100-year-old bungalow has a full home renovation transformation in Papakura

Carrying out a home renovation can be challenging at the best of times. Add in the complication of being in a different country from the house your renovating, and you could be asking for disaster. Refresh’s processes and systems provided the perfect solution for homeowner Nadine Gray, who was living in America during her Papakura Bungalow’s home renovation.
“Refresh Renovations were just really responsive and just had great ideas”, tells Nadine. “We’d been in our house for about five years. It had been rented so we kind of wanted to give it a bit of a refresh - pardon the pun. The main objective for us was to modernise the interior and make it a more functional open space.”  
Renovation consultant took care of the project’s design and build while the family was overseas. Her expertise, combined with Refresh’s online customer portal - which allowed Nadine to communicate with the renovation consultant and view updates, made the experience a smooth process.

“I really trusted the renovation consultant because she was here on-site with my colour choices and the different specs that they were going to use. She was just so incredibly easy to work with and really helpful. The online customer portal was amazing. It kind of allowed us to have a bird's eye view while we were in America, so it kind of felt like we were walking beside everyone while they were here and we were over there. I've gone on to suggest it to friends who are overseas and having renovations done.”  
Refresh Renovations were just really responsive and just had great ideas

Open-plan kitchen design

Nadine’s main priorities included opening-up the interior to create an open plan kitchen and living area. She also wanted to modernise and repair areas throughout the home. Based on this, the renovation consultant put together a plan and provided Nadine with a fixed-quote before work began. From there, she scheduled in her team of builders, cabinetry installers, plumbers, electricians, gas fitters, stoppers, painters, tilers, joiners and insulators.

Open-plan renovation

The renovation consultant's team adjusted the home’s layout to connect the kitchen, living and dining areas - improving the interior flow whilst keeping the existing potbelly in situ and central fireplace - which they upgraded to gas. The home’s wallpaper was removed and major remedial work was carried out on the stopping throughout the house. As it was an older home,  the renovation consultant approached the renovation with the expectation that a few challenges would be unavoidable, noting: “Older homes always have challenges but it is how we solve them at the time that counts. We did battle with the stopping - this required far more work than anticipated to achieve the best, and a very much improved, result.”
The team also installed a vibrant new kitchen, featuring engineered stone benchtops, and installed a new shower in the home’s existing bathroom. The outside laundry was reconfigured to allow for a walk-in wardrobe to extend from the ensuite bathroom. 
Throughout the home, the original timber floors were patched up and the ceilings revitalised. Bifold doors now open the home up to the outdoors and newly installed curtains and blinds complete the home’s new look.  

Final thoughts

“We created a clever, lovely family home with indoor-outdoor flow and great workspaces”, tells the renovation consultant, who met her clients face-to-face for the first time on the day that they moved in.
“We just absolutely love it!”, says Nadine. “It's completely transformed the property. For a nearly 100-year-old house...it's just so modern inside! A few small tweaks made a huge difference. We stayed within a theme of keeping the old within the new. Just by taking out a couple of walls in the lounge it really opened up the flow from the kitchen to the living area. We flipped the whole kitchen around. We had a big room that was like a laundry room and we ended up splitting it in half. On one side we created a walk-in wardrobe and the other side leads into a laundry. It's just a far better use of space.”
“I highly recommend Refresh Renovations to anyone. Certainly, if we were going to do it again, Refresh would be my first go-to.”  

Book a FREE consultation

If you would like to learn more about how Refresh Renovations can make your next project an easy one, get in touch to book a free consultation with a renovation specialist near you.

This is an independent franchisee of Refresh Renovations.