Small Cottage for a Large Family: Example from Australia

Relocating from Norway to Australia with two children is not an easy decision, but if you have supportive friends, everything becomes simpler. The couple bought a 600 sq. m plot in Shenton Park, a suburb of Perth in Western Australia, together with their friends.

The group of friends settled into a renovated 1950s house. Our heroes, Beck and James, built a new house on the plot. It was not possible to divide the territory into two addresses, so the additional structure had to meet the standards of auxiliary housing, such as a guest house. In the end, our heroes received permission to build a single-story house no larger than 78 sq. m.

"We have always lived compactly, so the modest size of our future house did not bother us. There was a time when we lived in Norway on the coast in an elling. Its size was only 55 sq. m, but we were comfortable,"— Beck recalls.

They designed and decorated the house themselves. Beck is an architecture graduate, and her husband James is a costume designer, so they approached the arrangement with taste and expertise.

Beck spent 11 months planning and coordinating the project, and they built the house in just eight months. On a small area, they had to provide space for comfortable living for all family members—parents, two children, and a cat. Immediately after moving in, the couple realized they were expecting another child. But the house turned out to be convenient even for a family of five.

It was possible to arrange all the necessary rooms in a small house: two children's bedrooms, parents' bedroom, laundry room, and wardrobe. But the space does not feel cramped: an open layout, high vaulted ceilings, and glass doors to the garden visually expand it. The high ceiling allowed for adding a parents' bedroom inside the room, and it was easy to raise the bed in the children's room as well.

There were no large funds for construction, so the couple decided to save money in many ways. For example, they clad the exterior of the house with cypress panels. For interior finishing, they used bricks that were left over from the old Perry Lakes stadium, built for the Commonwealth Games in 1962.

There is a lot of vintage furniture in the interior. For example, industrial General Electric lamps from the 1970s, which they found in a thrift store. They now decorate the outdoor dining area.

One of the key accents in the decoration was the yellow color. James and Beck, as true aesthetes, fell in love with it after watching the movie "Rosemary's Baby". In 2008, they chose a warm dark yellow for decorating their wedding.

Many years later, they brought their favorite color into the interior. The front door, staircase, dishes, cushions—even the faucet in the bathroom—all of these items now feature this color. The texture also did not go unnoticed: here, you want to touch every detail. There is a lot of wood and textiles in the interior. Part of the kitchen wall was painted with blackboard paint—here, children can draw.

"We didn't want our house to look like a spaceship with trendy uncomfortable furniture. We specifically looked for simple items with history that would align with our perception,"— Beck and James shared their main idea.