When a former Dunedin couple moved back to their home town, they looked at only one house before buying. Kim Dungey reports.
Ayla and Scott Hawkins' house is a light, airy space filled with vintage finds, fresh flowers and art.
It might have been built in the 1970s but there is not an avocado bathroom fitting or a shag pile carpet in sight.
Each of the previous owners has, however, put their own stamp on the place. First there was the conservatory, Mrs Hawkins says. Then at the top of the stairs the wood-lined sauna which they now use as a linen cupboard.
``And our neighbours say there used to be a built-in waterbed in the deck.''
The couple bought the house in the harbourside suburb of St Leonards about a year ago after returning to their home town from Auckland.
The two-storeyed plastered house had three bedrooms to accommodate visiting family, a big garage for Mr Hawkin's gym equipment and a kingfisher resident in the garden.
The conservatory wrapping around two sides of the house is home to a grapevine producing hundreds of grapes in summer. A sunny deck connects the two living areas. The main bedroom on the first floor has views towards Otago Harbour.
The home's white walls are an ideal backdrop for the couple's many artworks, almost all of them produced by local artists. The pieces include an oil on vinyl by Liz Abbott, a Pasifika doll by Lana Oranje and a rimu and Oamaru stone fantail by Gavin Wilson. Mrs Hawkins' own abstract paintings hang in the stairwell.
The couple say they have ``retro'' tastes and one of their favourite pieces of furniture is the dining suite that a former neighbour was going to throw out. Mrs Hawkins swapped it for a bunch of orchids and will one day re-cover the chairs. She also plans to remove the striped wallpaper hung by a previous owner and to install doors from the living area to the garden.
A florist and a part-time counsellor at the University of Otago Maori centre, she has a habit of ``moving stuff around'', then asking her husband if he has noticed. Mr Hawkins, associate director in the audit department at Deloitte and a big sports fan, is not bothered, as long as the television stays put.
The couple were told their 1040sq m section was once part of the property in front, a stately 22-room home which was built in 1929 by engineer Isaac Stevenson and which since 1950 has been the University of Otago vice-chancellor's residence.
The setting is a tranquil one. Irises appear at the end of spring and there are hydrangeas, magnolias, roses, agapanthus and rhododendrons. The foliage from the Hawkins' property and their neighbours' gardens helps to stock Twigs N Twine, the shop Mrs Hawkins opened in April after working for five years for the Department of Corrections.
Back when she was running rehabilitation programmes in prisons, she took in flowers to soften the ``sterile'' environment. Today, she always has fresh flowers in the house, sometimes from their garden, often whatever is left at the shop, but the pink perennials on the bench-top are her favourite.
``I hide the lilies to bring home,'' she says, laughing. ``At least three bunches a week.''