SCHOOL ZONES:
Matakohe Primary School, Tinopai Primary School, Ruawai College (Year 7-13).
CONTACT:
Catherine Stewart and Leah O’Driscoll, Bayleys, Dargaville; Catherine 027 356 5031 or Leah 027 256 8988.
Breakfast at Trudy and Richard Edlin's place is a double helping of peace and quiet like no other.
Where else can you take your coffee and gaze at the tranquillity of St Bathans' Blue Lake in Central Otago in one direction with Northland's Kaipara Harbour in the background?
Right here on the shores of the Kaipara Harbour at Matakohe, is the place where this visionary couple have served up something geographically impossible.
Their rustic, bach-style home is the real life component of their family dynamic.
The Central Otago connection is in the imagery that runs up from the front face of their breakfast bar to the rear splashback, created from a photo taken by Trudy's mother Wendy Dyer.
Wendy is a keen amateur photographer who lives in Timaru and answered their request for "trees but no blue sky" with this photo that Trudy and Richard worked into their kitchen renovation.
Every element is connected, including the floor tiles which tone in with the grey shingle in foreground of the breakfast bar scene.
"On a really nice day you can open the place up and the whole house feels as if it is outside," says Richard, looking out to the tidal waters of the Kaipara Harbour where he fishes for snapper.
He came here 12 years ago, sold on the lifestyle and the half-round barn that enabled him to relocate his boat-building business from Henderson, West Auckland.
"I'm a creative person and this was a blank canvas for building a house, laying out the land and doing all the things you could not do on a section in Auckland," he says.
He has created paddocks for sheep and cattle and planted a pip, stone and citrus orchard in keeping with his vision of self-sufficiency.
213 Metcalfe Road, Matakohe. Photo / Supplied
His design eye is in the modular home that unfolds beneath mono-pitched roof lines, with rough-sawn plywood cladding, pillars of weathered pine, a sheltered courtyard and the large deck built for his wedding to Trudy two years ago.
Inside, this home is aglow with plywood walls and exposed trusses, with neutral paint finishes and flooring choices as the decorative counterpoint.
"I wanted it to suit the country environment and to have a bachy feel. It's a permanent-living bach. It's a glorious place to live in."
The "west wing" with its two bedrooms, play area and bathroom is perfect for their blended family of two young daughters.
213 Metcalfe Road, Matakohe. Photo / Supplied
"It's ideal as guest/homestay wing with its own entrance that avoids the need to trek through the kitchen."
Richard's choice of interior is significant, too. The grain of the plywood in the bedroom ceilings reminds him of the clouds.
"Polyurethaned, it is a nice golden colour, like kauri." In the home office, he has installed shelves of macrocarpa.
Drawing on his boat-building skills, he chose teak for the shower linings and the parquet floors in the showers of both bathrooms.
213 Metcalfe Road, Matakohe. Photo / Supplied
In the main bathroom, the vanity is teak, as is the timber detail at the end of the bath. Richard says it was a very expensive option, but worth it for the oils in the timber that protect against rot.
For Trudy and Richard who met seven years ago, this home's dream connection with the outdoors has them thinking about doing the same near the big-boat sailing opportunities of the Bay of Islands.
"The self-sufficiency aspect of this we are really going to miss," says Richard. "It has been a privilege to set this up and enjoy it for what it is."
