Our Houzz

Houzz, the website for everything home, is featuring our house this week. The article will focus on our wonderful architects  Russ Dotter and Wencke Solfjeld, a husband and wife team who worked with us for 18 months on a complete re-model. Together we transformed our house from dark Seventies Brady Bunch to light Kiwi coastal.

In the process Russ and Wencke became great friends of ours and I missed seeing them every day when our house was finished.

Russ and Wencke

They "got" us exactly and drew all the clean lines we love (even though they'd just finished my friend's house which had a raspberry-red, sheepskin, bird's-nest warmth - they can do any style). They also had older children and were able to warn us about what not to do (an expensive play structure the kids will grow outgrow in six months' time.) Wencke's attention to detail included making shelves that would fit just one can of food. Otherwise you'll keep buying more cans because you can't see the ones in the back, she said. How many times have I thanked her for that...

Wencke is such a sweetie and always puts others first. Last week we worked together on the Houzz article getting all our buying sources correct. On Thursday morning Wencke's mother died suddenly and Wencke had to fly out to Norway.  In between trying to book flights she still found time to email me thanking me for the extra work on her behalf.

Power of the big blogs - Houzz apparently gets 80 million pageviews a month and some of these photos which Russ and Wencke posted on their profile have been re-posted 260 times already!

You've already seen some of these photos, but I thought I would post them all together just for record and you can zoom down the lot of them. Thanks to photographers Scott Hargis and Frederic Neema.

Kitchen area:

Before Photos design by San Francisco Architect Dotter & Solfjeld Architecture + Design

Photo: Frederic Neema

Photo: Frederic Neema

Before Photos design by San Francisco Architect Dotter & Solfjeld Architecture + Design

Photo: Frederic Neema

Living room:

Photo: Frederic Neema

Bathrooms:

Photo: Frederic Neema

Photo: Frederic Neema

Photo: Frederic Neema

Boys' bathroom:

Photo: Frederic Neema

Outside:

Photo: Frederic Neema

Photo: Frederic Neema

Before Photos design by San Francisco Architect Dotter & Solfjeld Architecture + Design

Photo: Frederic Neema

Photo: Frederic Neema

Before Photos design by San Francisco Architect Dotter & Solfjeld Architecture + Design

Photo: Frederic Neema

Before Photos design by San Francisco Architect Dotter & Solfjeld Architecture + Design

Before Photos design by San Francisco Architect Dotter & Solfjeld Architecture + Design

Contractor: Steve Strand
Colour and design consultant, Kathy Farley, Artdecor