This home's proven appeal and functionality lies in its wide street frontage, its single-level L-shaped layout, its rear deck, a separate study and choice of two lounges flanking a separate dining area.
Its street frontage is typical of the modernist style of the 1960s and neighbours up the road in this proud street have won the local Manukau street beautification competition several times. Catherine and Kerry's sub-tropical planting choices enhance the house with its slate-paved porch and slate cladding alongside the cedar weatherboards.
As for putting up a fence: "We thought about it for a minute but it didn't make any sense because nobody else has."
Instead this couple has been breaking down barriers. They updated the original closed-in 1960s kitchen with a sleek black and white addition that has two pantries and a generous bench where once a servery kept everyone well beyond arm's length.
For Catherine, who used to work in public health, this is her happy place. "It is a baker's kitchen. I built this for me. I liked to create memories for my kids and grandchildren by baking cakes and bickies." During her self-described "baking bursts", Catherine is within view of the dining area and the "hang out" lounge to the right with its updated log burner on the original brick plinth.
Catherine and Kerry, who works for Watercare, took down the shuttered doors between this lounge and the dining area some time back. Then, during a more recent repaint, they took down the doors between the dining area and the main lounge. "We created this kitchen and made all this what we wanted it to be, a friendly engaging space."
Down the hallway, there are plentiful cupboards on the way past the double-bedrooms, the laundry/powder room and the main bathroom (with wall-mounted TV) to the master bedroom at the end.
Outdoors, beyond the laundry, there's rear access to the single garage, and a covered utility space. The rear veranda, with its grapevine, screens the deck and the pools, plural. The water feature is where the toddlers learn to paddle, the former built-in tiled spa pool where they graduate to on their way to swimming in the main pool.
Catherine and Kerry had ideas of extending out towards the sleepout and patio to accommodate a master en suite, but never quite made it happen. Instead they've made the collective decision to settle in Kuku near the marae.
"While we're the legal owners here, I've always considered myself a visitor to this land," says Catherine. "This move is for our kids to identify with where they come from, to connect to the land and discover who they are."
