Winter spaces

Don’t just think of living rooms when you design for the chilly season

BUILDING A NEW home is often a one-off opportunity to live out your vision of an idyllic lifestyle, and there isn’t a client out there who hasn’t approached us with a mental scrapbook jammed with images that centre around barbecues on the deck and relaxed evenings spent al fresco. When it comes to a dream design, summer gets the lion’s share of attention, but what about the flip side of the coin? At David Reid Homes, we believe that winter needs some love too.

When a chill wind blows and you can’t wait to cuddle up with a cocoa (or something a bit stronger), interiors with a warm soul give winter the cold shoulder. An indoor or outdoor room centred around a fireplace is an easy win but, with the right choice of materials, every space can shun the shiver.

Après-ski style

This open-plan living room has a feature fireplace but even without one it would look like hot stuff. The design move that makes this happen is the ‘sandwich’ of natural timber that warms up the ceiling and floors. Often homeowners are tempted to paint ceilings white for the feeling of more volume, but here in this Queenstown home, where the weather can be as bitter as a frozen lemon, warmth is the target. Exposed roof trusses lend a lodge-like ambience which, as any skier can attest, evokes an instant association with shelter and the conviviality of an après party. Lighting that washes up to the roof and down to the art retains the smoking-room mood and the home is decorated with leather, jute, velvet and sheepskins – fabrics that send Mister Frosty packing. F

Cooking up cosy

White kitchens never go out of fashion. White is a ‘colour’ emblematic of cleanliness and its reflective properties bounce light off surfaces to transform a compact room into a bigger, brighter experience. However, if you don’t want your kitchen to feel a tad frigid in the vice-grip of winter, at the very least add in some texture with, say, rippled tiles, or a battened island front. White and wood are a classic pairing, as in this

Wanaka home with its cedar-wrapped bulkhead that tames the stark reality of white cabinetry and white walls, making the kitchen more intimate and welcoming (due, in part, to the lowered ceiling). Throw in a jazzy pattern on the splashback and you have a far cosier space that, with inviting lighting, acts as a visually rich backdrop for gatherings around the dining table.

Burning ambition

An outdoor room with a fireplace as a focal point is a classic way to feel snug as you extend alfresco entertaining into the nippy months long after the neighbours have scarpered indoors. Ask for expert advice on the heat output as the last thing you want is a fire too puny to ward off hypothermia. In this Cambridge home, the minimal lines of the fireplace make a sizzling statement but the wood-storage boxes alongside it amp up the ambience. Its sheer bulk forms a ‘wall’ – or wind break - on one side of the wooden platform, and having operable louvres overhead is not only practical but reinforces the feeling of being sheltered from the elements. When designing this space, mimic an indoor living room and lend some hygge to the environment (think of it as the Danish way to say hug) with some blankets and cushions and even a floor rug to tie it all together. F

That’s a wrap

Take one look at this scene and it’s hard not to imagine being cocooned in comfort. This Beachlands home might be on the sunny Pohutukawa Coast, but the owners also briefed the team for a design that responded to the snug season. The textural warmth of timber ceilings wraps down the wall on the courtyard side to offset the coolness of the generous picture-frame windows, while having no blank plasterboard walls in the material makeup helps to elevate the feeling of warmth. A raised plinth brings some spatial intimacy to the room, and ambient lighting beneath built-in cabinetry on the rear wall, but also from lamps and the feature fireplace, keeps the mood low-key and snug.

ABOVE A cedar ceiling stained in a natural-coloured Dryden WoodOil teams with accoya-lined walls to lend real warmth to this space. Cabinetry, custom designed by Cube Dentro, contains an Escea gas fireplace and a TV all in one.

The future of fire

Jason Hague-Smith of Wellington Fireplace Studio has been selling fireplaces for more years than he cares to mention so he knows where he’s coming from when he says: “A fire does so much more than heat a space”. It can evoke emotion and give a room heart and purpose. Here he shares his thoughts:

• Locate the fireplace where you will get the best visual bang for your buck. Convective heat will ultimately fill a whole room with warmth, so stage a fireplace somewhere it can be seen from most of the open-plan space or even where adjoining rooms can see it.

• Recently the design of wood fires has become more streamlined; they no longer have to be a bulky box with a very large fascia. Some contemporary designs have no fascia at all, just a trim to border the glass and a door that slides up into the wall, for an unobstructed view of the burning logs.

• Gas fires originally operated with a gas-driven fan that produced a nice glow but was inefficient as they chewed through the gas (only 15-30 per cent efficiency). The good news is that they have improved in terms of technology, visual aesthetic and efficiency to throw out massive heat and are now 60-80 per cent efficient (heat input divided by heat output).

• A re you a wood fire or a gas fire person? Most people know instinctively (over the past four years, 60 per cent of Jason’s clients have opted for gas, 40 per cent for wood). If you’re time poor, have nowhere for a woodstore, or hate the thought of insects crawling out onto the rug, well there’s your answer right there.

• Don’t worry about the long-term future of gas supply. Today’s gas fireplaces are made so that they can be run on other fuel sources such as biofuels and hydrogen should the government wish to turn the gas off in its current forms. And Meridian and Contact Energy are already looking into building a green hydrogen plant in Southland. P