What's Your Number?

Tireless renovators Alice and Caleb – past winners of The Block NZ – have just finished their seventh house, but this time they’ve done things a little differently

- Debbie Harrison

People fall into one of two camps, says Alice Pearson: you either do one house renovation and vow to never lift a hammer again, or you start looking for your next project the minute you lay down your tools on the current one. Alice and husband Caleb definitely fall into the second category. Their present home is their sixth renovation – or the seventh if you count the one they overhauled in the 2013 season of The Block NZ, which they won.

OPPOSITE The dining booth was created to overcome a spatial problem but has become the star of the home with its striking lighting and rich colour scheme.

Background

The motto of any expert renovator is: find a project where you can add value. The Pearsons – who have two young children, Alek, now 4, and Mika, now 2 – took well over a year searching for such an opportunity, eventually landing on a long section in Auckland’s Otahuhu which had a house at the front with happy long-term tenants, and plans in place to subdivide.

The pair kept the tenants, remained in their Mt Wellington house and started looking for a house they could relocate to the back of the new section. For the next five months they spent weekends trawling house-removal yards. On their checklist were: good bones, small enough to pop on the back of a truck and fit down a tight driveway, and a layout that would work with the 327-square-metre site and suit decking that would connect to the backyard. And good light.

“Light makes such a difference to houses. So much of a home is about the feel and atmosphere,” says Alice. “No matter how well you renovate a house, if it’s dark and gloomy even white walls won’t fix it. Experience has given us confidence in our ability to find houses with true potential.”