A Leap of Faith – (Moving Overseas During COVID)

Last September, our family, in the midst of strictest COVID lockdowns, packed up house, shop and kids to return to New Zealand. We truly love Melbourne and Australia but time comes when change is needed and in this case, the change we needed was to return home.

We’ve settled in Kerikeri, Northland which is a beautiful little town in the Bay of Islands. The house we’ve moved into is a 1960’s asbestos shack with a little garage at the end of its gravel drive. Over the road, a little river for the children to swim and a short walk away is a waterfall for jumping and jetty for launching boats.

I’ve set up a little workshop while we wait for a larger space to be built. This will be of similar size to the Melbourne workshop and hopefully be completed by May. Though this shop is small, I will be able to carry out all my previous designs, albeit with a little more fussing about.

I’m very keen to get to know the New Zealand timbers and have picked up some small offcuts of Kauri from a local demolition yard. Who know’s what will become of these tangled pieces.

Before my first project kicks off I built some shelving for our home. These are built from some scraps I brought over from Melbourne and work nicely, I think, in this little kitchen pocket. There are a few fanciful curves and some hand carved brackets which I enjoyed making immensely.