Roseville · Ku-ring-gai
Kitchen renovations in Roseville.
An interwar Roseville kitchen was designed to be worked in by someone else, out of sight at the back of the house. Reversing that assumption is what these renovations are actually for.
NSW contractor licence 397801C · Ku-ring-gai Council area · About 20 minutes from our Hornsby showroom
Roseville by the numbers
3,457
occupied private dwellings in Roseville
68.8%
separate houses
56.0%
of families are couples with children
$3,651
median monthly mortgage — highest in the district
Houses — 68.8% of Roseville
What an interwar kitchen assumes.
48.1% of Roseville dwellings have four or more bedrooms and 56% of families here are couples with children. The house is big enough; the kitchen was simply built for a different way of living.
Built as a back room
Small, separate, facing the yard. That was deliberate, and it is why the plan feels wrong to a modern family.
There is usually a scullery
An adjoining pantry, breakfast room or maid's room. Absorbing it is often cheaper than removing a structural wall.
Original services throughout
Cast iron waste, galvanised supply, no earth on the circuits. All ordinary, all needing replacement while walls are open.
Keep the ceiling detail
Picture rails and cornices are part of what these houses are worth. We work cabinetry to them rather than through them.
The work
Bringing the kitchen into the house.
Roseville has the highest median mortgage repayment in the district at $3,651 a month, against housing that mostly predates open plan. Closing that gap is the brief on nearly every job here.
Connect it to where people are
Whether by removing a wall or widening an opening, this single change is what the whole project is for.
Use the ceiling height
Cabinetry taken up to the cornice makes a tall interwar room read as designed rather than furnished.
Face the garden
With subfloor access the sink can move to an external wall with a window over it, which changes the room entirely.
Expect asbestos testing
In housing of this age it is a real possibility. We test rather than assume, and price removal separately if found.
Apartments — 28.5% of Roseville
Nearly three in ten Roseville homes are units.
983 flats and apartments by the 2021 count, clustered near the station and the highway. Everything on this page about interwar planning falls away — here it is a joinery and approval exercise.
Mid-century blocks near the station
Original waste and undersized circuits are the usual finds, assessed before quoting rather than during demolition.
Everything on one application
Joinery, wet work, wiring and flooring listed together so the committee assesses the job once, not in pieces.
No heritage question inside
Whatever the LEP says about the houses around them, a unit interior is governed by the by-law instead.
Credentials
Licensed for period house work.
NSW contractor licence
397801C
Renova Holdings Pty Ltd
Director and builder
99764S
Alireza Kamalzadeh
Older houses
Tested first
Asbestos and structure before demolition
HBCF eligibility
To 15 Oct 2028
Approved to $750,000 per dwelling
Dwelling, family and mortgage figures from the ABS 2021 Census QuickStats for Roseville (SAL13426). Where asbestos is identified behind an old kitchen, a licensed removalist handles it under the SafeWork NSW framework before any other trade returns to site. Verify licences on the NSW Government public register.
Roseville questions
Interwar houses, current kitchens.
Why does the kitchen feel so cut off in these houses?
Because it was meant to be. Interwar planning treated the kitchen as a service room rather than a living space, placed at the back and separated from the dining and living rooms by design. The renovation is not correcting a mistake so much as reversing an assumption the house was built on.
Is there asbestos in a 1930s Roseville kitchen?
It is a genuine possibility, particularly in sheeting behind or beside where a stove sat, in eaves, and in older wet area linings. We test rather than assume. If it is present, licensed removal happens first and is priced as a separate item — it is not something to work around.
Should we take the wall out or borrow the scullery?
Frequently the scullery. Most interwar Roseville houses have an adjoining pantry, breakfast room or small service room, and absorbing it gets you most of the space without a structural beam and its supports. Where the wall does have to go, it needs an engineer's design, which we price as a named line.
Will a modern kitchen suit a period house?
Yes, if the proportions respect the room. What jars is usually scale — low cabinetry in a tall room, or a handleless gloss kitchen dropped into a house full of picture rails. Taking the joinery up to the cornice in a restrained profile generally sits far better than either extreme.
How long will we be without a kitchen?
Four to six weeks on site for a straightforward replacement, longer where plumbing moves, a wall comes out, or asbestos is found. Joinery is made before demolition. We set up a temporary kitchen because on a house this size the family is usually staying throughout.
What is next to your kitchen?
A pantry, a breakfast room, a back hall? That adjoining space is usually where the answer is.
