The project forms an addition to an early 19th century sandstone cottage, thought to form part of the convict built stables of the nearby Juniper Hall, built in 1824 for Robert Cooper. The cottage is located at the end of what is now a quiet, narrow, dog-legged lane, a Georgian remnant in the largely Victorian inner city Sydney suburb of Paddington.

A narrow entry courtyard is formed between the cottage and an adjacent Victorian terrace house. Apart from a new rendered block wall and timber gate/ utility cupboard facing the lane, the new work sits to the rear of the cottage, and forms a second courtyard space to its rear, between it and the 5m high brick wall at the back of the site.

The stone walls of the original cottage, possibly plastered at the time of construction, but now revealed externally and rendered internally, are of 400mm thick roughly cut and found sandstone set in lime mortar.

The new kitchen and living room wrap the rear external wall of the original cottage, and the rough sandstone wall forms one side of the kitchen and dining room, contrasted by the white walls, concrete floors and exposed timber rafters of the new spaces.