Home profile
Meet and greet: Ketiesha Excell Elliott (residential real estate agent) and Frank Excell (residential real estate agent) and Bruce the Jack Russell terrier.
The property: Four-bedroom, three-bathroom 1920s stucco Arts and Crafts-era home with three living rooms in Mt Eden, Auckland.
The renovation of Ketiesha Excell Elliott’s character home reflects not just her vision, but the vibrant life she wants to live. With her husband Frank Excell, she has updated it for the 21st century, bringing warmth and energy to the house with bold jewel tones and a new resort-style pool area. When other prospective buyers balked at the massive amount of work needed to transform the dark and dated interior, the couple embraced the opportunity. “I think a lot of people were put off,” she says. “But our experience in real estate gave us the vision for how it could be and the confidence to take it on.”
It took 18 months to renovate the house from top to bottom but the couple have succeeded in bringing light into a house that was in desperate need of revival. The stunning result is a bold and distinctive family home that has been the ideal backdrop for raising their children, Frankie and Matilda. Now adults, they have both moved out, but Ketiesha says the house continues to be a focal point for family get-togethers. “We have so many lovely memories from family gatherings and there are many more to come,” she says.
Dark to light
Ketiesha and Frank wanted to take the house from tired and oppressive to colourful and contemporary – without losing any of its character. Originally, the house was almost totally closed off to the backyard. “This made it very dark and dreary, and it felt quite depressing. We wanted to let the light in,” she says.
Initially, they didn’t realise how large the backyard was. “It had a concrete driveway with a carport that housed six cars and a tiny bit of grass at the very back,” she says. “The generous space was only apparent once the mammoth carport had been demolished.”
Opening the back of the house to the garden and adding an outdoor sofa and pool was a game-changer for the way they use this area. “We spend a lot of time out there in summer. The pool is a natural gathering spot, especially for the kids and their friends.”
A spacious open-plan kitchen, dining and living area was created by extending the back of the house. They also installed three sets of glass doors for easy access outside and incorporated a scullery into the new kitchen layout.
Past and present
Frank, a Kiwi, met Ketiesha, who was born and raised in Devon, England, while he was living in the United Kingdom in the 1990s. Eventually, the couple decided to make New Zealand their home.
“When we bought this house, it desperately needed a complete reno, but there was always something special about it. We wanted to respect that and honour the previous owners, who lived here for 45 years,” says Ketiesha. “We reused a lot of the old window and door fittings, retained as much of the old glass as possible and spent a lot of time researching hardware for doors and windows. In the end, we shipped a lot of the hardware from Samuel Heath in the UK.”
Ketiesha was passionate about creating an interior that paid tribute to the traditional English decor she was familiar with. “We wanted to add lots of detailing to make it feel more homely and softer,” she says. “I like having distinct spaces. This allows you to start and stop colour and to start and stop wallpaper. I wanted each room to have a different feeling, but overall, there is a very English look. I’d describe my style as traditional with an edge.”
Designer decor
The renovation also gave Ketiesha an opportunity to try out ideas that she’d been gathering for years. The large character home was the ideal canvas on which to unleash her dream decor. “I really like mixing colour and pattern and prints, although it can be a bit nerve-wracking wondering whether it’s all going to turn out how you expect.”
They were confident about the look and feel they wanted, selecting the paint colours and wallpapers, the carpet and the living room curtains. But when it came to pulling the scheme together, they called in the help of interior designer Erina Emery.
“The trick is making sure all the colours and patterns go together, and this is where my designer Erina Emery came in,” says Ketiesha. She highly recommends this move. “Go with your instinct to start with. Frank and I knew what we wanted, but needed some expertise to bring it all together,” she explains.
That’s entertainment
Sharing their home with friends and family is a high priority. “For me, a good home is one that makes people feel good when they come in,” says Ketiesha. “I love entertaining. One of my favourite things is having people over. I love seeing people enjoying themselves and having a good time. We throw dinner parties and regularly have drinks at our place.” There’s even a glamorous separate cocktail room specifically for this purpose, with an elegant round table and velvet-covered chairs, as well as a fully stocked drinks cabinet.
Ketiesha also designed the layout of the kitchen and open-plan living room with entertaining in mind. “The kitchen bar allows me to prep while talking to friends. I can also hide the worst of the mess in the scullery,” she says. “In the end, I kept the kitchen quite plain. I think a classic kitchen is really lovely. It has an island in the middle with an L-shaped bench, which works well.” She opted for a wooden worktop. “I love the way timber tells a story as it ages. Our home is all about ageing, being lived in and comfortable.”
Placing the dining table adjacent to the kitchen was another strategic move. “I can keep cooking when we have people over and still be a part of what’s going on.” For dinner parties, she often spins the dining table around and pulls out the extension, to make the table the centrepiece of the room. “It’s especially lovely in the summer when we throw open the doors. You can go in and out to the garden and pool.”
The home is equally well suited to winter gatherings, with a functioning fireplace in each downstairs living room, making these spaces cosy havens during the chilly months. “There’s nothing like a fireplace for creating ambience in winter. I love the warmth, the smell and the sound.”
Home truths
What did you splurge on? The wallpaper. We used three different wallpapers and I had them all shipped over from the UK. I shopped around and decided that importing the wallpapers myself was the way to go. After taking the landing costs, GST, etc into account, it cut about one-third off the price.
Any savings? Frank was the on-site project manager, which saved us money.
Anything you’d change? If money had not been an issue, we would have applied for resource consent to build a retaining wall and grab the extra half a metre around the back of the property. This would have enabled us to make that part of the garden private sooner than it did.
Any advice? Spend time with your architect to make sure what you are doing is absolutely what you want. That way, there are no costly changes once the process has started. We had an amazing draftsman who created over 60 pages of hand-drawn plans. It was a real labour of love. Use a builder you resonate with, someone that you have complete trust in, then provide them with a clear brief.
Most memorable experience you’ve had in your home? So many – 18ths, 21sts, a 50th, and in 2023 we hosted a wedding reception for Frank and me after 32 years together. It has been a joyful house. I love having people over and the kids also love to host their own parties here.
What would you never do again? Probably another reno of this magnitude.
Shop Ketiesha and Frank’s Mt Eden home style
See more images of the Mt Eden home below
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