Imagine waking up to this view every morning. Or coming home to this view after a long day at work. You’d never want to dine out again. Building here requires that you tackle a heck of a slope and invest in very tall pilings to bedrock. And growing a garden comes with some extra challenges. Nonetheless, the beautiful New Zealand outdoors feels a part of every room in this home. My friends Ole and Karen have been living in this three bedroom, two bath home for over a year and they love it.
The design and finished home have won awards including a Gold Medal in the house of the year awards for Canterbury and are under consideration for a national award. It was described as “It’s the hygge high-life harbourside for these Scandi design fans.”
It is a super comfortable for a high-style home. They used a lot of clever devices, such as the plastic chainmail screen in the bedroom that allows the view/light in with more privacy. They also are using a humane rodent trap in their garden. The rat puts its head in to check out the bait and CO2 knocks it out permanently–and the rat never knew what hit it. I was super excited (given another winter of rodent battles after my roof replacement) until I realized that it doesn’t transfer to California as easily. In Auckland there are NO native rodents and they are all invasive and bad for birds. Whereas, I wouldn’t want to exterminate squirrels or skunks passing through my garden and if I put it under the house or in the attic I wouldn’t know I killed anything until I smelled the corpse!
I enjoyed seeing a lot of new living situations for my Kiwi friends. Ole and Karen have a fresh start after the earthquakes in Christchurch, other friends have moved into stylish, but smaller apartments for their retirement years, and other friends put in new features in their longtime home to make it even lovelier to live in. I am pleased for all of them. And once again struck by how gracious living in New Zealand is (and not just for people with means).
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