No place LIKE HOME

For Sharon and Rob van der Kruik, home is where they are at their happiest, surrounded by all that they have created, collected, made and nurtured

- ALI HEATH 

Finding this home - in need of love, but with great bones and the potential to grow with their family needs has been the gift that has kept on giving for its owners, Sharon, and Rob van der Kruik. Our late 1920s, Californian-style bungalow in Geelong West, Victoria, sits on a quiet street behind an old pub - close to the bay and just 45 minutes from Melbourne,' explains Sharon. Back in 1986 we were looking for a family home that we could extend and transform. We wanted a large backyard that the children could run free in, with enough space for me to garden, and for both Rob and me to be creative. This home ticked every box and has slowly evolved."

Fast-forward 36 years and the couple now have four grown-up children, two grandchildren, eight family dogs, and have recently completed the third phase of their sympathetic renovation. Their dream has become a reality and the original two-bedroom, the weather-boarded cottage has been transformed into a light, bright, four-bedroom, memory-filled home that their children regularly return to.

"To us, home is everything,' says Sharon. 'We have spent such a huge part of our life together in this little cottage.' Rob, a self-taught carpenter, restorer, and maker, has completed all the building work himself, turning his hobby into a passion, 'enabling us to create the home we imagined,' says Sharon. 'It has absorbed everything that we have and love, and in harder times has become our comfort and haven.'