The winner of the 2021 NZPIF/ Resene Renovation of the Year is a dramatic example of what determination and hard work can achieve. Undertaken by Olivia O’Connell and her partner Derrick Gill, in partnership with dad Peter O’Connell, the Timaru reno is simply jaw-dropping. O’Connell explains that she and Gill had been living in Wellington when dad Peter, a veteran investor, came to them with a proposal.

“We had just started a new construction business, and Derrick is a builder and I do the administrative work. Dad suggested that we might like to do a joint venture with him, renovating a house in Timaru. He’s always talked about how he worked during the week and did up old houses in the weekend, when he was starting out, and thought it could be a good way for us to get started.”

But the house that would be their testing ground would prove far more of a challenge than the O’Connells and Gill would have ever thought.

Dark and Dingy

Peter had been interested in a 1910 bungalow, hidden behind a massive hedge. It was dark, dingy and grubby inside and out; the interior walls were covered in grime, the kitchen featured an oven and exposed pipes … and nothing else.

The piece de resistance was the toilet, located in the hall just behind the front door. “It had been piped into the hallway at some stage, and the glass in the front door was painted yellow so people couldn’t see in,” says O’Connell.

But it had promise. “The property also had some beautiful features. A classic bay window and veranda framed the front of the house. The north side of the house was private and basked in afternoon and evening sun,” as Peter O’Connell explains in the awards entry.

It would be secured for just $210,000 in 2019; a bargain basement deal.

O’Connell and Gill relocated from Wellington to Timaru for the renovation. They hadn’t seen the house. It became apparent early on that the place was uninhabitable, so they moved into one of Peter’s other investment properties and went to work.

Big Job

It was basically a gut job. And every task they started “opened a can of worms”.

“When we started to rip out the wall lining, we found layers and layers [of] hardboard over wallpaper, sarking and scrim. It was an incredibly hard job getting rid of it all,” says O’Connell.

Some of the limbs were made from “bits of old coffee tables”. The veranda had been enclosed with HardiePlank and windows – and storage cabinets (containing homebrew) were built in the space.

This extra external wall had to be removed, the cabinetry destroyed and the veranda returned to its former turn-of-the-20th-century glory. It was one of the most successful aspects of the renovation.

“People were walking past and saying how great it looked, once we had restored the veranda,” Olivia explains.

It would take six months for the couple to move into the house. “We didn’t have a kitchen at that stage, but the bathroom had been done. So we had a lovely bathroom, but the rest of the house was still a mess,” she laughs.

Hidden Treasures

One of the key considerations of the renovation was to maintain the home’s many (often hidden) beautiful original features. Some of this came quite easily: “I removed the yellow paint on the front door and discovered the lovely original windows, with a rose pattern,” Olivia explains.

Other things required more extensive work. They decided to keep all the old skirting boards and architraves; the skirting boards where 290mm wide, which is no longer available. It was O’Connell’s job to sand down and paint all of them.

“There were some original marks and dents, but these added character,” she says. It was slow work, but it added to the home’s individuality. As there were existing aluminium windows, these were maintained. O’Connell and Gill had committed to sticking within a sensible budget for the renovation (a total of $140,000). When looking for a good deal on double glazed windows they discovered some on Trade Me.

“A glass manufacturer [was] selling unused stock, $600 for three. We’d had a quote for one window of $1,200, so this was a huge saving,” she says.

They ended up using all three windows in the renovation.

The interior walls were finished with Resene Black White, they opted for Resene Triple Concrete for the exteriors. The front door was painted black, a striking counterpoint that creates significant visual appeal.

Time Well Spent

Overall, the renovation took two years. The scale of the job, lockdowns, plus the care and attention lavished on the build meant it took much longer than anticipated. And it was only in the last stage of the build that the kitchen, carpet and vinyl for the kitchen and bathroom, were installed. The build was finished in April this year. Ever resourceful O’Connell was aware of the importance of staging, so used furniture from her parents’ house and bits and pieces from Kmart to create an attractive interior look for real estate photographs. There was a lot of interest once it was on the market, and the house sold for $520,000 in July, with the profits split between the couple and Peter O’Connell.

Although O’Connell testifies to feeling (at times) overwhelmed by the scale of the job they had set themselves, she believes that it offered many life lessons. “I will always look back and think about how much it taught us.”

Next Project

They are currently working on another project: the relocation of the house they were living in at the early stages of their award-winning reno to a rural setting.

“Dad was going to either sell it as a relocatable home or get it demolished,” O’Connell explains. “Because it was such a big house, four bedrooms and three bathrooms, no one wanted to take it. And it was so beautiful we couldn’t stand to see it destroyed.”

So, the house was cut in two and relocated to a beautiful farm setting, where it is being slowly rebuilt.

“It’s probably too big for us, but we love where we are living,” O’Connell says. “We might sell it after we’ve finished.”