A couple move cities to embrace a new lease of life, not just for themselves but for a 1920s home as well
Home profile
Meet & greet: AnneMarie Tangney (health professional), Steve Moratti (retired academic) and Chihuahua-Maltese Benny.
The property: Four-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow in Mount Eden, Auckland.
In January 2022, AnneMarie Tangney and her husband Steve Moratti found themselves at a lifestyle crossroads. Living in Dunedin, their children had left the nest, AnneMarie was feeling like she needed a change from working as a general practitioner and Steve was no longer working at the local university.
Should they stay in Dunedin? Or move to Auckland to be close to family where AnneMarie had been offered an appealing role at a city hospital?
The flooring is Metropol Sable Oak Hybrid from Carpet Country and the kitchen island chairs came from Dunedin. The walls are painted Resene Half Rice Cake and the kitchen island is Resene Bluff.
The couple chose the latter and are grateful they did. “I’d become a burnt-out GP in Dunedin, so I was looking for a new job,” she says.
“I found a role looking after the health of people living with an eating disorder at Greenlane Clinical Centre. Steve had lost his job during the Covid era and all our kids had left Dunedin, so we thought: ‘What are we doing here?’ We are originally from Auckland but haven’t lived here for 30 years. It was a no-brainer to come back here where our daughter and extended family are.”
The house hunting began while they were still in Dunedin and they set their sights on homes located one bus ride or a walk away from Greenlane Clinical Centre. But New Zealand was in the tail-wind of Covid lockdowns, so few houses were on the market.
The curtains are from Redgraves Home Fabrics, the grey carpet was a remnant from their Dunedin house, the Luca sofas are from Farmers, the blue cushions are from Wallace Cotton and the cream cushions are from Bed Bath & Beyond. This area used to be a bedroom.
An open mind
With AnneMarie’s job already in place, time was of the essence to find a home. “All our bidding was done online, we didn’t see any homes in person. Our daughter was viewing some houses for us. Generally, they were nice but we were being outbid at auctions.”
Time was running out and our daughter saw this 1920s house in Mount Eden, which was “pretty yucky”, so it went to the bottom of the couple’s list. But, as they continued to miss out on houses, they gave it a second chance.
“Steve said the auction was in an hour and we thought beggars can’t be choosers,” says AnneMarie. It was the right attitude – and it won them the auction.
A north-facing garden, the fact that the weatherboard house wasn’t made of plaster, wasn’t on a busy road and was within walking distance to AnneMarie’s job ticked all the boxes. “But it was still a highly undesirable house, there was only one other person bidding. Yet we paid a huge amount for it because Auckland house prices were peaking at the end of 2021.”
The pink bedspread and cane chair are both from The Warehouse. “The Plantation shutters are transformative,” says AnneMarie.
The couple bought the property sight unseen, having been warned it was unattractive, but despite seeing the photos of the staged home they thought it looked okay.
“The layout was odd, however, and when we got here I could see why a lot of people wouldn’t like this house. I liked it straight away, though, because it has nice windows and a nice feel about it. There was nothing we couldn’t do with a bit of changing, so I quickly developed an idea of what I wanted to do.”
With a Covid-induced Gib shortage, many builders were short of work. AnneMarie contacted builder Wayne Fletcher after seeing his advertisement on the local Facebook community page saying he was available for small jobs that didn’t require much Gib after having some work cancelled.
“He walked through the house with me and he was pointing out things that he thought needed changing. They were identical to my list, so I thought, “I can work with you.”
The red bedhead is from Dunedin, the chest is from a secondhand furniture store and the blue chair and bedside table were both found on Facebook Marketplace.
What they did
At the front of the house, a previous owner had poured concrete on top of the old wooden front porch to build it up. “This meant that when you entered the front door you stepped onto a two-square metre platform, then stepped down into the hallway,” says AnneMarie.
“It was a dark entrance and a trip hazard and I worried I was going to have people breaking their ankles. It was a
no-brainer, we had to rebuild the front porch with wood to try to mimic what might have originally been there and remove the platform inside the front door.”
To lighten the dark entrance, the couple installed a skylight in the hallway: “We weren’t sure what we would find when the builder went up through the ceiling, but he said, ‘We’ll just cross any bridges when we come to them’. He was good, with a ‘we’ll give it a go’ attitude.”
The dark entrance area was brightened by the addition of a skylight. The pendant lights are from Lighting Plus.
On purchase, the house was marketed as having four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a lounge, a kitchen and another lounge beside the kitchen. Yet, the property was staged as only two bedrooms with three small lounge areas. Downstairs was a lounge, three hobby rooms (there’s insufficient head height to be termed bedrooms) and a laundry space.
Once they moved in, they painted and carpeted downstairs and installed a laundry, living there during the renovation. This area is useful for when family come to stay as the hobby rooms now function as bedrooms.
The main lounge was previously the second room on the right down the hallway, but AnneMarie and Steve turned this back into the bedroom it would have originally have been. “There was a wood burner in this lounge and previous owners had blocked off the hallway door, so you had to enter the lounge at the back of the house, through the kitchen area.
“This lounge was the darkest room of the house so we opted to create a lounge at the back of the house with a lovely outlook over the back garden. Turning the old lounge back into a bedroom, we put the hallway door back in, removed the wood burner and turned the area where the wood burner had been placed into a wardrobe.”
In what is now the current living area, a dividing wall previously separated the kitchen and what had been used as a bedroom. The couple removed this wall, turning the bedroom into the lounge. They kept the kitchen in place but removed a diagonal bench that was taking up a whole corner and replaced a leaky Perspex bay window with quaint bifold windows that open up to embrace the outdoors on warm days.
In the kitchen/living, AnneMarie had a strong idea of what she wanted but needed someone to play off ideas with. A wonderful kitchen designer, Charlotte Roberts, guided her through the process. “I love kitchen islands but don’t like them to look like blocks with seating all in a row, so we have wrap-around seating. I wanted to get dimensions to determine how to make the most of good shelves and corners.”
Without room for a butler’s pantry, AnneMarie compromised with a large, deep ceiling-to-floor storage space with sliding doors. “This is great. I chuck everything in there, it’s my butler’s equivalent.” The result is a serene space, with a rangehood hidden away in the same style of cabinetry adding to the seamlessness. “This is the kitchen of my dreams.”
The Cape Cod chairs are from Briscoes, the cushions from Bed Bath N’ Table and the table is from Freedom.
Social spaces
French doors lead from the kitchen and living area to an outdoor room, where a deck with seating faces out across to the fruit tree-laden garden below. AnneMarie and Steve use the outdoor room from summer to winter, thanks to awnings they pull across and down for shelter.
“In winter we want light, but in summer we want shade,” AnneMarie says. The staircase balustrade was solid ply so the couple put in spindles so they could see the garden while sitting on the deck. It’s a space that seats several people, and they simply bring out more chairs as family and friends come and visit.
The outdoor room and deck are used from summer to winter thanks to awnings that pull across and down.
A previous extension to the back of the house meant the dining area windows touched the separate garage. “We chopped a third of the garage off for more separation from the house and so we didn’t look out the window onto the garage wall,” AnneMarie says.
“We lost the door into the garage by doing this, so we installed secondhand French doors along the side instead.” They don’t keep a car in there these days but rather use it as a space for dinner parties. “It’s a lovely room,” AnneMarie says. “Steve painted the inside white for my birthday so now we use it as a party room, filling it with candles and flowers.”
French doors from the kitchen and lounge lead to the outdoor room with its views of the fruit tree-laden garden.
Peaceful hues
The couple gave the home’s interior a new look with fresh paint, bringing in a palette of grey-blue, green and white – fresh and inviting. As if it were an ode to the sea and sky, AnneMarie’s kitchen island sums up her love for gentle blues, painted in Resene Bluff, with the lounge couch mimicking this hue. On the interior walls, Resene Half Emerge evokes a calm, serene feel in the palest green.
“The summer we moved up from Dunedin to Auckland, the weather was so hot, we felt that we wanted to live with some cool colours,” AnneMarie says. “The blue/grey/white palette just felt so refreshing and cool. I was drawn to blue-grey, but with so many colours out there I was flicking through interior images until I finally found some I loved, drilling down the colour I loved.”
The exterior of the house is painted Resene Hermitage with trims in Resene Quarter Spanish White and the porch and steps in Resene New Denim Blue.
Closer to loved ones
It’s clear the move up north from Dunedin was the right one. AnneMarie and Steve have created a gathering point in their home for loved ones to visit. Not only have they taken on a new lease of life by being closer to family as well as AnneMarie’s new work journey, Steve is involved in the community by volunteering at the Dolphin Theatre, but they’ve given this home a new direction too.
“It’s a natural hub for the family so all gatherings might as well be at mine as I’ve got the set-up. The outdoor seating area is great as we can just keep adding chairs. It could be 10 or more people who come over and we just keep expanding, now I have the outdoor room/garage there is no limit,” she says.
Home truths:
Any saves? We did not touch the rooms that did not need anything to be done to them at this stage.
Any splurges? The kitchen and the skylight in the hallway.
Lessons learned? Go with your gut. I knew within a few days of living in the house what needed to be done to maximise the potential of it. The bonus was finding a builder who was on my wavelength.
What would you never do again? We honestly can’t think of anything. We would do it all again, just the way we did it.
What’s one thing you would change about your home if you could? At times I miss having a bath in the house.
Most memorable experience? We have gathered the extended family many times at our house because it lends itself so well to large gatherings. We especially love sitting out on the covered deck and having drinks and nibbles while enjoying views of the garden.
Text: Catherine Steel Photography: Babiche Martens
Shop this Mount Eden renovation’s style
1. Basket vase
$175.00 at Shop Your Home and Garden
This gorgeous vase is perfectly imperfect. Crafted by hand and made to order, these vases all have variations so you can own your truly unique piece.
2. Cannes Coffee Table
$600.00 at Freedom
Made of robust Acacia timber, this timeless coffee table will transform your outdoor living.
3. 100% Belgium Linen Cushion
$102.98 at Shop Your Home and Garden
Feather-filled and crafted in the softest Belgium pure linen, this cushion is the finishing touch to your cosy living.
4. Organic cotton quilt cover
$174.72 at Hommey
You know this quilt cover will be incredibly soft, made with 100% organic cotton, and stonewashed for a distinctively fresh feel.
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