Arundel coastal entertainer

The brief

A very outdated pool area in need of renovation. Our clients wanted a refreshed entertaining space with a new alfresco and outdoor kitchen, somewhere to make the most of Gold Coast summers. The bones were right: a pool in the right spot and room to entertain. The finishes and the layout had simply dated past the point of repair. Rather than patching it piece by piece, the brief became a single coordinated renovation.

The design

The design rebuilt the space around the pool: travertine paving with strip drains to solve the site’s drainage issues, a glass pool fence, composite decking, and a spa under a flyover roof. Low maintenance planting keeps the focus on living, not gardening, with every material chosen for coastal conditions as much as for looks, so the space stays beautiful with minimal upkeep. The outdoor kitchen, alfresco and poolside planting were designed as one composition rather than three separate projects. Sight lines run clean from the kitchen bench to the pool fence, so whoever is cooking is still part of the party.

The result

One connected entertaining space that runs from the kitchen to the water, built by MJ Landscape & Maintenance. From the outdoor kitchen to the pool edge, the whole area now works as one room, designed for the way Gold Coast summers are actually lived. The project began the way all of ours do, with an on-site consultation and a construction-ready set of drawings. Levels, drainage, materials and planting were resolved on paper first, so the build ran clean from demolition to handover.

Arundel features on our landscape design on the Gold Coast page, alongside our Mt Tamborine hinterland project. To see how a renovation like this starts, read about our landscape design process.