Sea Change
Houses can be a bit like lifelong ambitions. Just when you think you have achieved your dream, life has something else in store and you find yourself travelling in an entirely different direction.
Take Jo Eddington. A few years ago she was living what she considered the ultimate residential dream – a beachfront house on Waiheke Island and an apartment in Auckland’s Viaduct. Then, after a relationship break-up, she found herself house-hunting on the mainland.
Through a process of elimination, Jo had pinpointed the city fringe suburb of Parnell as the place she wanted to live. It was close to work, had a great school for her daughter Lexi (now seven) and was within walking distance of the sea.
She’d accepted that, given the lofty property values, she would probably have to live in an apartment. But that posed two problems: first, she was wary of leaky building syndrome and, second, her business Coastal Design Co relied on her testing new ranges of outdoor furniture in her own outdoors. “That could be a challenge on a 1.2-metre deck.”
But she didn’t give up and, when an email alert let her know an early-1980s townhouse was about to go on the market, she made sure the real estate agent was showing her around within hours. “I walked in and thought, ‘This is it’,” remembers Jo.
That great first impression was perhaps surprising, considering that this diamond came in the rough. One of three in a block, the two-bedroom, four-level house – painted throughout in ‘Spanish White’, with dark timber beams and terracotta tiles on the floor – was in obvious need of a 21st century makeover. But, as Jo says, the bones were perfect. It was built to face the sun, had not just one but two terrace areas and a wonderful sloping wilderness garden.
“People keep on telling me to level it out, but I don’t play pétanque or bowls. We do have a water slide and the slope is perfect for that. A bit of detergent and the kids are away!”
For the full story pick up a copy of the February issue, on sale January 23rd.
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