Upcycled House

Ocean Grove, Victoria

Upcycled House is the Ocean Grove home of the architects Michael and Tamara Bell, directors of Freehand Projects, who have lived in it since 2010, having bought it from Tamara's parents. The house was built in the early 1980s by a local builder and architectural draftsman; the Bells' renovation, completed in 2022, went up rather than out, with a new first-floor volume at the front holding the main bedroom and a two-storey void over the living area. The pressed red bricks were dug up from the garden, cleaned and laid again for the new masonry walls, their third use, since the original owner had salvaged them from Geelong houses demolished in the 1970s; the bluestone floor slabs replaced delaminating slate, chosen in a nod to Roy Grounds' National Gallery of Victoria, and the ceilings are off-the-shelf plywood. Freehand's own words: "Raising the ceiling creates a grand sense of space while maintaining a modest building footprint".

The card shows the void from the living room: the full-height library wall with its ladder, books above and a run of records along the bottom shelf, the angled brick pier that anchors the room, the plywood ceiling, the bluestone floor and two mid-century armchairs. Michael Bell had "wanted a double-height library with a ladder ever since I was a kid". On the brick: "Recycled pressed red bricks used in the original landscaping were dug up, cleaned and re-used again for the new masonry walls including the angled brick pier that anchors the living room and frames views out to the garden." Chris Cowley Builders built it, Simon Anderson Consultants engineered it and Pavilion Joinery made the joinery; Steph McGlenchy took the photograph.

Freehand Projects

Freehand Projects is an architecture and design practice in Ocean Grove, on Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula, run by its directors Michael and Tamara Bell. Upcycled House is their own home.

freehandprojects.com.au · Instagram

Photography @stephmcglenchy. Architects @freehandprojects. Builders @chriscowleybuilders. Engineer @sac_engineers. Joinery @pavilionjoinery. Seen via @thedesignfiles.

The picture comes from this post on Instagram.

Researched September 2026. I credit each piece as carefully as I can; if you know more about this one, message me on Instagram.