Red-zoned home gets a new life
Four years after dismantling their red-zoned cottage in Christchurch, Alison Locke and Mike Moss have rebuilt their home at the base of the Grampians.
Their Nelson home may be new, but it has a rich history. It has been built using re-purposed materials and a variety of salvaged native timber.
‘‘It’s odd having the familiarity of some of these pieces that we have carried with us. I really like the sense that it is a house that has a history,’’ Moss said.
The green weatherboards came from a workers’ cottage overlooking the Avon River built in the 1880s that was home to Locke’s parents.
Kauri floorboards from a neighbouring Christchurch cottage were used for the staircase, while the kitchen joinery was made from matai and totara. The internal doors are on their fourth use, having started out in a block of flats in Christchurch.
It has come together to form their new home in the Braemar Eco-Village in Nelson where Moss said they were ‘‘welcomed with open arms.’’
Moss said they were lucky to find a section close to town without covenants preventing the use of recycled materials.
‘‘Here people thought the idea of a recycled house was just brilliant, where the ethos was to conserve and not build big houses, to use renewable materials.’’
Before the September 2010 earthquake, the couple embarked on a plan to build a new home using materials salvaged from Locke’s parents’ 1880s cottage and their previous house.
Construction was well underway and the house almost closed in when the February 2011 earthquake struck.
It was another year before the couple would learn the land on which the house stood was redzoned.
As the homes surrounding theirs in Christchurch were completely demolished, the couple decided they wanted to salvage everything they could. Moss said he didn’t know of anyone else in the area who did so.
‘‘It took about three weeks with a lot of help from family and friends,’’ Moss said.
Everything except the framing, wiring, gib board and wallpaper was packed into a container, then it was a case of working out where they wanted to live and finding a section they could rebuild on.
The couple took a year off work, lived in Wellington and spent time with family while they worked out where they wanted to live.
In that time, Moss did a course at the Centre for Fine Woodworking in Wakapuaka which in part led the couple to consider settling in Nelson.
They began building last October, and moved into their new home in November.
The couple worked with Wellington-based Space Craft Architects who designed the home around the existing windows and the site, as well as the many other constraints of dealing with repurposed materials.
‘‘I certainly couldn’t visualised how to use it all.
‘‘It was a lot like a kid with a box of Lego; you have got one house made out of it and you pull it all to bits, put it back in the box and then make another one but it looks completely different.’’
He estimated a third of the have materials used in the build were recycled. Some from their home in Christchurch, other parts from the demolition yard. He estimated the value of recycled materials in the house was about $150,000.
Moss said he liked the inherent sustainability of the house, which was lighter on resources than most.
Having moved seven times since the quakes, the couple are glad to be settled.
Despite the challenges, Moss said both he and Locke never felt constrained or like their lives had been on hold.
‘‘This wasn’t what we planned to do, we had other ideas about the direction our life would go ... but there have been huge bonuses, it’s that thing about opportunity coming out of crisis.’’