Hand-crafted character,
A sense of belonging is the first impression when arriving at 24a Waipapa Rd on the outskirts of Waitara.
This half-hectare property sits at the end of a driveway that runs in past three other rural homes, giving it pleasing seclusion and privacy.
The villa-style home that greets visitors appears to have been here for an appreciable length of time. The combination of boxed-corner weatherboard cladding, corrugated-steel roof, a bay-shaped extension beneath a gable, and shingled gable ends topped with finial details just looks right.
That’s deceptive. Owners Craig and Mel built their home just five years ago after returning from time in the UK. Craig is a qualified builder and the couple put their hearts and souls into creating a special lifestyle here. The land was the initial attraction.
‘‘We liked that it was off the road,’’ Craig says. ‘‘There’s the security of having other people around us, but it feels miles away from everyone.’’
They knew they wanted a character feel to their new home, aiming to achieve the look of a stately old house that could have been sitting here for
100 years. The response from visitors tells them they have done that.
‘‘We just haven’t got the
100-year-old oak trees to go with it,’’ Craig smiles. ‘‘We have planted a couple, but we may not be around to see them mature.’’
Mel agrees. ‘‘Our kids may not even be around either!’’
They are happy their efforts have created the character environment they wanted. ‘‘We looked at a lot of original villas to purchase, but we wanted the mod cons, too, and it was cheaper to build than retrofit an old home.’’
Craig recalls speaking to people who had renovated old homes, who admitted they could have built new for the cost of the work they carried out. ‘‘We skipped that step,’’ he says.
It wasn’t a quick step, though. It took them a year to build the
268sqm new villa while they lived onsite.
‘‘We did it all,’’ says Craig. ‘‘It was very much a labour of love, on weekends and after work,’’ Mel adds.
Their efforts started with the concrete pad and reached to the roof. It included the cladding, insulation and linings in between; the only work contracted out involved specialist areas of plumbing, painting and plastering, that went to skilled tradespeople with whom Craig had worked.
A walk through the house reveals the fine detail and custom finishes that makes it a special, one-off residence.
It starts at the front door, defined by an unusual cantilevered pergola Craig designed himself. Strings of lights fixed to the overhead joists create a special effect in the evening.
Clever touches continue in the foyer entry, where Craig points out the couple of steps that take you up into the hallway to the bedrooms. That’s where the 2.7m height of the ceilings in the foyer and living areas changes to a conventional 2.4m in the rest of the house.
The boards covering those steps and the floors through the foyer into the kitchen and dining area were cut by Craig from Peruvian hardwood sleepers. It took many weeks to run the sleepers through a saw bench and planer, the resulting 15mm-thick boards carefully stacked in the framed-in house to dry, then glued directly to the concrete pad and sealed to create the finely polished floor.
The order of laying is what Craig calls ‘‘randomly uniform’’, and the effect suits the farmhouse styling of the kitchen Mel wanted. That styling was refined by the choice of antiqued metal half-shell drawer handles for the cabinetry, the panelled detail of the doors and drawers, a double butler’s sink, and the retro chimney recess where a modern Belling gas-electric cooker sits instead of a coal range. A sheet of copper-coloured pressed tin is an eye-catching splashback.
A special detail in the kitchen is the barn-style door that Craig built to slide across the pantry space. It’s one of two you have to admire in these living areas.
Sliding windows at the sink bench open to the dedicated barbecue patio and concrete-capped bench of the outdoor kitchen. Stamped concrete forms the patio surface – another special detail from Craig, who notes the variety of concrete finishes he completed during this project.