The aim when remodelling this Queenstown house was not just to modernise, but to create a warm and thermally efficient home, Kim Dungey reports.
From dark and dated to bright and beautiful, this Queenstown house has had quite the transformation.
Built around the late 1970s, the Fernhill home was in desperate need of a makeover.
Out went the exterior cladding of orange bricks and macrocarpa weatherboards, to be replaced by fluted concrete blocks and charred timber. Tired carpets were swapped for bamboo flooring, bathroom laminates made way for stylish tiles and the living room got a high, raked ceiling to make the most of the million-dollar views.
DCD Ltd — which carried out the work, earning a regional gold award in the "renovations over $2 million" category of the Master Builders House of the Year competition — says the owners bought what had been a long-term rental and planned to carry out a "light-touch renovation". However, they ended up taking the house down to the slab.
"It basically started as a tidy-up," managing director Dennis Dowling explains.
"Then we found that it was crooked, not level and leaking."
Although the original layout was largely retained, the alterations designed by Stacey Farrell included opening the kitchen up to the living area, incorporating the footprint of the former conservatory into the house and widening the central hallway. The original rimu framing was used to line the stairs and the outdoor deck was almost tripled in size.
The floor plan also includes a studio flat on the lower level, which is accessed by a hidden internal door. A bed platform was created over an unusual set-up in the foundation and a plant room was added in what had been a basement area.
"The key thing was to try to keep all the existing slab work and retaining. So we insulated over the slab downstairs and then poured a levelling slab in the garage to bring it up to the new slab height, which was about 60mm taller than it used to be."
"We also had to put a concrete nib around the outside to make sure we had adequate clearance between the concrete and the ground."
Triple-glazed skylights and fluted glass capture light while maintaining privacy. Clean lines and subdued colours ensure the spectacular view down into Queenstown and the Glenorchy arm of Lake Wakatipu remains the "cornerstone of the property".
"The palette’s very simple and quite recessive, which means that every time you look out the window, [the view] really pops."
Insulating the edges and corners of the concrete slab, as well as underneath floor joists that were previously over bare ground, and then putting in an air barrier helped prevent heat loss and improve thermal efficiency.
While this particular renovation was extensive, sometimes houses are in generally good shape and a few simple steps can make a big difference to how they perform, Mr Dowling says.
He recommends homeowners insulate "wherever they can get to" and eliminate draughts through doors and windows before doing anything else, adding while temperature plays a role comfort is often determined by air movement.
