On a spacious 2.5-acre Northern Rivers property, Natalie’s busy household had plenty of room, but not the right room: somewhere quiet to work and meet clients, away from a full house. Their Western Red Cedar Melwood Workshed, set beside the pool, gave them exactly that, a calm, light-filled office that proves it’s the right room that matters, not the amount of room you have.
Tag: home office
No road? No problem
Scotland Island, off Sydney’s Northern Beaches, is reached only by boat or barge, with steep bush blocks, unsealed tracks and no stores. So how do you build there? Meet three islanders, a boatbuilder, a family chasing sunshine, and a couple working from the woods, whose Melwoods were barged across the water as modular panels and built on site in places conventional construction couldn’t.
Many problems. One solution.
Jane and Richard faced a wall of constraints: a home on Sydney’s Upper North Shore they didn’t want to leave, a small sloping block that ruled out most backyard buildings, and Richard’s late international calls taking over the bedroom while the household tried to sleep. One Melwood Mod, on a forgotten corner of the garden, solved every one of these… and more.
Better out than up for this heritage home
His two daughters needed their own rooms, but Steve’s study was taking up the third bedroom. This heritage home on Sydney’s Northern Beaches had run out of space. Rather than the cost and red tape of building up, he looked out, adding a detached Melwood home office in the garden and giving the house its third bedroom back.
Every nook needs a cranny
With five people in a small Wollongong cottage, Jenny’s family needed flexible extra space, not another fixed room. Their Melwood Porch, The Cranny, is a study, craft centre, music lounge, guest room and teen hangout space in one, thriftly furnished start to finish on a Facebook Marketplace budget.
Tiny block, big rethink
With both parents working from home and a teenager needing his bedroom back, James and Liz needed a home office and a workshop, but had only a tiny block to work with. Standard buildings wouldn’t fit, so Greenspan customised a Melwood Mod into one building doing the work of two.
Room to grow – in more ways than one
A cubby house outgrown. A corner of a North Bondi garden waiting for something more. Fred and Deborah’s Melwood Mod has been growing with their family – and into its surroundings – ever since.
Bold and beautiful
When a Sydney family needed more space without the cost of an extension, they built something far better than functional – an all-black Workshed Studio 28 with striking three-lite doors, a bathroom better than the one in the main house, and room for a family band.
Could you instantly write off $20K?
Australia’s $20,000 instant asset write-off has been extended to cover the 2025-26 income year. Eligible small businesses with aggregated turnover under $10 million can immediately deduct the full cost of qualifying assets under $20,000 first used or installed ready for use between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026. From 1 July 2026, the threshold is legislated to revert to $1,000. The extension creates a defined window for investing in a home office or business premises setup, including PreCrafted modular workspaces.
Designed around the details
Award-winning children’s book illustrator Max Hamilton built a Melwood Workshed 3263 (3.2m x 6.3m) as a dedicated illustration studio at her Southern Sydney home, after renovation quotes came in over budget. The studio was customised around south-facing light for detailed watercolour work, with aluminium full glass double doors, custom 1200 x 1200 double-hung windows flanking the entrance, and a gable-end window creating a corner of glass. Exterior finishes include pre-primed weatherboard cladding on the two prominent elevations, painted in ‘Ironstone’ to match the main house, with ‘Shale Grey’ Colorbond roofing.