Home Tours

See how this Wellington couple turned their rental property into a cosy home

Article by Your Home and Garden

This creative couple could give lessons in cosy, as evidenced by their welcoming Wellington home

Meet & greet

David (web designer) and Abbey Cross (managing director of business development for their business, Vision Digital) and their children, Zeke, 14, Bella, 12, and Lyric, seven.

The property

Three-bedroom ’60s house in Tawa, Wellington.

Virtually everyone rents at some point in their lives, and for most of us, these properties are clearly signposted as rentals for anyone who cares enough to notice. An oddly coloured feature wall here, too-big or too-small furniture there – there are usually subtle tells that say we’re here temporarily, maybe for a good time, but definitely not for a long time. But that’s certainly not the case here, in the charming Wellington home of Abbey and David Cross and their three children.

While the couple have never craved absolute permanence, neither will they tolerate the ‘too small shoes’ feeling that many people suffer when it’s not their name on the deed. How? For these two house-proud creatives, moving house has been the norm and their seven-year stretch here has been the exception to the rule, but as David describes it, turning a house into a home is Abbey’s special superpower.

Moss for a rolling stone

The couple returned home to Wellington via stints in Hamilton and Christchurch, with every move viewed as an opportunity for adventure. This laidback attitude to moving house and even cities is something Abbey learned as a child, she says. “This is the first house I’ve ever actually settled. When I was a kid, we moved cities every couple of years.” While her parents’ work drove plenty of house moves, Abbey’s mum had a neat trick for making it exciting. “I’d get to choose a new duvet cover, new colour scheme, that kind of thing, every time we moved. And I was allowed to move my room around whenever I wanted, which I think is why I love interior design now.”

Buying their first home in Hamilton was a hugely exciting next step, allowing the couple to renovate an entire house to suit their style. “Our first house was quite eclectic, because we were like, ‘We can do whatever we want.’ It was very bright and fun – we were still so young.” While their taste is now less colourful and calmer, that house did teach them lessons they carried over to this one. In short, that the way you decorate your house has an enormous impact on how you feel in it.

The power of paint

Home is an attitude – if you treat a place like your own, it will feel like home – but Abbey admits there were aspects of the house they ended up renting in Wellington that she simply couldn’t look beyond. “The walls were yellow. All of them. Like ‘brown paper bag’ yellow,” says Abbey. Throw in a splash of purple, a lick of cobalt and you’ve got a recipe for anxiety for a contemporary minimalist like Abbey. Thankfully, the house also came with lovely landlords, who were delighted to let the family refresh the home in crisp white and tasteful shades of grey.

Next cab off the rank was the kitchen – formerly a questionable vision in retro green and timber veneer, it has been given a modern makeover in white, using specialist cabinet and benchtop paints.

With a newly neutral base palette, it was infinitely easier to dress the home to suit their style, using a mix of raw materials and textured accessories to create comfortable spaces that breathe calm.

Changing rooms

“The house does have its quirks,” says Abbey. Some features, like the archway into the kitchen and the multiple sets of French doors, stole Abbey’s heart, while other quirks, like the mysteriously positioned walls, became challenges to work around as the family sought to make a three-bedroom home function for a growing family of five. “I change rooms a lot. Every single person has been in each of the bedrooms at some point over the years,” says Abbey. Far from a trial, the couple make it into an adventure. “When Abbey moves things around, it’s always a surprise to the kids – they’ll come home from school and the whole house has been rearranged. It’s like an extreme makeover.”

Their most recent project involved designing their son’s new bedroom, including a larger bed, which they raced to get done during school hours and presented to him, fully styled, to his surprise and joy. “I think we work best under pressure, which is why we do it like that – or I choose to do it and Dave just goes along with it.”

Work it

Every corner of the home has a job to do, with Abbey and David bringing dead zones to life to meet the needs of their family. The glass-lined conservatory is a case in point. Once a balcony, they think – it runs the length of the house and could have been nothing more than a sprinting track for youngsters. Instead, Abbey has carved it up to suit the family’s needs – the widest end is
a sun-drenched living space, large cabinets divide off another section as a play zone, while the far end has become a private parents’ retreat.

The home houses a fourth baby in the form of David and Abbey’s web design and digital marketing business. This necessitated an office setup, which has migrated from room to room. “Something that Abbey is very good at is making the most of the space – like we need an office, that’s non-negotiable, we don’t have space, so let’s make it work,” says David. Thus, the office has been a movable feast, once occupying a whole room, and sometimes a corner of a room, but always set up with a sense of permanence.

When they can’t find what they need, or when Abbey wants something that might test the budget, the couple make it themselves. “Abbey’s like a dog with a bone with some stuff. She’ll say, ‘We’re going to make it work,’ and three days later she’ll have a plan and will have priced it all out,” says David. This can-do attitude was the starting point for the couple’s plywood headboard, which Abbey planned and David built.

Made with love

The couple also created almost all the wall decor in the home; David has created all the typographic pieces, while Abbey made the textured canvases in the living room.

While an appetite for change fuelled their move back to the capital and every adjustment they’ve made to their house since, these rolling stones appear to have found a nook worth settling in. “All the little changes we’ve been making have led us to what we have now, and I feel like we’re now in a place where we don’t have to change things as much,” says David.