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The old farmhouse has a new roof and a new lick of paint.
A new indoor staircase.
The old water tank is now a wine cellar.
Builder Kyle Brown.
What started as a kitchen extension for a farmhouse in Matakana, ended up being a complete renovation and roof rebuild for builder Kyle Brown.
It was supposed to be a two-month job, but turned into a 14-month marathon, with 15 code of compliance changes from the original plan.
But Kyle, of Warkworth Construction, says this has become an increasingly common story, with Covid-19 changing people’s priorities.
He says homeowners would sooner spend thousands on their existing place to make it their dream home, rather than trying to buy a new one.
Such was the case with Greg and Sala Bishop, who had been looking to buy a new house but couldn’t find land nearby, so they decided to renovate their Whitmore Road home of 25 years instead.
The house started as a cottage built in 1953. At different times since it has been a boarding house and rest home and has been added to over the years.
Once Kyle got started on the job he found that the roof needed substantial repairs and would have to be replaced entirely.
“The beams were full of borer. Every second one seemed to turn to dust.”
Greg says that Kyle and his team became part of the family for a while, and the dogs were fatter for it.
The whole roof was removed and sheltered with scaffolding and plastic wrap, meaning the Bishops were living in the garage for a while.
Kyle lifted the ceiling height from 2.4 metres to three metres, making airier rooms, and rebuilt the roof using cove trusses. Terracotta roof tiles have been replaced with Colorsteel.
Greg then decided he wanted indoor access to the basement, where he keeps his pool table, and asked Kyle for a stairway.
To fit the stairway in, Kyle had to cut through and drain an old indoor concrete water tank on the bottom level of the house. The tank has been retained and is now Greg’s wine cellar, complete with a wrought iron gate and wooden barrels.
Other renovations throughout the house include a sliding barn door separating a bathroom and laundry wing. The bathrooms were redone with floor-to-ceiling porcelain tiles.
The decks were relaid with purpleheart hardwood. The level of the flooring has been made consistent throughout the whole house, compensating for piecemeal alterations over the its long history. In addition, the tongue and groove flooring has been replaced with oak floorboards.
