It’s been all action at the house recently. We’ve had tradies on top of tradies. The plasterers were straight in once the living pod was fully lined with plasterboard. We also had plumbers, electricians, tilers, stair installers and balustrade installers.

As soon as the final coat of plaster was sanded, I was in like Flynn with my paint roller, smashing out the living pod overnight. I’ll admit I lost the will to live near the end, and called in a professional paint crew to polish off the final parts.

Then awesomely the Carpet Court contractors came in to lay our flooring. It’s seems like forever since Kylie and I walked into Carpet Court to scope out our flooring options so we were super excited to watch the guys finally lay it in the house. True to its name, the Quick Step laminate went down in our entire living pod and bedroom pod hallway in rapid fashion. And wow, what a transformation. Good-bye ugly, beaten up sub-floor, hello beautiful Oak and European elegance.

After giving it a thorough test, including a slide down the hall in my socks akin to Hugh Grant in Love Actually, we couldn’t be happier with our choice. Under foot it feels incredibly solid and natural, while the soft browney-grey hue compliments the rest of the house sublimely.

We also had the Carpet Court install team in earlier to lay the carpets in our bedrooms. Once again the impact these floor finishes had in the rooms was phenomenal; reinforcing just how vital great flooring is in your home. As soon as the Smart Strand Silk carpet was down, our three bedrooms became luxurious havens. I’m not kidding. The super thick underlay, combined with the plush pile is so decadent underfoot that you could curl up and sleep on it. In fact the first thing Kylie did when she set foot in our bedroom was to roll around on it with a giant grin on her face, content with its spongey goodness, not to mention it officially completed the first full room in the house.

 

We’ve been meticulous about choosing the right materials to achieve our goal of working with the natural environment instead of against it. It’s a balancing act though. While striving to blend into the landscape, we still want to have a liveable home. One way we’ve achieved this is through our three decks, where we can live outside while being light on the land.

All three are more than a metre from the ground, which means we’re required to install a balustrade around them for safety reasons. We were initially a little gutted about this because we were worried that they would obscure our views into the bush and ruin our vision for a seamless flow between inside and out. Plus they often look ugly with little design consideration given to them.

However our builders suggested that we meet with a company called Glass Vice. They’d recently worked together during the renovation of a nearby cliff-top home and the business’ frameless glass balustrades preserved the sea views and architectural integrity of the house while exceeding all safety requirements at the same time.

Buoyed with that prospect, Kylie and I contacted them and arranged to pop into their showroom on William Pickering Drive in Rosedale to look at their products.

We were greeted like old friends by founder Warwick Allen and his wife Jane. We explained the vision for our home, and then listened to how they might be able to help us achieve it. I love an innovator and Warwick had us captivated from the get go as he explained his journey over the past eight years to create a range of superior glass balustrading products that minimised or totally eliminated the visibility of any fixings – the final solution coming in the form of his patented Glass Vice clamp, which is now exported around the globe.

Eureka, that was music to our ears, but seeing is believing, so Warwick took us through to look at his product range. I didn’t think it was possible to fall in love with something as functional as a balustrade, but Kylie and I did the moment we set eyes on Warwick’s new Clearline by Glass Vice. It looked so good and like no other balustrade we’d ever seen before.

The Glass Vice clamps holding the sheets of glass were completely hidden beneath a sleek aluminium cover panel, which can be powder coated to a colour of your choosing. Then set into the panel was a series of small LED lights washing across the deck. We were so impressed with the system that we completely changed the layout of our two lower decks right there in the showroom so we could incorporate more of these show-stopping balustrades into our house.

We then moved onto a solution for the roof top deck. Warwick explained that they are the only company in the country with a product that can be fixed onto the top of a floating deck like ours. The sleek Glass Vice is attached directly to the top of the deck, then clamps onto the sheets of glass, leaving a small gap beneath which makes cleaning a breeze. Plus you only need two fixings for every 1.8m piece of glass, keeping the visual impact to an absolute minimum. Sold, with LED lights centred in the deck below each pane of glass please.

With our order made, Warwick said the install team will be on site next week. Choice, can’t wait!

Eureka. Miracles do happen. Our living pod is finally watertight which was made possible on Wednesday by the arrival and installation of the overdue materials we’ve been waiting on for the past seven weeks.

Our builders have barely been on site lately because they’ve been unable to proceed, making them as frustrated by the hold-ups as we have been. Needless to say, the guys jumped into action as soon as the place was watertight and the Council gave them the green light to put up the rest of plasterboard after their pre-line inspection.

Within a matter of hours our living pod transformed from a construction zone into the space Kylie and I have been imagining for months. The dark chipboard of our SIPs panels replaced with the white of the plasterboard, opening the area up considerably and adding a degree of polish, while taking the house one exciting step closer to being a home.

That’s a double-o-for-awesome.

We’ve got some seriously big windows – virtually all of them are floor to ceiling in height. So sorting out our window coverings was always going to be complex.

Luckily we popped into Kresta on the weekend up on Tawa Drive in Albany because they have been awesome to work with ever since.

We’ve always been thinking of using curtains in our bedrooms and roller blinds in our living area. After looking at photos of the house, our flooring and paint colours, the Kresta team took us around the showroom to show us their recommendations. First up – curtains.

We’d come in hoping to find a linen-like fabric and lo and behold, the first samples they showed us were exactly what we were looking for. A beautiful set of neutral fabrics with a lovely, subtly textured finish. It was like they’d read our minds. But there were still so many colours to choose from and details to decide on.

We faced a similar conundrum when we started to look at the huge array of roller blinds. Even after narrowing down our colours and materials, we were still a tad overwhelmed and confused. Fortunately the Kresta guys brought us back on track, helping us to refine everything down to a handful of preferred options.

The great thing about Kresta is all of their products are custom made to perfectly fit your home. This gave us the opportunity to review our short list of fabrics in the house a few days later when the guys came around to measure up our windows.

It was amazing how some of our in-store favourites looked completely different once in the house, making our decisions much easier. For our curtains we’ve decided to go with the linen-like fabric by James Dunlop called Pegasus Cavalier in a light grey colour called cloud, with a separate ivory coloured, black-out lining sewn in.

Meanwhile in our living pod we’ve opted for motorised, double view roller blinds. On the rear roll we chose a grey, semi-transparent sun screen, while at the front we went with an ivory, black-out fabric. The two independent layers will give us more flexibility, providing filtered shade during the day and complete privacy at night.

Can’t wait to see them in the house now!

We’re lucky when it comes to landscaping because we inherited a very unique and mature setting. It’s these natural assets that attracted us to the section in the first place. They’re also the reason why we needed to employ a landscape architect to complete our Resource Consent application.

Fortunately I found the details of Lance Millward, owner of landscaping business Verdant Green, on the original subdivision documents for our section, and asked him if he could help us bring our vision to life. It was an invitation Lance jumped at, designing a methodology for rejuvenating the stream along with a supporting planting plan.

Thanks to Lance’s expertise, our plans sailed through Council and we’ve been slowly implementing his blueprint ever since. It’s been a labour of love, including 30 tonnes of rock placed by hand to line the stream channel, but it’s been immensely rewarding to watch our bubbling brook transform from a dirty ditch into a natural waterway. We’re especially fond of the grasses, flaxes and other natives cascading down the lower banks, which were planted by the Verdant Green team last year.

 I’ve been chomping at the bit to finish the rest of the planting, but it’s only been the past couple of weeks that the site has become clear enough to enable this to happen. However my thumbs aren’t the greenest, so once again we called on Lance’s skills to help us navigate the complexities of the botanical realm.

 The first thing we did was work through a new plant order, taking into account the species that had already flourished along the stream, as well as choosing some new flora that would be better suited to the more shady areas we were about to plant in. We decided on a mix of 200 natives from Kauri Park Nurseries and arranged for them to be delivered to site.

Before planting could begin, Lance prescribed a healthy dose of ground preparation. Firstly we dug up the compacted earth, before mixing some blood & bone and gypsum through it to assist in the recondition of our clay-based soil. Then we called in the reinforcements, in the form of Kylie and her family, to help us spread 12 cubic metres of mulch around the section.

Eventually after two days of groundwork we were able to start on the fun bit. It didn’t take long at all to plant everything, adding a scoop of garden mix around the roots of each shrub. And wow, what a transformation. The previously unfinished upper reaches of the stream now look complete, blending seamlessly into the bush and it’ll only get better as everything grows and fills out.