Eyes On The Prize

This family’s whole-hog renovation was a rocky road but they’ve emerged with a beautiful home designed ‘100 percent’ for them ‘and zero percent for resale’

- Debbie Harrison

When popular mum-stagrammer Vanessa Rehm and husband Shane first found their 1960s home in Mangere Bridge, Auckland, they immediately knew it was the place for them. They’d made a wishlist and this house emphatically ticked many of the boxes: separate garage, on a street they liked, north-facing, great indoor-outdoor flow, a full-sized section, and the potential to improve.

Besotted, they settled in, making only two minor changes to the house in those first few years: an awkward fireplace was removed and a tomato-red kitchen wall was struck from the menu. “I feel very strongly about feature walls and this one was a killer,” laughs Vanessa.

But after five years, the couple – by now the parents of three young children – were starting to feel the squeeze. They needed more space, including a bigger living area to hang out in, an additional bathroom, an office that Vanessa could work from, and a larger laundry. Initially, they planned to tweak just a few areas of their home, but after a couple of conversations they realised that if they were going to do a renovation, they should do it properly.

With that decision made, it seemed logical to reconfigure the house to make every room work. “Once we decided to go the whole hog [and rejig the layout], all the things that weren’t making sense or ‘fitting’ properly suddenly made sense and worked,” says Vanessa.