Concept Design & Inspiration for our New Renovation

Some of you may have read that we’ve bought a home here in Wanaka (for those that haven’t got up to speed as yet, you can have a quick read here) so I wanted to share the Concept Design and inspiration for our new renovation with you all, including some of my very recent and quick selections (chosen over the past few days).

We actually weren’t prepared to buy a home so fast, or even ready to do a renovation this soon after just finishing our last one, but given recent events (which I mentioned here), we realised we just needed to get into A HOME. And with zero rentals available this meant buying one, and a beautifully renovated home here in Wanaka was definitely not in our budget! 

In fairness, our new home is not a total shambles as it was built around 2000, but it hasn’t been touched in 20 years. It’s got a aubergine laminate kitchen (ick), dated bathrooms with plastic showers, an old tile roof, poorly insulated exterior cladding, and very revolting carpet. And right now doesn’t smell so good either! 

Since we only have a number of weeks at our short term rental, we need to do as much as we can over the next month or so to make our new home liveable. That means quickly opening up a wall or two, installing new timber flooring and carpet, new paint throughout, re-cladding the exterior and new roof, and renovating at least one bathroom. Thankfully we have an amazing builder (who’s also one of the nicest people) who happened to have a delay on a new project, so is able to help us get the house semi-renovated over the next 6-8 weeks.

For our new homes Concept Design, I was primarily inspired by this image I took here during autumn a little over 2 years ago. Wanaka is really sunny, and thankfully not hemmed in by towering mountains. The colours in the landscape are absolutely spectacular, even in winter. Yellow, red and burnt orange willow trees that line the lake shore; mustard hued hills and speargrass; aqua lake water and mountains with white snowy peaks, and of course lots of green pines and textural foliage are abundant. 

The landscape is actually one of my most reliable sources for interior inspiration, but I also wanted the new scheme to work with our existing furniture, furnishings and art. I’m particularly keen for a warm palette, with bursts of muted colour, especially so with the wood flooring.

The last couple of days I’ve had to make some quick decisions as we only have a short term rental for a number of weeks, so need to move into our home fairly soon. These initial selections (which I’ve shared with my email subscribers) had to be products that were either in stock, or could be shipped quickly (i.e from Auckland). NZ are experiencing lengthy delays and long lead times for products right now, so my choices were limited, but in some ways that made it easier to choose! Also, having a distinct and clear vision for our renovation, ruled out many options too.

A couple of the selections are our black stain for our exterior cedar cladding, beautiful golden-honey natural oak engineered flooring, sisal carpet, brass tapware, charcoal bathroom floor tiles which will be laid in either a herringbone or brick bond pattern, board and batten cladding throughout, this beautiful Sanderson wallpaper for Eva’s room, adorable brass wall lights from the UK, and a pre-made vanity which is the nicest “off the shelf” vanity I’ve ever come across!

Will be sharing more selections next week with my subscribers (so sign up if you want links to sources and to see more of the design), including more lighting, paint colours, another wallpaper selection, our internal doors and hardware, curtain fabric, and our metal fireplace design for the family room!

I’ll also share some walk throughs of the current state of the house on Instagram too – be prepared as there’s a hideous aubergine laminate kitchen involved!!

Nicki xo