Maungatapere lies 11km east of Whangārei and is home to Jock and Jane McVicker’s renovated 110-year-old villa. It’s a bucolic spot: a sheltered valley with established trees.

When Jock bought the property, there was a Skyline shed and an old villa sitting in the middle of a paddock. “There were no fences,” he says. “The lawns were a metre high and there were lots of weeds, and lots of things to do.” Initially he and his father planned to do the house up as a project and move it on, but over time the place grew on him. “I was like, no, let’s do it up to stay.”

Jock fitted one side of the shed as a sleepout, while and friends helped with the reno. “We were really fortunate,” he says. “I was able to live in the shed while we renovated this.” The renovation involved rewiring, re-plumbing and re-lining the house, along with insulation and a ducted central-heating system. They saved as much of the old house as they could, including its original kauri floors. “Though with mates doing it, it did take a long time.”

All in, Jock lived in the shed for about four years; three years in he met Jane, who moved into the shed for the final eight months of the work. Now they have two kids and a dog, so having a big, warm house is important for them these days. And for all the work done on it, it still feels like a heritage farmhouse.

“I had some fantastic people involved,” says Jock. “Particularly the builder. He had this vision for what it could be – and it really did start with the joinery.” Jock works in commercial refrigeration, so thermal performance is important to him – the house even has plywood lining under the floor joists to eliminate drafts and air leaks. The joinery fit the brief perfectly. “It was really important to me to set the tone in that respect. So with a premium product there, everything else followed suit.”

Jock chose Klima^® uPVC double glazed windows from First Windows and Doors. “Maintaining the windows was not something I wanted to do,” he says. More than a century old, they were past their use-by date, thermally inefficient and expensive to replace. “They were single-glazed and probably quite leaky. It was a wooden tent basically – it was quite breezy.” 

The couple love their new windows. Their robust profile sits well in an old house and they’re quiet. While this sleepy valley is quiet, there is a quarry down the road. “I don’t notice the quarry trucks driving by now,” says Jane, “compared to living in the shed when you could hear them driving past, and the blasts in the quarry.” It also works for the roaring lions at the Kamo Wildlife Sanctuary about a kilometre away.

Says Jock, “I think of all the modern joinery options the uPVC fits the best with older buildings. They had the best thermal value, and working in refrigeration there was no way I was having heat escaping my house.”