SCHOOL ZONES:
Helensville Primary School & Kaipara College.
CONTACT:
Looie James, Harcourts, 027 706 5790.
Twice now Anu Raasakka has finished a major house project and announced: "That's it. We're not doing another renovation."
Her end line has become something of an in-house joke for Anu and her fiance, Antony Meehan, as they tick off their fifth such project including one they rented and redecorated.
Along the way, they've renovated with every intention of staying long-term, until temptation has come along in the form of a "for sale" sign.
"Maybe it's an addiction, I don't know," says Anu of the projects they have thrived on since meeting in Holland 12 years ago when she was doing up a tiny 1800s brick townhouse in Utrecht.
The same skills she called on to demolish that interior back to the red brick and rebuild it have been applied to their cottage on quarter of an acre in Cockle Bay, their Remuera rental and their beachside Keith Hay home renovation in Snells Beach.
At the beach they'd just put in the kitchen when they saw this Victorian villa for sale in February 2012. "When we first saw the house we'd headed off in different directions as we've always done but, after 10 minutes, Anu walked out and said, 'No'. The more we talked the more we could see what it could become rather than what it currently was," says Antony.
Despite their experience and honest communication, it was the awkward kitchen that almost put them off the project until they realised the solution was staring them in the face.
Image 1 of 5: Experience and a good eye for aesthetics has ensured a pleasant villa is now a gorgeous one
"Once we realised we could push through the wall into the laundry we thought, 'That's how we can do this'. Figuring out how to create a scullery was the deal maker."
The Kitchen Works design team from Warkworth oriented the kitchen to the north and the west-facing views beyond the split-level, wraparound deck. Macrocarpa benches and brushed chrome European tapware in the kitchen and scullery/laundry, plus matching timber in the bespoke hutch dresser tie the two spaces together visually.
Elsewhere, the fireplaces, the corbels and the high, 3.6m stud throughout the original 125sq m ground floor were the big appeal.
Throughout, Anu's choice of a soft green/blue palette and new commercial-grade bamboo flooring maximises the connection from the front bedrooms to the living areas, the adjacent third bedroom and their 45sq m mezzanine master bedroom upstairs.
They have planted more than 30 varieties of fruit trees and installed three vegetable gardens in addition to the produce they're picking, preserving and cooking from their 28sq m greenhouse when they're not at their city jobs in the finance sector.
"We spent three years unravelling the garden, which was a jungle. That back garden used to be a paddock," says Anu.
In keeping with her respect for the style and context of this home, the passionate gardener has chosen to fill two symmetrical front potager-style gardens with edibles planted beneath her rosemary bushes and lemon trees.
They're reminiscent of the tiny Dutch window box that she lavished her attention on back in Utrecht but, with the post-and-rail rather than a traditional picket fence nearby, clearly appropriate to this rural location.
"They are more like English herb boxes, really. We didn't want to create a Ponsonby villa here."
Now these two serial home renovators are on to another project, although this house is proving the most difficult to let go. Perhaps after the next one they might find time to get married, says Antony.
