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McMaster House: A 1950s Weatherboard Reimagined for Family Life in Melbourne’s East 

Iver Team Architectural Hardware Specialists

14 hours ago

In Mitcham, on Melbourne’s eastern fringe, a weatherboard built by the McMaster family in 1950 has been given its next chapter. Owners Mitchell and Corinne Pryor took on the renovation through their own practice, Pryor State, choosing to build alongside what was already there, retaining the recognisable character of the original home and pairing it with a new addition that is unmistakably contemporary, yet calm. Working with Heartly Design Studio on the interior, they shaped a home later filmed for Grand Designs Australia: McMaster House, organised around connection, texture and quiet detail, where the architectural hardware carries as much intention as the Venetian plaster and stone.

A New Chapter

The brief was never to erase the home’s history; it was to sit beside it. The exterior of the new extension was kept white, a quiet backdrop that lets the property’s 75-year-old liquidambar take the lead, its colour shifting with the seasons. On the street-facing elevation, the extension was deliberately left without windows, giving the addition its own architectural presence while keeping the line between old and new legible. 

Inside, the new work is planned around connection: between kitchen, courtyard and study; between rooms made for gathering and those built for retreat; and between the interior and the garden beyond it. High ceilings, controlled openings and long sightlines give what is otherwise a simple plan real clarity, generosity and rhythm. 

Earthy and Considered

Where the architecture is restrained, the interior is warmed by colour and texture. Venetian plaster, microcement, stone, mosaic tile and deep timber run consistently through the home, with a handful of more expressive moments (a red bathroom, custom stone detailing) giving McMaster House a personality all its own. It is a palette built to be lived in rather than simply admired: earthy, tactile, and quietly confident in what it is. 

Tactile Details

“We viewed the architectural hardware as the jewellery of the home: small, tactile details that quietly contribute to the overall design,” says Pryor State. It needed to do double duty: speaking to the familiarity of the 1950s weatherboard while holding its own against the contemporary extension, so pieces were chosen for feeling timeless rather than of-the-moment. 

Throughout the home, doors are fitted with the Guildford Knob on Oval Backplate, its ribbed detailing lending texture and a sense of craft, while the sliding doors take the matching Rectangular Sliding Door Pull, both in Satin Nickel. The understated finish sits comfortably within the home’s earthy material palette, and a single, consistent hardware language across the original house and the new addition does quiet work in tying the two eras together. 

Sarlat Cabinet Pull

CTC256mm

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Built for the Long Term

Iver was chosen for a straightforward reason: the combination of timeless design, solid-brass construction and genuine quality. There is a reassuring weight to the hardware, and a durability that suits the everyday demands of a busy family home. Iver’s breadth of designs and finishes also meant a considered, whole-of-home solution was possible: pieces suited to different doors and different applications, without ever losing a consistent aesthetic thread. 

Most importantly, the hardware feels equally at home in the original weatherboard and the new extension, in service of a house built to age beautifully rather than chase a trend. 

McMaster House featured on Grand Designs Australia. Watch the full episode on ABC iview.