Pull on your gumboots

36 LAUREN GROVE

For Theresa Dodd, moving house is about opportunity, sacrifice and taking chances in life. It was an opportunity in the early childhood sector that brought Theresa travelling from suburban One Tree Hill to a job on the Howick/Whitford fringe some 12 years ago. Shortly afterwards, Simon, who heads a transport company, suggested that a shift closer to reduce their daily commute might also enable them to realise the dream of building a new home.

Their golden opportunity to do both came by chance when they found this block of land that was the last section in the Ardmore Heights subdivision. It happened to be near where Theresa’s mother had settled, and where her sister now lives.

Theresa and Simon bought here in 2006, designed their house the following year and moved in midway through 2008, almost 10 years ago.

Working with the former design-and-build company Sovereign Homes, they planned every detail, from the addition of a window seat in their bedroom to the installation of a fully equipped butler’s pantry off the main kitchen.

They also incorporated key features that Theresa had seen in homes while living overseas.

This home’s traditional lines are a nod to homes in Cambridge, England, where the couple met, and to neighbouring homes out here. Theresa’s large wellequipped laundry is her interpretation of Canadian mudrooms that are a practical second entrance/storage area for dirty footwear, coats and the like.

Committed to quality materials, Theresa specified the same built-in cabinetry, stone benchtop and floor tiles in her laundry as in the kitchen, butler’s pantry and bathrooms.

“I wanted my laundry to be just as pretty as the rest of my house,” she says.

The house comprises carpeted formal areas, informal living with kwila timber flooring and a separate spa pool room, all designed for the best of town and country living.

“There’s nothing like taking off the suit at the end of the day, pulling on the gumboots and enjoying your backyard,” she says.

They can do so here from their 100sq m pine timber deck that connects their living areas to views that take in Ardmore and Clevedon on one side and Red Hills and Papakura towards Clevedon on the other.

This home is their extended family’s natural focal point for every occasion, from Christmas to christenings and the Sky Tower’s annual Guy Fawkes fireworks. Theresa says it is easy for her young nieces and nephews playing outside to be supervised from indoors. For the adults, there is safe, easy access to the spa pool in its separate all-weather pool house, where Theresa and Simon make their big decisions in life.

This decision to downsize has come about with Theresa’s change of career into nutrition studies and a planned related business venture.

Drawing parallels with their chance discovery of this property, she says they’ve decided to pursue this opportunity, even though they’d only just completed the implement shed and the hard landscaping around the property.

“Leaving here is a sacrifice,” she says. “Most people don’t recognise opportunities when they see them and they think they are dressed up as hard work. Opportunity is around the corner for everyone if you recognise it and you’re willing to make sacrifices.”

Of life’s opportunities, she says: “I look at this as a season, the step between the long term goals. It’s just the step we have to take in order to achieve that.”

For their two Dobermanns, that is likely to mean street walks instead of free run of the paddocks, till they can build again. Size (more or less):

Land 10,257sq m, house 253sq m.

CV

Price guide:

$1,255,000.

Feb 17. Sat/Sun 1-1.45pm or by appointment. Ardmore School, Papakura High School.

Auction: Inspect: Schools: Contact:

Scott Franks, Harcourts, 021 027 272 18.

On the web:

harcourts.co.nz/ MKU24594