Neil Architecture and Mim Design — Woodcut Smokey Grey across an 1860s heritage homestead restored and extended on the Mornington Peninsula
Dawn House is an 1860s heritage homestead on the Mornington Peninsula, restored and extended by Neil Architecture and Mim Design into a family home that holds its history and its modernity at once. The original house meets a contemporary two-storey new wing through a glazed link and a skylit alfresco dining space. A single Woodcut Smokey Grey floor runs through both, threading heritage and new into one uninterrupted material.
The brief was a select finish. Minimal character. A calm, uniform surface that lets Smokey Grey do what it's specified for: sit quietly under the interior scheme while the rest of the home does the talking. To deliver that across 400m² of floor, we ordered significantly above the standard wastage allowance so we had the physical volume of board to hand-pick from. Every plank was read for grain, tone, and character before laying, set aside or specified in, and the whole floor planned room-by-room before a single board was glued down. The sort took as long as the install.
“It came with some beautiful bones, yet it was in a dilapidated state.”
Mim Fanning, Mim Design
The transition between the restored heritage rooms and the new contemporary wing was the most demanding surface-preparation challenge. Original floors in a home of this age rarely meet a new concrete substrate at the same level, and the joining line between old and new had to read as a deliberate design choice rather than a compromise. Detailed levelling work preceded every board, so the moment you step from 1860s to now, your feet don't notice.
In the new wing, the Smokey Grey runs up and over a curvaceous steel staircase. And this is where the work got specialist. Each tread carries an integrated LED detail set into the curve of the step, which meant an accurate scribe on every single tread so the timber met the LED and the steel balustrade with no gap, no overlap, no visible compromise. The nosing profile was matched consistently across the whole flight, so the staircase reads as one considered assembly rather than a sequence of independently cut steps. The same care carried through the library (with its new marble fireplace and built-in joinery) and the kitchen (with butler's pantry and three-storey-high brick fireplace wall beyond).
Dawn House ran a long construction programme with many trades cycling simultaneously through the restored and new parts of the house. We coordinated closely with the joinery, stonework, and finishing trades through every phase, protected the floor through every subsequent stage, and delivered a deep clean on handover so the first time the owners walked the finished Smokey Grey was the first day of their new life in the home. The finished project is the result of a seamless collaboration between Neil Architecture, Mim Design, Warwick Constructions, Woodcut, and Mastercraft Flooring. Each held their part of the brief to the same high standard.
The calmer a floor looks, the harder it was to get right.
Oliver Davis, Founder