The ground floor rooms of the two cottages were on different levels and both were half a storey above the rear garden. The renovation connects the original ground-floor rooms and provides a new master bedroom and wet room at ground floor level in an extension with direct access to the garden.

The extension winds down around the trees, cinching itself in to get around a sumac tree, which sits centrally, and breathes out again to accommodate a generous bedroom and bathroom below a eucalyptus.

The bedroom faces onto a deck into the garden; it looks back to the house where the old concrete columns have been reused to support a new timber-framed glazed veranda, which ramps between the two existing ground-floor rooms and connects to the Tree House.