A young family lived in a garage and loft for two years while completing their dream home. Kim Dungey reports.
Persistence paid off for the owners of this home high on the hill at St Leonards.
Bevan and Deborah Palmer have lived in the harbourside suburb for 10 years but it was when Mr Palmer was working on a house at Pukehiki that he looked across the harbour and saw the rural block.
A walk up to the site one day confirmed it had expansive views towards Taiaroa Head, Mrs Palmer says. But it wasn’t until later that it became available, the owners having decided to move to town: "We approached them about 10 times before they’d sell to us."
After securing their 4ha block, the couple contacted architectural designer Richard Wilden. The house he planned used prefabricated panels, with macrocarpa milled on site used for exposed beams and feature ceilings.
The Palmers had previously built a crib at Waikouaiti and this experience taught them the house should be an L-shape to maximise the sun and views. They also wanted a TV room separate to the open-plan living area and two wings — one containing living areas, the other bedrooms.
Because they couldn’t afford to build the whole house at once, the project was planned in two stages. The first was a two-storeyed section — their home for two years — which consisted of a kitchen and living area (later converted to a garage and workshop), a loft where they slept with their three children, and an adjacent laundry and bathroom.
Busy at work, Mr Palmer brought in builder friends to complete this first stage and later built the rest of the four-bedroom, three-bathroom home with his Southern Coast Construction employees.
With its prominent position above the harbour and light-filled spaces, the home is reminiscent of a lighthouse.
Mr Wilden, whose work on the project was commended at this year’s Otago-Southland ADNZ (Architectural Designers New Zealand) awards, says its form evolved from wanting a higher ceiling in the more public part of the home — the main living area, which has large windows on three sides. Light penetrates even in winter but a large overhang on the northern side prevents the room overheating in summer.
Though the house is 350sq m (including the garage), its scale was reduced by making it look like a series of smaller buildings. And the slender room sizes mean the family are never far from the ever-changing harbour vista.
The 1.2m-wide panels used for the external walls defined the location of windows, plywood providing a rigid air barrier and the construction method allowing the roof to go on quickly, Mr Palmer says.
"We did all the external panels and load-bearing walls, the trusses and roof, then did the internal frames afterwards."
Either side of the living space can be opened up depending on the wind conditions but he particularly enjoys relaxing with friends around the fireplace on the sheltered rear patio. For Mrs Palmer, a core midwife at Queen Mary maternity centre, a favourite spot is the family room, where she likes lying on the couch in the sun with a good book.
The loft is now used by the children for sleep-overs and is home to their drum kit and X-box. Sophie’s bedroom has a built-in window seat and office while rugby-mad Josh and Jake look out on goal posts that Mr Palmer, a coach of the Harbour under-12 team, put up on the lawn.
White walls are a neutral backdrop for colourful artworks and furniture and there is interesting lighting, even in practical areas such as the laundry.
Beneath the stylish interior are several features designed to keep the home warm. These include extra insulation in the roof and in the 150mm-thick walls. The concrete slab has 150mm of polystyrene underneath and fully-insulated edges while solar tubes and a 7kW water booster to the wood-stove heat the water and the floor. A buffer tank stores gathered energy and there is provision for a boiler in the garage.
