Seeing is believing
For those wanting a home that offers plenty of storage then this must be a contender, discovers Robyn Welsh
For a man who loves his wheels, Arnie Gielens thought he was in seventh heaven when he saw the pitched roof of the front garage here for the first time. “I thought it was a separate house,” he says. “I was over my tree. I couldn’t believe it.” This was what he calls “the other shed” and it’s the 52sq m, motorhome-sized, street-side garage that is just a taster for what is further up the driveway.
In the basement, Arnie shows off space that could easily accommodate two cars with plenty of room to spare.
There’s his workshop as well as abundant storage, space about the same size as the main house, he says.
“This is really three houses if you think about it,” says Arnie, who sells motorhomes for a living. For Arnie and his partner Viv Madsen-Ries, an accountant, this 1930s brick house was all about space and character when they bought it in 1999.
Arnie and Viv started the three-stage renovation by opening out the front lounge to a deck with the same exterior cladding as the gables of the house.
Later they reconfigured the back of the house, altering the hallway to open into the new L-shaped kitchen and living area that included the original sunroom.
Past the breakfast bar and around the corner, the business/storage end of their kitchen/laundry is behind closed doors.
Further along the short hallway, there is still more proof of how much well-proportioned potential Arnie and Viv have wrung out of this house, all within its original footprint.
“We had two bedrooms and a sunroom but never a third bedroom,” says Arnie. He once ran a business from here, looking out to the private “little Tuscan corner” that is their rear deck and breakfast spot on sunny mornings.
It is also the long view looking back through the