Eyes On The Prize
Your Home and Garden|February 2019

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
Eyes On The Prize

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.

This story is from the February 2019 edition of Your Home and Garden.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the February 2019 edition of Your Home and Garden.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

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