Covered Alfresco with Outdoor Fireplace – Western Victoria

Before work began, the rear of the home opened onto open ground with no sheltered entertaining area. There was nowhere to sit under cover, nowhere to run heating for cooler evenings, and no structural connection between the house and the backyard. The first stage was the groundwork everything else depends on: a new concrete slab poured alongside the existing home, with footings excavated and formed to the right levels. The roof junction at the house was opened in a controlled way - a planned tie-in, not an afterthought - so the new structure would load correctly against the existing building. Steel posts and a beam followed on the slab, temporarily braced while the frame was secured. Brick stacks sat ready for the pillars and fireplace. Even at this mid-build point, the site was organised and the sequence deliberate.

he finished space is a large, open-sided covered alfresco - an outdoor room rather than a simple patio cover. A hip roof in light Colorbond steel extends from the existing home, with matching gutters and downpipes. Square brick pillars support the roof at the open edges; the same grey brick ties the structure visually to the house. The standout feature is the integrated outdoor fireplace: a full brick chimney rising above the roofline, with a hearth at floor level inside the covered area. On the concrete slab, the space is level, durable and easy to maintain - the same in-house concreting capability that shaped the footings and pour at the start. Under the roof, the ceiling is lined and fitted with recessed downlights - so the area works after dark, not just on sunny afternoons. From inside the covered space, the outlook opens to paddocks and tree lines - the kind of semi-rural block common across Western Victoria, where a well-built alfresco becomes the main place you actually live outdoors. Because SMP handled concreting, steel, framing, brickwork and roofing under one roof, the client had a single accountable builder from slab to handover - not a chain of separate trades to coordinate.