SALLY & MARK ADAMS

RUNNER-UP

Sally and Mark Adams had a plan to subdivide their Northland lifestyle block, so as they got older they would be able to downsize to a smaller section on the same property.

Thinking they‘d need somewhere to live while the building was going on, Sally snapped up three old North Shore bus shelters she saw on Trade Me for $300 each. Plans for the subdivision went to the council, and Sally and Mark were told they could divide the property – but they wouldn’t be able to have cats or dogs, or sheep or other stock on the new smaller property, because it was too close to native bush.

“And we thought it was a bit silly to live in the country without a dog!”

So now, with no plans to subdivide or rebuild, the question had to be asked: what to do with three old bus shelters?

“So I thought we could use them to make a shed up nearer the house,” Sally says. “People said you can’t do that next to your home, it will look like a tinker’s yard. But we thought why not!”

The couple found a level spot and lined the old bus shelters up. The local Four Square was throwing some sliding doors away, friends gave them a couple of old windows, and they picked up a ute load of Perspex from Trade Me. They already had the floor tiles and the 1930 Shacklock wood stove (although they had to invest in the new chimney).

While traces of the old bus shelters can be seen – one of the panes of glass is still tagged and they have left the Auckland Transport stickers on – now it’s a garden shed-slash-greenhouseslash-orangery, the perfect spot for raising seedlings, drying garlic and shallots and ripening bunches of bananas, as well as Sally’s houseplants.

She would like the cosy space to be called The Sitooterie (a Scottish word meaning an informal summer house or gazebo). But it’s proved difficult to rebrand the original building materials.

“The grandchildren still call it the bus shelters,” she says philosophically. “It’s proving very hard to change the name.”