ALL THE FUN STUFF!

We’re midway into our real-life building project and Oliver and Ella are super excited to see their new home taking shape.

“It’s nice to think of a the g d vibes going into our home”

It’s three months into our My New Home build, and it’s all action at our riverside West Auckland site, where the house is starting to take shape.

The foundations and subfloor are down, the wall framing is up and the completion of the roof has been celebrated with the traditional “roof shout”.

Now the building team from JR Hosking Carpenters & Co are pu€ing their minds to installing the window and door joinery and cladding the exterior, so the plumber and electrician can come in for their first fix. The piping, wiring and all-important data cabling all needs to be run inside the walls, and the Haier ducted air conditioning system installed in the ceiling cavity, before the interior linings can go on.

Homeowners Oliver Driver and Ella Mizrahi couldn’t be more thrilled. “We’re super-excited about how things are looking,” says Oliver. “It’s been good to see the di‹erent rooms and be able to walk through it – it’s even be€er than we imagined!

“For me the highlight has been ge€ing the Vantage aluminium joinery in,” he says. “We’ve had wooden joinery in all the houses we’ve lived in so we didn’t know what it would look like. We were scared it might be a li€le thick and overpowering, but we love it – it looks fantastic.”

The smooth progress on the Te Atatu building site is largely down to more than three years of meticulous planning by Oliver, Ella and their architect David Ponting. “We bought the land and sat on it for a bit while we were having our kids,” says Oliver. “That gave us lots of time to get the design right.

“The hardest thing has been to try to understand two-dimensional plans in three dimensions,” he says. “But the first time we saw it with the floor down we could see it’s a good-sized house.” Oliver recommends asking your architect to provide computer generated elevations to give you an idea of the way the spaces work together.

So far there haven’t been any major surprises during the fixed-price build. “It’s all been signed o€ a long time ago, and our builder James Hosking has been phenomenal,” says Oliver. “His solid young team have been working super-hard, but also having a good time, so it’s nice to think of all the good vibes going into our home. It’s great to be working with people who care about you.”

Although at one stage Oliver did toy with the idea of lending a hand with a hammer himself, now he’s glad he decided to stick to his day job directing the television series Power Rangers, and leave the building to the experts. “When we come to the site to have a look we’re probably more of an annoyance than anything.”

With the build progressing at pace, Oliver and Ella are working two steps ahead, choosing the furnishings and fi‰ings that will transform the shell into a home. “This is all the fun stu€,” says Ella. “Lighting plan, window treatments plan, door hardware plan – it’s incredible how many choices there are to make!”

One of the most important decisions was what type and colour of flooring to use. They had

insulation and a Haier Robustwill conditioning system ducted airkeep the home toasty

Looking north through the living area, with large sliding doors leading to the deck on thele and the kitchen area on the right

All the Vantage aluminium door frames are taller than normalto accommodate Oliver’s 198cmheight

to the The covered deck facesfor views of the river west