The owners of this 1960s house have made it their own without sacrificing any of the mid-century character they first fell in love with.
Andrew and Fiona Jack have made some changes but kept almost all the original features, including the cork floors, rimu ply wall linings, built-in furniture and concertina doors.
They’ve even embraced more quirky elements such as the bright blue bath, and the telephone hatch incorporated into one wall of the lounge.
It felt like a ‘‘time capsule of mid 20th-century New Zealand living’’.
‘‘The real estate agent’s comment that it ‘was ahead of its time but then never kept up’ seemed to describe it perfectly,’’ they say.
‘‘A house built in 1967 with wall insulation and double-glazed windows would have been pretty forward-thinking for New Zealand at the time. But when we purchased the property in 2017, it was still in largely original condition and in need of TLC.’’
Only the third owners of the house, they have no idea if it was architecturally designed but suspect the local health professional who had it built was very much into design and detail.
The couple love the home’s ‘‘clever’’ architectural features, which include internal windows for borrowed light. One of these offers a sight line from the backyard, through the foyer and lounge, to the harbour.
They also appreciate that the living spaces are not entirely open-plan; the kitchen is partially separated from the lounge.
‘‘We adopted a ‘once-it’s-gone, it’s-gone’ approach in order to preserve the many period features, even the ones we at first weren’t taken with — like the astroturf on the front deck — but grew to appreciate the more we lived with them.’’
While they have added skylights, most of the Pinex acoustic ceiling tiles are still intact, as are the vinyl concertina doors, original lights and fitted bookcases.
The built-in sofa only required new squabs and the small door which allowed the telephone to be passed from the lounge through to the study provided hours of fun for their children, who liked to poke their heads through it when they were young.
After adding a wood burner and replacing the roof and windows, the couple embarked on a major kitchen renovation in 2021. This involved removing a non-original partition unit that not only obscured a picture window but had divided the space into two small areas with a bottle-neck in between.
Contemporary cabinets replaced the part of the kitchen that was beyond restoration and new appliances were added. Meanwhile, the original cupboards, drawers and bench tops that were salvageable were sanded back to remove years of grime and wear, and given a fresh coat of polyurethane.
Wood kept from a renovation at their previous house was used to make a new bench seat and floating shelves; they also added a bamboo wallpaper as a nod to the design that was there originally.
Then, just days after the old kitchen was ripped out, New Zealand entered its second Covid lockdown. This resulted in long delays and months spent cooking meals in the lounge and washing dishes in the bathroom sink. With the kitchen finally nearing completion, the joinery company went into liquidation and it took over a year for the final part to arrive from Germany so the cupboard doors could go back on.
Repainting the exterior also took much longer than expected, with numerous rotten weatherboards needing to be replaced.
The rest of the renovations were mostly cosmetic: stripping wallpaper and painting walls and ceilings.
Since completing the renovations, the couple have enjoyed sourcing vintage items from second-hand stores and auctions. Their favourites include a G-Plan ‘‘Fresco’’ sideboard and an Arne Jacobsen Cylinda Line coffee and tea set, both of which date from the year the house was built. An Alessi kettle was discovered for €20 in a second hand store in Rapello, Italy, and the Vono lounge suite with original floral upholstery came from a crib in Taieri Mouth.
Homes of this era have a timeless quality and the family is among a new generation discovering their charms.
‘‘We feel the house exemplifies the principles of mid-century architecture — functionality, simplicity and natural materials — which is why it works as well for family living now as it did when it was built, and why we wanted to keep it as original as possible,’’ they say.
