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When Kate and Sam Townsend got the keys to their West Footscray house, they got a very tired 1942 post-war home. Two bedrooms. One bathroom. One living area. It needed restumping, rewiring and replumbing before anyone could talk about finishes.
So why buy it?
“We could see that the original front rooms were worth saving, while the rear gave us enough space to create an entirely different way of living,” Kate says. The street did a lot of the work too. Khartoum Street has a mix of original homes and considered renovations, and neighbours who actually know each other.
They bought it off market for $820,000. Fourteen months later it is on the market with a price guide of $1.5 million to $1.65 million.
The plan changed, and the change was the win
Day one gave them four bedrooms and one living area. As the design developed with Moku Design, they found a second living space without giving up a bedroom.
“It can be a retreat, office, guest room or even a fifth bedroom,” Kate says. “For a family home, that flexibility is incredibly valuable because the house can adapt as the children and the owners’ needs change.”
Kate led the floor plan, interiors and material selections through her studio, Kasa Made. Sam managed the build as owner-builder, coordinated the trades and did a large amount of the carpentry himself. Every decision came back through the two of them.
The front: tired weatherboards to Linea
The original boards were inconsistent after more than 80 years. Once Kate and Sam accounted for their condition and the scale of the rebuild, keeping them was not the reliable option.
They still wanted the front to read as a weatherboard home.
That is what Linea Weatherboard gave them. “Linea gave us the deep horizontal shadow lines and weatherboard character we wanted, without the ongoing movement and maintenance of new timber,” Kate says. “It suited the proportions of the original house and gave the facade a clean, crisp finish while still feeling appropriate to the period and the street.”
Look closely at the porch and you will see red brick piers. Those are new, built from original bricks salvaged when one of the home’s chimneys came down. They bring warmth and texture to the warm white Linea, so the facade reads as restored rather than replaced.
The house did not need a planning permit and sits under no heritage overlay. Kate and Sam held the streetscape anyway.
“It made the house feel considered and complete,” Kate says. “The facade still belongs in the street, but the sharper lines and consistent finish have given it a much stronger presence.” The neighbours watched the whole thing happen, and the response has been that the house feels cared for.
The back: a Stria pavilion
The existing footprint was never going to hold four bedrooms, the bathrooms, the storage and the living space a modern family needs. Extending let them keep the character rooms at the front and build the volume and light the original house never had.
For the pavilion they went to a different profile. Stria Cladding, run vertically.
“We did not want the extension to imitate the original house,” Kate says. “Stria gave the pavilion a cleaner, more architectural identity, and running it vertically reinforced the height of the raked form. Using Linea horizontally at the front and Stria vertically at the back makes the old and new clearly legible, without making them feel disconnected.”
How do you make two claddings talk to each other?
Colour, mostly. The front door carries the darkest shade, the trims sit lighter, and the extension is lighter again in a soft sage.
“That graduation links the traditional Linea facade to the vertical Stria pavilion, while still allowing the extension to have its own softer, sage-toned identity,” Kate says. “The change feels deliberate and cohesive rather than like two separate houses.”
Inside, the junction is on purpose. Reinstated cornices and ceiling roses give way to square-set detailing. The intimate original rooms open into a cathedral volume with skylights, a wall of glass and a three-metre Breccia marble island.
“We wanted a sense of release,” Kate says. “The front of the house is calm, detailed and intimate; then the ceiling lifts, the light changes and the garden comes into view.”
What it took
The hardest part was not the build. It was the timing.
Sam works six days a week. Kate was raising a baby and a toddler while managing trades, deliveries and selections. She met a plumber on site to quote the job on the same day she went into labour, which tells you the pace.
“We got through it by dividing the responsibilities according to our strengths, communicating constantly and staying focused on the next decision needed to keep the build moving,” Kate says.
Ask her what she would change and she does not say a material. She says labour. Next time Sam comes off the tools so he can run the project without burning out, Kate takes on more of the trade coordination, and they budget for the extra hands.
Does a recladding pay for itself?
This is the question BuildHers ask us most about facades, so we put it straight to Kate.
“The facade is one of the first things a buyer reads,” she says. “Consistent cladding improved the presentation, removed the visual signs of age and gave buyers confidence that the renovation was comprehensive. For us, the value was both commercial and practical: it strengthened the street appeal and gave us a durable, lower-maintenance exterior.”
Having the cladding supplied through the BuildHer and James Hardie partnership also gave them room in the budget at the stage where several big costs were landing together. It meant they could specify Linea and Stria as intended, instead of trimming the exterior to make the numbers work.
Her advice if you ever work with a supplier partner? Be clear from the start on design intent, quantities, timing and what each party is providing. “Treat it as a genuine working relationship, not simply a free-product arrangement.”
Where the trends come from
If you are choosing a facade this year, the research is worth reading before you choose a colour.
James Hardie’s Modern Homes Forecast is their annual report on where modern home design is heading, and it is the thinking behind a lot of what you see on Khartoum Street. Download the Modern Homes Forecast handbooks here.
Where BuildHer fitted
“BuildHer gave me access to people who understood both the creative and commercial sides of renovating,” Kate says. “The mentoring, particularly my conversations with Bek, helped me test decisions, stay accountable and think beyond this single house to what Kasa Made could become.”
The community did the rest. There was always someone who had already hit the same site problem.
So what is next? Another project, suburb not locked in, somewhere in Melbourne’s inner west. If the right home turns up with character worth bringing back, they will restore and extend again.
What do the numbers say on your facade? If you have been putting off the front of your house because you cannot see what it returns, Kate’s is a good one to study.
Kate and Sam Townsend, Kasa Made, @_kasamade. Design by Moku Design. Photography by Dylan James.
