SCHOOL ZONES:
Auckland Grammar, Epsom
Girls' Grammar
CONTACT:
Roy Champtaloup, ph 027 555 5557
FEATURES:
* plus offstreet parking
It's hard to believe Anna Bateman when she describes the state of the beautiful 1920s bungalow her family bought 10 years ago. Today the airy and stylish place is a picture of muted grey carpet and white walls - a perfect foil for the colourful furniture - and seamless outdoorliving.
A decade earlier it had been quite different. "There was carpet up the walls in the downstairs bathroom, powder blue," Anna says. "And a lot of pink and grey. Upstairs it switched to apricot carpet. But the spaces were right, the previous owners had carefully copied or re-used the leadlight glass and the second floor addition tied into the original house."
So the family knew that only landscaping and redecorating was required to bring the house up to modern tastes. They kept the existing farmhouse kitchen - Anna loves cooking and the space and layout worked for her and three busy teenagers. There is heaps of space for more than one cook, room for all Anna's cookbooks, and adjacent there's a generous laundry and full bathroom. She had fully intended to modernise the kitchen to modern tastes, perhaps knocking out some walls to the family room, but it worked so well they never did so. The house is well sited on the generous section - as well as the sweep of lawn and swimming-pool terrace, there is room in an old-fashioned back yard for the clothesline. Tucked in the sunniest corner of the garden is a generous potager with flourishing vegetables and herbs, plus a great selection of fruit trees.
Bonus space is a smart studio flat attached to the double garage. Upstairs, the flat has a timber-lined room next to the bedroom and bathroom - intended as a sauna but now just handy storage. It's been perfect for the extended family.
Two ground-floor bedrooms and a bathroom accommodated Anna's sons. Both have left home now so, with only her daughter left at home the pair are moving to something smaller.
Upstairs is the master suite, including a smaller bedroom that Anna has made her dressing-room. Sunlight floods the space and the views are of treetops. The chimney from the downstairs fireplace keeps the space toasty warm in winter.
Outside the house was modified to create a generous covered porch. It is so sheltered on windy days that, with its heater on, it makes a year-round second dining room. The pool terrace has been a magnet for teens, and, again, is so warm they swim from October to April.
The dining room, enclosed by glass, is big enough for a crowd. The space off it has been used as an office - there were three teens with computer demands - but could equally be a second living room.
"This has been a real entertaining house," Anna says. "It was a bit of a kiddy magnet, as this is a street where kids still roam around the neighbourhood. The bus to the primary school stops right at the gate, the Benson Rd Park is just up the streets. The kids head to the shops themselves. The Maple Room is my local."
Anna says that this will be a hard place and neighbourhood to match, but she knows that a new family will enjoy it as much as hers has done.
