Home is...

Auckland’s Jess Britten tells how she and fiancé Warren Durling are renovating a splendid hall.

Warren serendipitously found The Hall online while searching for one-bedroom places and we thought we’d check it out out of curiosity. Now we can’t imagine life without it.

Our first year has been one big experiment. I move our mismatched collection of furniture and objects around all the time and with each shift the large space feels more homely.

For us it’s the little moments that build a strong connection to our unconventional home: the cups of tea in bed, dinner together at the dining table, our games of backgammon and my obsessive desire to keep The Hall clean and orderly – this is a somewhat futile attempt to deal with the chaos of perpetual renovations.

I love hearing Warren arrive home from work. We immediately start cooking dinner together, then we eat and chat about the highlights and lowlights of our day. In the back of my mind I’m thinking, ‘What is this life, that I get to do this, here, every day, with this amazing man?’ @hallweneed

“One of the perks of having very high windows? We can get out of the shower and wander around without anyone seeing!”