The woodland cottage

When people build new, they often build big but that wasn’t the case for the owners of this home in Fairfield, Dunedin.

Eric and Noreen Johnson wanted to keep their home at about the 150sq m mark on a reasonably tight budget.

“We didn’t want to build big,” says Eric, a retired roofer. “We wanted it small and intimate because the kids had left home so it was just Noreen and me, although we made it three bedrooms so we had room if the kids did come back home.”

And when they teamed up with architectural designer Cameron Grindlay, of Dwelling Architectural Design, they also had another ambition.

As Eric explains, “We also wanted it not to look like all the other houses so we wanted to show that you could do something a bit different without a huge budget.”

It helped that they knew the site well.

“We had a five-acre block and we subdivided off our old house and built on the remaining land,” says Eric. 

That left them a property of about 3800sq m with a bush backdrop, wetland  and a blueberry field.

Eric adds, “There had been a granny flat where we built the new house so although it was a tight site we had a good feel for what it was like.”

Cameron says the building platform was only about 400sq m but “the removed granny flat was quite a good reference point to make sure we had a good view over the landscape”.

He said apart from size and budget, he had free rein and his aim was to “design a cottage with a twist”.

“Eric and Noreen planned to down size while retaining their established wetland garden and blueberry orchard. The brief was to maintain privacy from the street while enhancing connections to the bush and garden in the rest of the house,” Cameron says. 

  “The house was stepped to take into account the slope and the open plan living, kitchen area with sculptured windows and cedar were designed to maximise the views of the idyllic wetlands and woodlands to bring the outside in.” 

Cameron says longrun cladding and roofing was a logical choice for the home.

“Because Eric was a roofer and it’s expensive to build in New Zealand I said to him we should use longrun roofing and some cladding and that way we can keep costs down,” Cameron says.

“I like longrun as a product, and I said to Eric that I would do some nice detailing around the doors and windows to give the design a lift and set it apart - so he would have to be on his A game.”

The house itself has a gable roof with a garage out the front with a raked roof breaking up the angles.

“If you are going to do a gable, you have to either go steep or flat so I said, ‘Let’s go steep’.  It’s about 40 degrees.”

He adds, “It’s not the most attractive to have the garage on the street so we had to work out a way to soften it.”

Cedar cladding – arranged vertically - is used inside as well although it is dressed as opposed to bandsawn and helps to create a sculptural element.

“We tried to keep things simple with the house but spend some money in the dining/kitchen/living area with the cedar and nice big windows to catch the views.” 

Cameron says the colour palette of the house’s exterior – brown, black and white – was deliberately kept simple so it complemented rather than competed with the natural setting.

The layout of the home has the kitchen dining and living area opening to a deck to the north, with the master bedroom, en suite and main bathroom in the middle of the house off a hallway that leads to two more bedrooms and provides access to the garage on the southern end of the house.

Eric and Noreen’s son Sam and his partner in C&J Building, Sean Crawley, took charge of the eight-month build.

Eric took care of the roofing and cladding, including the detailing around the windows which included making window sills out of Colorsteel.

“If I had to pay someone else to do the detailing I’d hate to think what it would cost,” says Eric. “But because I was doing it myself I was prepared to take my time and get it right.”

The windows also have fixed cedar slats that mimic the look of shutters, while exposed rafters in the eaves provide more visual interest.

The eastern side of the house - not seen from the drive - was totally clad in longrun to cut costs.

Eric says they didn’t stint on comfort though with 150mm deep framing to accommodate extra insulation, underfloor insulation with ply lining, and double glazed aluminium joinery with a thermal break.

The log burner in the living area has a wetback connected to the hot water cylinder.

“Once the hot water cylinder is up to temperature, the heat goes to radiators in the hallway and the bedroom,” says Eric.

Internal detailing includes a whitewashed plywood ceiling with negative detailing in the living area, and ply panels in the kitchen, which also has an office nook that can be shut away to hide paperwork.

LED strip lighting along the bottom of the large windows in the living room helps to create atmosphere.

“And above the kitchen bench we have a long, low window instead of a splashback and that looks down into the bush,” says Eric. There is another shot window in the en suite that also takes in the bush views.

The new property hosted the Johnsons’ daughter’s wedding, and Eric and Noreen couldn’t be happier with the results.

“Cameron was brilliant to work with,” says Eric .”He just clicked with what we wanted and got it right straight away.”