Connection was the goal of this Wellington renovation, which now has room for the whole tribe
The Willow extension dining table is from Nood and the Jerry dining chairs are from A&C Homestore.
Home profile
Meet & greet: Lucy (senior marketer, currently on parental leave) and Elliot Kemeys (managing director, Ray White Kemeys Brothers) and their children, Penelope, four, six-month-old George, and Boris the dog.
The property: Four-bedroom, two-bathroom character villa with open-plan living extension in Petone, Wellington.
The cabinetry in Dulux Greenella steals the show in Lucy and Elliot’s kitchen, which is full of clever little details, including the curved edges on the island bench, the battens (seen on the island and on the timber cabinet at the end), and there’s even an alcove for Boris the dog’s bowls.
Good neighbours are a true treasure, often making an enormous difference to the way we feel about our homes – that opinion is indisputably true for Wellington couple Lucy and Elliot Kemeys.
A few doors down the road live Elliot’s brother Rupert and sister-in-law Sarah, whose Wellington villa renovation was featured in the November 2022 issue of Your Home and Garden.
The window seat, which is Boris the dog’s favourite place to sit and people and cat watch, includes handy hidden storage.
Being so close to family, who are also friends and business partners – realtors Rupert and Elliot are the “brothers” behind Ray White Kemeys Brothers, has been a rare gift and an influencing factor behind Lucy and Elliot’s decision to renovate their adorable Petone villa for long-term living.
“They bought their house a few years ago and we were like, we can’t go now, because how handy is it, all being on the same street?” says Lucy.
The bookshelves are a highlight for these avid readers. “We really wanted somewhere we could display all the books and it adds some nice colour and texture to the room as well,” says Lucy.
Almost perfect
The couple bought the villa as newlyweds back in 2016, instantly falling in love with its historic charm. “I don’t have much of a poker face, I’m quite expressive, so I walked in the door and was immediately jumping up and down, all excited. Which was really embarrassing,” says Lucy.
Most of the house, including the hallway, remained untouched, bar a coat of paint, with Lucy and Elliot keen to preserve features like the stained-glass door, warm timber floors and original interior doors.
Having grown up in Dunedin, living in and surrounded by villas, Lucy adores a character home. This one had character in spades. The previous owners had loved the house for 13 years, doing all the grunt work (repiling, rewiring and the like) to leave it in wonderful shape for its next custodians.
The concrete slab has been cleverly stepped up to form a hearth for the Pyro Classic fire and a base to frame the built-in joinery, designed by Katie Peck and built by Well Hung Joinery.
Lucy and Elliot might have been very happy living in the home just as it was, if not for two life-altering events: the arrival of their first child, Penelope, and the 2020 Covid lockdown.
The small kitchen was at the opposite end of the house from the living room, in one of the front rooms – a common enough layout for an older home, but one that is challenging for anyone juggling domestic chores with minding a small child.
The Unplugged Checkers rug is from Nodi and the patterned cushions on the Hunter Furniture Finn modular sofa are custom-made in Anna Sassi’s Pablo Notte fabric.
Lucy quickly spotted the downfalls of the existing layout and developed a vision of what the house could be, while several weeks of lockdown convinced Elliot – initially less eager to make changes – of the value of a reno.
“For me, the key thing was just having one space where we could all live in together, as opposed to being at the end of the house. It just didn’t work, there was nowhere for Penelope to be while I was in the kitchen, so it was a real juggle.”
“I particularly love the rounded oak detailing in between the vertical cupboards,” says Katie. “I feel like it is quite a unique detail which really adds depth to the green of the cupboard fronts.” The lights that hang like bubbles overhead are Point pendants from Citta.
Who you know
When it came to actualising their renovation ideas, Lucy and Elliot had a solid network to call on. Architect Shaun Anderson of AND Architecture is an old school friend, as is Glenn of Fundamental Construction – both of whom also worked on Rupert and Sarah’s house.
Divided from the main space by a cavity door is the “snug”, a cosy second living space.
“They did theirs first, and when Glenn finished there, he moved down the street to ours. Then we moved out for about five and a half months and into a rental, which Glenn had built two streets over. It was musical houses,” says Lucy.
The walls are painted in Resene Black White and the boucle headboard from George Collective form a blank canvas for colour to be added in Lucy’s favourite way – with art and soft furnishings. The painting above the bed is by Ed Bats.
For the interiors, the couple called on another good friend, Katie Peck of Kurio, who was tasked with meshing Lucy and Elliot’s disparate styles.
“Elliot likes to be bold and colourful, and I’m probably more on the conservative side. I prefer to use cushions, soft furnishings and artwork to bring colour into a space,” says Lucy. She muses that their friendship with Katie could only have helped her masterfully navigate the middle ground that both of them adore.
The gingham bed linen is from A&C Homestore.
Out of the box
While their renovation needs were simple. They wanted a modern, open-plan space for family living. Lucy says they didn’t want to do “just a boring old extension, pushing out like a box”.
The pre-reno home had what Lucy describes as a lean-to with an angled roofline. It inspired architect Shaun to design a space with a lofty pitched ceiling.
The pitched roof and modern mix of materials, including Euro Largo bricks in Cromo from Midland Brick, form an exciting contrast with the original villa.
This gave the extension an interesting point of difference, while allowing space for a luxurious extravagance of windows, which heat the space and gild it with light all day. A precious commodity in Wellington and especially in a villa, Lucy says.
The extension was designed to impose as little as possible on the backyard, which still offers plenty of room for a generous deck and lawn for the kids.
The modern design of the extension demanded a contemporary palette of materials, with Shaun choosing to contrast the weatherboards of the villa with a combination of brick and steel.
With the new extension hidden from the street, the cobbled path and delicate fretwork house retain the period charm of a villa. The only changes visible from here are the new roof and the window shutters. The weatherboards are painted Resene Rakaia, with top trims in Resene Ebony Clay and sills in Resene Shark.
“That was something I needed to be talked around to a bit, but in hindsight, I am so glad we did it,” says Lucy. She now appreciates the way the contrast of materials tells the story of the house, what it was and what it has evolved into.
“We’ve still maintained that classic villa looks from the street, but if you look down the side, you can see that juxtaposition between the hard brick and the soft weatherboards. There’s a surprise and delight factor.”
The sculptural Omeia console is from Ivor, interior designer Katie’s furniture and homewares store. The trio of artworks is from the couple’s favourite artist, Ed Bats.
Colour theory
There are equally delightful surprises inside the house. Walking through the home, you are struck first by the warmth and charm of the old villa, then by the sun-drenched brilliance of the new extension and the vibrant color in the green kitchen.
“Right from the outset, Lucy and Elliot were open to something a little “different” – not a white kitchen,” says Katie. “They had discussed a sage green but I wanted to give them a more vibrant green than the traditional hue as I felt it suited the space and them more.”
The first thing Lucy bought when pregnant (“I took ages to buy anything, I found it really overwhelming”), was this pink and marigold blanket from Seed. This set the colour palette for Penelope’s room, matched in an Arnold Circus stool, sheets from Spotlight and the Oyoy giraffe hanging from Tea Pea.
The cabinetry picks up the green in the adjacent painting by Ed Bats, one of several art pieces that add a sense of playfulness and personality to the home.
“I love working with the artworks and placing each piece or designing with these in mind,” says Katie, who used the couple’s collection to inspire styling throughout the home. “Existing artworks create a fantastic jumping off point for our interior work,” she says.
Baby George’s room has a cute lion theme, with an Oyoy Jumping Lion wall hanging from Allium Interiors, Jellycat Bashful lion and Le Forge lion rug.
Fortune favours
Life with two small children doesn’t usually give one much opportunity for quiet contemplation. But when she stops to think about it, Lucy realises the positive impact the renovation has had on her little family.
The original sash window was saved and relocated to an adjacent wall in the reno, and now sends light streaming over the Sommerfield armchair from Rembrandt.
“It’s a beautiful space for us all to enjoy and has changed the way we live and interact. It ticks all the boxes. Space, a big island to sit around, a communal space to live in, storage and an abundance of natural light. And, bonus, it looks cool.” Add the companionship and support of family mere metres away, and this family are fortunate indeed.
Words: Shelley Tustin Photography: Anna Briggs
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