‘WHERE THE TIMBER WAS PAST ITS USE-BY DATE ... WE REPLACED IT WITH NEW TASMANIAN OAK’ of the construction in a historical manner,’ Scott Cordwell explains. Cordwell Lane was engaged to oversee this highly sensitive project, which essentially involved restoring the two discrete structures of the original house – the veranda-fronted cottage which consisted of four rooms and a bathing area; and the detached kitchen – and constructing a contemporary living space ‘insertion’ to bind the structure into a seamless whole. ‘We actually dismantled it, brick by brick, stick by stick, and totally rebuilt THE OLD SECTIONS OF THE the whole thing from the ground up’ HOME WERE CAREFULLY AND FAITHFULLY RESTORED The first stage of the complex 18-month build was to strip the away all the ugly additions to reveal the home’s beautiful ‘bones’. The unusual construction techniques that Scott and his team uncovered describe a different era: mortice and tenon jointing in the framework; used in the absence of nails and screws by men who were trained to build ships rather than houses. The historical ‘nogged’ brickwork walls, where the wall is framed in timber and bricks laid between the studs in the cavity, ready to take a coat of limewash. The weatherboard cladding, split from trees felled on surrounding land. These old sections of the home were carefully and faithfully restored. Captain ‘We actually dismantled it, brick by brick, stick Kelly’s by stick, and totally rebuilt the whole thing from the Cottage ground up. Where the timber was past its use-by date – and most of it was – we replaced it with NOVEMBER 2018 HOUSING 33 PROJECTS