SCHOOL ZONES:
Parnell District School, double Grammar.
CONTACT:
Lisa and Steve Stone, 021 504 674 or 021 966 499, RayWhite.
'We like the special homes, ones with a view, in a great location or nice setting, ones with an x-factor.' More than 30 years ago Grant Mincher and Alan Kayser met as teenagers doing their aircraft engineering apprenticeships.
Alan did his OE and moved to Spain, married Carmen and setup an aircraft engineering firm.
Grant married Trina, a surgical ward nurse and became a pilot.
When Alan and Carmen returned to New Zealand to live, Alan talked to his old friend Grant and asked if he had any ideas for a business. As it happens, he did.
As Trina explains, the Minchers had a narrow escape from buying a house in St Heliers, which a building report revealed was a leaky home. "Someone said to us 'You nearly bought your first reclad'," Trina recalls.
It got the Minchers thinking that buying and fixing up leaky homes could be a good opportunity.
Grant spent three years doing background research, before the Minchers and the Kaysers set up their company three years ago.
They have just finished their fifth project, a four-bedroom family home in quiet, no-exit Awatea Rd in Parnell.
"Ones with a view, in a great location or nice setting, ones with an X-factor."
The Parnell house ticks all those boxes, especially now after an extensive makeover.
They work with Tim Russell of Designate Architectural and Remediation Design on each project.
On this one, they extensively rebuilt an original 1940s home and a later extension with weather-tightness issues, re-cladding with weatherboards and adding a pitched roof.
Image 1 of 8: The dreaded 'leaky' word is history now for this family home after its extensive makeover. Photos / David Rowland
The process was painstaking - as Alan and Trina point out, there are twice as many council inspections with this type of work than with new builds.
Besides remedial work, they took the opportunity to improve the flow of the house inside.
There's an impressive new kitchen, with a suite of Bosch appliances, including two ovens - a steam oven and a conventional one, as well as two dishwashers - one is housed in a generously proportioned scullery.
Up the stairs, which are the 1940s originals, the renovation has also enlarged the home's fourth bedroom.
"As we were building a new garage to replace the carport, we thought we'd increase the size of this bedroom," Trina says.
This means all four bedrooms are spacious, with excellent storage.
They all have great views of Hobson Bay and the neighbourhood. The master bedroom has an en suite and walk-in wardrobe and the second bedroom has three sets of double wardrobes.
The house is warmed by underfloor heating, with a gas fireplace in the formal living room.
Storage downstairs includes a wine cupboard off the dining area and a mud-room, just off the double garage, where sports gear and gardening clothes can be removed, handy to the laundry next door.
Outside, they rebuilt the decking around the pool.
"We used the pool a lot in summer," says Trina. "We had our Christmas function here and all jumped in the pool."
