Table of contents for Deccember/January 2022-23 in homestyle

While producing this issue, I've been: At the supermarket this week, my son Ted excitedly pointed out the Christmas-themed chocolates that have begun to appear at the ends of the aisles, and all I could think was, ‘Is it that time already?!' In producing a magazine, we're always working a little in advance of real time, so the holiday countdown does feel as if it starts early for us — and yet I've found myself late to the summer-accommodation game, having not considered much beyond chilling out at home. Not that I'm mad about that, though, given most of last year's break was consumed with my family's move from the North to the South Island and our epic regional roadie in between. On the road again recently to style and…

An extensive renovation of a 1990s home, this project was all about making the most of light, angles, functional space, flow and colour. One of the owners is an interior designer, who worked closely with the architect to provide a clean, white backdrop for her signature colour and pattern. Externally, the home's original angled form was enhanced with the addition of a finned pergola entry walkway, a ribbon staircase and a covered balcony. The interior was stripped back to its core and reinvigorated with new linings and finishes, built-in joinery and reconfigured bathrooms, and opened with oversized skylights, which along with the carved-out window voids flood light over the sculptural joinery. Introducing a confident palette of hues including forest green, sage, Japanese blue and soft terracotta helps connect the interior…

HOMES THE PROJECT With design team Macintosh Harris, fishmonger Geoff Creighton and his wife Rose built this four-bedroom bach at Auckland's Piha Beach for themselves and their hree adult children James, Emma and Lucy. A lunch invitation to Geoff and Rose Creighton's beach house is a hot ticket, well worth the drive out to Piha. Geoff, who's in the fishing game, has access to the freshest kaimoana around, and is known for throwing the odd crayfish on the barbie. He also whips up a mean whitebait fritter. The secret to a good fritter is not to over-egg it, he says. “I use only the egg whites — otherwise it's an omelette.” The secret to a good holiday house is along the same lines: keep it low-key, with more of the…

BASKET CASE We virtually lost our minds over the perfection of this sweet little rattan picnic accessory; its creators have determined just what you need and wrapped it all up in the loveliest-looking package. Sturdily crafted from beech timber, it has a lid that doubles as a plate or cheeseboard, and an insulated inner that closes with a zip so your refreshments hold it together. achomestore.co.nz NEW/OLD MATE Your bae for the summer is sustainably handmade from found or discarded fabric, but new to you in the SS 22/23 collection by Ngāmotu/New Plymouth's Companion. The small business buddies up with ultra-talented migrants and former refugees to craft ever-essential sunhats, and hopes you'll purchase yours from their updated range with a waste-not-want-not view to being pals for years to come. companion-store.com…

GOOD IN BED Kiwis Kate Fowler and Rukaiya Daud have taken the utmost care with every detail of their Sydney-based bedware brand Sutram. Their cool, customisable, colour-blocked sheets, duvets, pillowslips and accessories are made in ways that give back to staff and communities, tinted with non-toxic dyes, manufactured in a water-neutral factory, and in organic, Fairtrade cotton that feels good and looks even better with age. A nifty function on their website lets you put your stamp on yours by shuffling 10 shades to see how they'll combine in situ and ultimately style your bedroom to match your mood. studio-sutram.com STRONG LOOK In a welcome fashion moment, Pōneke/Wellington cup connoisseurs Acme have collaborated with sartorial icon Karen Walker to produce a run of their Bobby mugs in glossy colours that…

“The ever-changing light and reflections from the pool soften the outlook and provide a calming focus.” Architecture at Home by Debra Millar (Point Publishing, $80) A page-turning line-up of projects completed in the past 10 years, this read showcases homes both permanent and holiday, rural and urban, big and small. Despite their differences, they have in common the way in which they enhance their inhabitants' lives. All of the homes featured were finished or in progress when the Covid lockdowns struck, meaning their designs were vigorously tested when the value of engaging an architect to create one of life's linchpins really came home to roost. Favourites of ours include a Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland renovation by Jack McKinney Architects that's dubbed Under Ivy for its two green roofs and bagged-brick and steel-framed…

Combining a restrained approach and an expression of craft and character that speaks to the original features of the home, the focus of this renovation was on the kitchen and dining space, plus the adjacent scullery and laundry zones. In the open-plan kitchen and dining space, two solid stone masses are set in a simple arrangement, one rising from the ground and the other lowering from the ceiling. The monolithic bench anchors the room and allows different tones to be set in each of the two areas within it, while the rangehood transforms a utilitarian element into a sculptural object; it's set in front of a new window through which morning light streams, illuminating it all. Links and thresholds were important throughout this project, with new doors with bronze handles…

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE Best Design Awards — STYLE Vertical cuts through the side walls provide for lightwells and wintergardens that will bring ligt and plant life to the centre of the apartments and separate the public and private areas. An early adopter of zoning changes allowing increased development along an arterial route through a city-fringe suburb, Jervois features an undulating street-side metal screen that offers a scaled interpretation of the bay-window motif common to many of the surrounding homes. It also forms a veil that differentiates public and private worlds while communicating the building's dual commercial and residential roles. The site fronts a retail zone and has sea views to the rear. Massing and planning responded to these conditions with geometric forms that gracefully challenge the site's development regulations. Although planning policy…

Maker profile — PEOPLE Under the moniker Kemi Niko, the studio they founded a decade ago, creative couple Kemi Whitwell (Ngāi Tahu) and Niko Leyden take on all kinds of projects, including turning waste wood and tin cans into nifty collectable Mini Huts that replicate iconic ones in Aotearoa's bush and national parks. From the moment their partnership began, it's been underpinned by a shared ethos that deeply affirms why they do what they do: for the joy and adventure of art. So what strengths do each of you bring to your work? Niko: Kemi's a natural maker with an incredible range of skills and knowledge. He's always had an appreciation for the Aotearoa vernacular and a tireless drive to use that to create new perspectives. Kemi: Niko's as much a…

THE PROJECT With Lloyd Hartley Architects, full-time mum Nadia Magill and her husband James, an executive general manager, renovated this four-bedroom home in Auckland's Saint Marys Bay for themselves and their children Isaac (4) and Tristan (2). Life is never static. Families expand, expectations change, so wanting a bit more space, and then perhaps a bit more, is natural. It comes with the territory. That was the case with this 1920s bungalow that sits on a narrow patch of land in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland's Saint Marys Bay. By the time Nadia and James Magill bought here in 2017, the lean-to (and three and four) added on to the original wasn't really providing the lifestyle they imagined for them, their two young sons and their tearaway fox terrier. The section, which runs…

A year has a tendency to pass in a blur, then suddenly ill's all but over and you still haven't got ahead. If only there was one thing you could do right now to make you feel a bit more accomplished on the home front and life a little easier… Enter the PT-P300BT P-touch Cube by Brother, a minimalist-look mobile label printer that connects via Bluetooth to your phone or tablet, where you can easily edit your text using the Design & Print 2 app! As well as being brilliant for pantry organisation, we See it coming in handy these holidays when you're stocking up for the bach or decanting your cosmetics into travel-sized containers. Print messages onto ribbons for gift wrapping or children's names onto iron-on tape, sort that…

Set & match Dresses are the one-and-done of the wardrobe department, offering a complete solution that's so easy to slip into yet somehow makes you look as if you made a major effort. This summer, we're extending the principle to coordinated separates such as these, which score bonus points for being able to be mixed if you're not in the mood to match. Dip into dopamine dressing (and decorating, with pieces like this sofa in satin-feel, worsted-wool fabric) while you're at it, by buying yours in colours, prints and textures that really put a smile on your dial. Home & dry Speaking of texture, plush towels don't guarantee happiness, but they come close. This Turkish one is extra-soft and looks so good we hope you're inspired to use it at…

Get the look - Forgoing artwork in favour of framing furniture with a statement mural is a bold choice, but painting the backdrop, wall and floor more subdued hues will create the visual balance you need to pull it off. Tie a playful mural into a space by introducing decorative items of a smaller scale in the same colour palette. - To recreate our design, sketch it on a piece of paper, then use a ruler and pencil to overlay the sketch with a grid. We painted our wall in Resene SpaceCote Flat in Resene Sea Fog (top) and Resene Contented before using a metre ruler and pencil to translate our grid onto the wall, then adding the shapes as they appeared in each box. For clean lines, use a…

Best Design Awards — STYLE RESIDENTIAL INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE The stained-cedar cladding of this renovated home amplifies the effect of the transition inside to a crafted, textured interior, where beautiful, natural materials take precedence. Almost everything you interact with is bespoke, from the barstools and balustrades to the bathroom vanities. Although the floorplan remained generally intact, some apertures were increased in size to improve sightlines and flow, including full-height doors inserted to maximise the sense of spaciousness. The existing tired timber floors were replaced with wide oak planks, and the same oak, in a narrower board, was applied to the ceiling, the craftsmanship enhanced by negative detail on the perimeter. The contrast of light-coloured plaster walls with rebated skirting boards heightens the effect of the material layering. In the kitchen, the…

THE PROJECT With Aaron Jones of Urban Function Architecture and Abbie Herniman of The Home Maker, Karl Saunders and Hat Hail of Built Chch created this four-bedroom home in Christchurch's Sumner for themselves and their children Ollie (8), Sam (8) and Scarlett (6). During their first renovation, of a small unit in central Ōtautahi/Christchurch in their early twenties. Hat Hall and Karl Saunders painted a wall in their kitchen an eye-watering red. While the owners of architectural building co Built Chch's current home was being constructed, they bided their time in an in-need-of-an-update dwelling with patterned brown carpet (not to mention screaming pipes, flickering lights, lethal stairs and doors opening straight onto the roof). Not before time, the interior aesthetic they now find themselves living with is decidedly more appealing.…

Outside in — FIRST WINDOWS & DOORS Looking from the balcony of this home along the golden-sand stretch of beach before it, you can't help but be awed by the sweeping panorama of the coast, from Mauao/Mt Maunganui at one end to Maketu at the other. It's a scene architect Brendon Gordon appreciates as much as anyone. “Each site here has its own unique view of Mt Maunganui,” he says. “Having designed more than a few houses along this strip, you come to understand how to take advantage of that outlook pretty well.” Previously occupied by a '90s home with all the hallmark curves and quirks of the era, the location offered opportunity by the bucketload for Brendon's clients, who were relocating from a rural property to create their own…

Book extract — LIVING Food has always been a big part of Manawatū food stylist, photographer, cook, recipe developer, artist, entrepreneur and mum Christall Lowe's life. In her first, fantastic book, Kai, she goes back to the beginning of a flavoursome journey that began on her nana's lap with a revelatory mouthful of mashed kamokamo… “Too young to walk or talk. I'm sure that first meal set me up for a life of loving good, homegrown kai — and butter. Food has always been a huge part of our family life. ‘Good kai', as Grandad would say. Kai is a book about our way of cooking, eating and gathering — whether it be the gathering of kai or the gathering of people. Our ‘life of kai'. “Our life of kai…