A Dunedin couple's villa extension focused on retaining the character while embracing the future.
With a shared love of character homes, it comes as no surprise that Dunedin GPs Jennifer Hill and husband Doug fell for a 106-year-old villa. And when the couple wanted to extend their beloved home to accommodate a growing family, it had to be done sympathetically while providing modern comforts for them and their children - Emily, 9, Thomas, 6, Grace, 3, and Jacob, 9 months.
"Villas make fantastic family homes and lend themselves to renovation," Hill says.
"We wanted a big home for our busy family to grow up in and remember fondly as their family home. We wanted to retain the villa look on the outside and continue this inside so you couldn't tell where the old house stopped and the new house started."
Rather than "popping the top", they decided to extend out the back and banish the remnants of a 1980s renovation.
Lowered ceilings were returned to their original 3.3m height, while floorboards, architraves and skirting boards in the extension were matched to the original ones. Tongue-and-groove wall panels in the new hallways are like those in the original halls, and window and door frames were made to match those in the older part of the house.
After its transformation, the home has a formal lounge, family living, kitchen and dining area to the left of an L-shaped hallway, while five bedrooms, a study and three bathrooms are situated on the right.
Hill admits restoring decorative elements of the villa was more costly than expected.
"The formal lounge ceiling cornices were done by a plasterer, taking more than a week, full-time. The ceiling roses were replaced as the original plaster ceiling couldn't be saved."
When it came to decorating, Hill wanted a style that had the clean lines of modern living, so ordered a kitchen like one she had seen in a magazine. With a large family to feed, it needed to be practical and have plenty of bench space.
"The linen-finish stainless-steel bench doesn't show scratches as badly as a flat finish," she says. "For functionality, the bench top is fantastic. As it is all one piece, it is easy to clean."
With help from a colour consultant, she went for a classic palette of grey tones for the home's interior, which also provide a good background for accent colours. "We are pleased to have renovated our century-old home and brought it into 2010, all ready for modern families to live in and enjoy for another 100 years.
Style Tips
High expectations: Never lower ceilings in villas. It might make your home easier to heat, but never looks right.
Colour co-ordinator: Using a colour consultant made painting their home much easier. "I told them what I wanted and they pulled together fabrics that went with my ideas - it was too overwhelming looking at hundreds of material samples," Hill says.
Base instincts: In older homes it's worth making the effort to remove carpet and restore wooden floorboards, where practical, because of the character they add.
Leanne Moore is the editor of Your Home & Garden. See the latest issue, for the full story on this home and other ideas for your place.
