Dressed for success |
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Last November, Gaelene and Howard Falconer could be found hovering – some might say hiding – in their office while a team of designers added the finishing touches to their family home. They were making changes to almost every room, leaving the Falconers with a fresh new look in their French Provincial-style house at Matangi, near Hamilton.
The couple didn’t have much say in this extensive makeover; instead, they told the six Waikato interior design stores involved what they hoped for, then let them have their stylish way. “They used our home as a canvas, as a showcase for their work,” says Gaelene who, with Howard, has raised four children there.
The Falconers offered their property last year for the makeover as a fundraiser for Hamilton’s annual hot-air balloon festival run by Balloons over Waikato Charitable Trust. Festival event manager Michele Connell had come up with the idea of asking local retailers and designers to be part of a project where each would decorate a room in a home which would then be open to the public for a weekend festival fundraiser.
So the ASB Balloomin Gorgeous Makeover House was duly launched in 2007 with a makeover of Michele’s own rural villa (see NZ House & Garden, November 2008) – a great success. The Falconers’ home was chosen for the second event and about 1100 people visited their revamped property last November, raising a tidy sum for the balloon festival and leaving the family with new paintwork, curtains and some furnishings and ideas they might never have considered.
The Falconers built on their Waikato lifestyle block only 12 years ago but the elegant, understated home has long since melded with the lush green landscape and looks as if it has been there much longer. The former Tokoroa dairy farmers were seduced by the peace and beauty of this Matangi country lane when they were hunting for land. “All we could hear were the birds. It was so quiet,” says Gaelene.
Howard loved the idea of building their home and he worked full-time on the project with a builder. “I’d done a lot of cowsheds in the past,” he jokes.
They settled on the timeless attractions of rural French architecture as a template, choosing old-style solid plaster walls and oiled cedar and rimu joinery. The house has a steeply pitched iron roof, slim windows, elegant proportions and a handsome front entrance with sturdy pillars and terracotta tiling.
“People always say it has a nice feel about it, a soul of its own,” says Gaelene.
The timing was perfect for a makeover; the children had all left home – each taking their bedroom furniture with them – and Gaelene and Howard had already made a start on redecorating.
Designers worked on the four upstairs bedrooms, the formal downstairs living room and the large, more relaxed family room. The smallest bedroom at the top of the stairs has now become an exquisite nursery, repainted in cool creams and taupe. The wardrobe doors have been refitted with French-style wire mesh panels and a wall installation of replica monarch butterflies provides a burst of colour.
Gaelene says this is the room where visitors have traditionally put babies to sleep so they’re close to the action downstairs. And, perhaps thinking ahead to future grandchildren, she and Howard are pleased with the changes.
Another light, airy bedroom is now fitted in blue and green retro florals and painted in a subtle pearl lustre, reprising a look from the 1950s. The neighbouring bedroom is more masculine in style with faux leather wallpaper, a deep chocolate and black colour scheme and some retro Kiwiana features.
Gaelene is delighted with the previously tired master bedroom’s luxurious new look in chocolate, cream and bronze. The Falconers had just bought a new bed and wanted to keep it, as well as their antique dresser.
Downstairs, the designers enhanced the formal living room with beautiful soft furnishings and cream linen curtains to complement the French green walls, the stone fireplace, artworks and other striking pieces the Falconers already owned. Similarly, the family room is a mix of new colours and textures working with existing features; in this room the hues are more mellow and earthy, reflecting the tones of the matai floor.
Both these rooms open to the outdoors through generous doors and windows that frame the Falconers’ meticulously kept gardens and courtyards. After some design help getting started, Gaelene manages the gardening herself in what she describes as an easy programme of “spray, mulch, clip”. She also mows the extensive lawn, having taken over from a commercial mower who “wasn’t fussy enough”.
The Falconers planted their gardens in a simple colour palette of white and deep burgundy. White plants include time-honoured ‘Iceberg’ roses, white agapanthus and arum lilies and the burgundy accents are achieved with copper beech trees and ‘The Prince’ rose.
For the makeover, outdoor design firms worked on the grounds, introducing sturdy wooden and marble furnishings and accessories to enhance the Falconers’ extensive planting and paving.
The feedback from the many visitors who toured the house during the open weekend has been great and the whole family is thrilled with their home’s new look. Says Howard, with more than a touch of understatement, “It was a bit like sprucing it up for a wedding”.
Story: Denise Irvine
Photographs: Nicola Topping
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