Renovating a Devonport villa has been a labour of love over 17 years.
Doing up a villa as time and money allows means coping with constant chaos, but Lisa Mak's husband came up with a cunning strategy to rein in the mess.
"I used to laugh when Chris would invite friends over for dinner because he knew it would mean me having
to stop working and clean up, so we had a bit of order back in our lives," says Mak, who has been passionate about working on their Devonport home for the past 17 years.
"In the beginning, when the kids were little, it was often chaos," she says. "If I became bored with the room I was working on, or ran out of money for paint, then I would just start stripping the walls of another room. I used to budget for 10-litre paint pails like I budgeted for food - they were a steady part of our expenditure.
"The worst time was when we started taking the 1970s lowered ceilings down, the mess was horrific. I would just become consumed with seeing that I was making progress."
When the Maks bought their home it still bore the scars of a 1970s renovation that, along with lowered ceilings, left it with smelly, stained carpet and worn decor. A bonus was a self-contained flat downstairs that could be rented out and later incorporated into the main home.
As the couple's children - Alex, now aged 21, Benson, 20, and Victoria, 18 - grew up, the villa's large spaces have easily adapted to the family's needs without having to make many large structural changes.
The lounge was originally the master bedroom, and the room at the end of the hall started as a bathroom, and then became a spare room with a built-in single bed. Now called the "creative room", it houses a working table.
"The idea was to have a space where any of us could get involved with a project, from Tori sewing up a dress to wear for an evening out, to someone making a birthday card for someone special," she says.
Mak's eclectic style includes her precious family heirlooms. "I inherited things from my grandparents when they passed away many years ago. Those items were special, as my grandparents raised me. When I was little I played with the icing nozzles that are now on the wall in a printer's box by the front door."
The downstairs flat has had its kitchen removed and has been merged with the main house to become a parents' retreat with large bi-folding windows that open out to the garden.
"This home constantly evolves, that's what we love about it. Every room has been painted at least three times."
Style tips
Small change: Moving furniture around, putting a new cushion on an old chair or arranging several old bottles on a table with a few pretty flowers can give a room a different feel.
Good memories: Arranging mementos in an artful way can create points of interest as well as strong visual elements.
Different strokes: Paint is one of the easiest, cheapest and most effective ways of changing a room or a piece of furniture.
Leanne Moore is the editor of Your Home & Garden. See the latest issue, on sale now, for more achievable home ideas.
