Sandstone fireplace and garden walls in Bilgola Beach

A floor-to-ceiling sandstone fireplace under a raked ceiling, with sandstone block garden walls, steps and a crazy-paved path outside.

Inside this Bilgola Beach home, a sandstone chimney breast rises from the hearth to the peak of a raked living room ceiling. Outside, sandstone block walls hold the garden beds, sandstone steps lead up to the house and a crazy-paved path runs along the foot of an old rubble wall.

The chimney breast is Sydney sandstone laid in a tight random ashlar pattern, with the natural banding and colour changes of the stone left on show. Each piece is dressed by hand so the joints stay fine, and the stone wraps the firebox opening and lines a recessed log store beside it.

The hearth is a raised sandstone plinth topped with a thick slab of recycled timber that runs the width of the fireplace and doubles as a bench. A strip of LED lighting under the hearth makes it appear to float off the floor, and a pair of wall lights is fixed into the stone above the firebox.

Outside, the garden walls are coursed sandstone blocks in a wide mix of colours, with one wall curving around a bed of cycads. Further along, a weathered sandstone rubble wall sits above the crazy-paved path, the kind of older stonework that suits a lush coastal garden.