including a servery to link the interior to the exterior, and an adjacent study nook.

The style of kitchen Nahtanha and Rhys were looking for was a kind of rustic industrial approach. The dark grey joinery provides a direct visual link to the colour and feel of the powder-coated aluminium window frames, and task lighting creates a sense of theatre.

Under those pools of light, the recycled timber glows as a feature of the waterfall ends to the island bench. In the end, aside from a light sand and a satin polish, the timber is still magnificently original. Echoing that look, we built open shelving in wormy chestnut to stand out against the dark tiling.
And extending the gritty feel, the study nook next to the pantry features the exposed red brick of the old exterior wall. In time, this is where Nahtanha and Rhys will watch their kids do their homework. But, for now, the whole space gives this busy couple a relaxing comfort zone away from their working lives.