UncategorizedOur New Ply & Batten Garage

In all honesty, pulling this post together was a bit of a slog this month. Revealing a second garage hardly gets anyone’s motor running – especially mine! However, when I stand back from the street and admire the hard work and the final transformation, my heart wants to jump over our new fence!

The garage still needs a black colour steel roof to match the house and a fancy gooseneck light at the front, but for now, I am calling it as good as done! My inspiration and colour palette was derived from this one photo by Studio McGee. Like half of America, I am so in love with the white, black, and cedarwood combination.

What we started with was a damp, vine-ridden, dark box. You could film a horror movie down here; it wasn’t a place you want to be on your own during a gloomy wet day. Paul cleaned up the area, reframed the garage door opening to fit the new garage door (watch this space), surrounded the garage with plywood to attach the batons.

The next decision to be made was how many battens and how far apart. I tell you, this design gig is no easy feat! After a few show and tells from Paul, I decided that I wanted the battens at 600mm apart. In my opinion, the size and shape gave a sense of being congruent to the windows of the house. I can sense Paul reading this and rolling his practical eyes!

I choose not to stucco the garage because I wanted to add texture and interest to the front of the house, without it being too over the top. For years now, I have been following the traditional farmhouse design in America. How beautiful is this white modern Farmhouse?

Following on from the garage update, we are now deep in discussion on how to fix the windows of the house. We have a newborn baby on the left side of the house (by our bedroom window) and three children under eight with a new puppy on the other side. We are seriously looking at triple glazing not only to keep the warmth in the house but to keep the squealing out! The window design is crucial as I am keen to move this house out of the Art Deco era to a more modern/vintage flavour – if that makes sense? Clever clogs Paul has sketched up a picture of the look we are trying to create.

We are still undecided on what we are doing with the area beside our garage. Is it a veggie patch, or shall we use it for another outdoor seating space? For now, Paul has created a grey concrete tile border around the hedge while I get my act together! I am leaning towards tiling the area with grey tiles and putting in an umbrella and a couple of seats. It’s all dependant on how well and quickly the front hedge leaps up. They seem to be flourishing, though…

My new online doormats also arrived at my door last month – ha! They are so pretty. It is the little moments for me that create momentum and gets me eager for more!

I can’t wait to share what we have lined up at Nikau Street next month! Thanks again for reading.