The Munro House Files
The Munro House Files Episode Two covers the exterior concept stage of a Melbourne rear extension, including the decision to match the existing ridgeline, design a double-height void, and break up a gable facade with a recessed outdoor dining room and integrated brick column. FTLO Design provides staged residential renovation consulting in Melbourne, including 3D exterior concept options delivered as part of the design process.
Episode Two: The Roofline
Deirdre knew what she wanted from the exterior. A gable roofline. Volume. A house that felt like it had been designed rather than added to. What she didn't know was how far that single decision would travel through the structure, the section, the rear facade, all the way to a brick column at the edge of the garden that nobody saw coming.
The roofline
The existing house had a ridgeline. The question was whether the extension would fight it or continue it.
I resolved to match them.
It meant a larger roof volume overall, but it also meant something more important: the new roof sheets flow from the existing roof through to the extension without interruption. No step. No awkward junction. No visual signal that one part of the house is old and one part is new. From the outside, the house reads as a whole.
This was the controversial call. Often designers will push to drop the roofline; 500mm, sometimes more to simplify the volume and reduce costs. BUT what this actually means in constriction and onsite; flashing detail and reduce the truss depth. It feels like a practical decision. And it is. But it costs you the thing you were building toward: the volume.
Dropping the roof by 500mm makes no meaningful difference to waterproofing. It makes a significant difference to how the space feels to stand in.
We held the roofline.
The section
Once the roof was resolved, the section started to speak.
I aligned the butler's pantry and laundry wall, a single line that became the starting point of the double-height void. From that line forward, the ceiling lifts. The floor drops. The space opens.
At the end of that void: a three-metre window.
It doesn't sit on the floor. I pulled it up, deliberately to integrate a built-in planter beneath it. Deirdre's block doesn't have much depth between the back of the living room and the rear fence. What it does have is greenery. The planter gives that window a foreground, a middle ground, a background. You're not looking at a fence. You're looking through a layer of planting to the garden beyond.
Above, highlight windows bring light into the top of the void. The space is never dark.
The facade
Most gable extensions read as a single, uninterrupted form. Symmetrical. Predictable. The pitch comes down, the gutters meet the wall, done.
This one doesn't.
Part of the floor plan involved pulling back a section of the rear wall to create a covered outdoor dining room sitting adjacent to the living area. That move did something to the facade that no amount of surface treatment could have achieved it broke the silhouette.
What you now have is a negative volume, the recessed outdoor dining sitting against a positive volume, the living room with its tall windows and integrated planter. The gable is still there. But it's interrupted in exactly the right place.
To hold the corner of the outdoor dining structure, I designed a brick column. Thickened. Considered. On one side, it anchors the covered dining. On the other, it faces a small paved firepit area in the garden.
It hides the downpipe. It solves the structure. And it physically links the architecture to the backyard. A single element that makes the house and the garden feel like they belong to each other.
"Every time I've spoken to my partner about the windows, the roofline, any of it I've gone back to what Taeler said. Don't drop it. It just looks daggy and old."
That's the work. Not just the decision but giving the client enough understanding of the reasoning that they can hold the line themselves when the builder pushes back.
Up next in this series
Episode Three covers the interiors; the kitchen, the material decisions, and how one room sets the language for the whole house.
If you're working through your own extension and not sure where to start, the Floor Plan Review is the entry point. Two floor plan options and a video walkthrough. $699. Five business days from your Zoom.
Book a Floor Plan Review → fortheloveofdesign.com.au/service/floor-plan-review
