LUCKY FIND

A rundown cottage, which was discovered online, has been renovated into a spacious home after a lot of hard graft and help from family

- Holly Jean Brooker

A tiny workman’s cottage built in the 1800s and in original condition, isn’t usually the typical purchase for a first home buyer. But for Thom and Elysia Shanks, it was the pull of the heartstrings that led them to buy a 64sqm historic Auckland home, which came complete with an outdoor shed housing the toilet and laundry.

In 2013, Thom stumbled across the rundown cottage on Trade Me on its last day of open homes. “I wasn’t that keen on the busy street but I walked through the back gate and thought ‘wow’. It was huge, it felt like a field with a historic volcanic stone wall at the back and loads of fruit trees. I tend to make decisions quickly and just felt that it was a place I could see my future kids running around in. I was all in,” he says.

The couple was getting married in a few months and felt a little stretched for funds, but the full site in Onehunga was an opportunity too good to miss.

“A good financial decision would have been to knock it down and put a bunch of apartments on it,” admits Thom. “But I love history, I love old native timbers and knowing people have lived in this house for 120-plus years just felt good. I wanted our family to be part of that history”.

The vision

Living in the home without making any changes for the first couple of years gave Thom and Elysia time to establish what they wanted to achieve for their home. But it took a bit of negotiating to land on what they both wanted to do. “One of the challenges for us was how to combine the history with a modern home,” says Elysia.