Home by the Sea

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Home by the Sea

Edgewater by Signature Homes

As featured on James Hardie TV Showhomes

If ever there was a cladding product that offered exceptional performance and durability in coastal conditions, it's Linea™ Weatherboard.

As New Zealanders, we're fortunate to live in a country with just over 15,000km of spectacular coastline - some of it rugged and wild, some of it fringed with beautiful stretches of golden sand. That gives us more access to the seashore than the inhabitants of nations such as China, Mexico, India and even Greece and the UK. It also means that we have a huge number of options for coastal living and holidaying.

For Colin and Hilary Webber, one of the most appealing spots on the New Zealand shoreline is Papamoa Beach, just south of Tauranga. That's where they chose to build a timeless beach house for three generations of their family to enjoy. The two-level, 185sq m house was designed by Richard Hale of Insight Architecture and built by Signature Homes Tauranga.

The ground floor features a spacious entertainer's kitchen, living and dining room opening onto a wide timber deck on the beachfront side. There's also a family room and three bedrooms (one of which is a bunkroom for Colin and Hilary's grandchildren). Sheltered from the offshore winds by the living room, a large timber patio with an outdoor fireplace is the perfect place for family meals.

Solid-oak open-tread stairs lead up to the owners' retreat, which includes a master bedroom with its own private deck, a large ensuite and walk-in wardrobe.

The home's interior is painted Resene Sea Fog with the high ceilings whitewashed for a fresh, beachy feel, and while the bedrooms are carpeted, the floors in the living area are finished in an easy-care oak timber overlay.

Other practical design features include an outdoor shower, and outdoor fish-filleting bench and a detached garage to house all the beach toys.

"It's just an amazing place," says Hilary. "It's just exactly what we wanted – traditional with a twist. From the moment the framing first went up, I knew this was going to be a fantastic house. Signature homes has been wonderful in terms of creating the look we wanted. It's got that New Zealand beach-bachy feel that blends in with the environment."

But, she says, along with the amazing beachfront location come harsh conditions, such as salt-laden winds, rain, storms and scorching temperatures, which are hard on traditional materials. With this in mind, Colin and Hilary were looking for a weathertight, hard-wearing cladding option that wouldn't require extensive maintenance and could stand up to the extreme climate.

"The beach is literally our back yard. Our house is 40m from the water. We wanted to use a cladding material that was traditional looking. But I never would've chosen to build in timber board – it just wouldn't have withstood the rain, salt and sun. And we couldn't have achieved that design with brick," says Hilary.

Instead, she and Colin chose to clad the house entirely in Linea™ Weatherboard, complemented by soffits in HardiGroove® Soffit Lining. The Linea™ Weatherboard is painted Resene Titania, a pale grey-beige. Having seen her daughter and a friend build in Linea Weatherboard, they knew it would be ideal for their home.

"Linea Weatherboard gave us the opportunity to have that traditional board look with high-spec technology. We loved the fact that it's 21st century technology. And visually, its clean lines and simplicity really complement the HardiGroove® Soffit Lining on the soffits."

And that's exactly what sets Linea™ Weatherboards apart from other weatherboard products: their ability provide the traditional weatherboard styling with the deep shadowlines, together with all the benefits of modern technology. Linea is durable, stable, requires little maintenance and resists rotting, warping, cracking and buckling. It also comes with a 25-year product warranty and an extended manufacturers' paint warranty on Dulux, Resene and Taubmans Wattyl coatings.

"All we need to do is hose off the salt every once in a while. The last thing we want to do when we're here on weekends and holidays is maintenance on the house, so it's perfect."

Like all Signature Homes customers, Colin and Hilary were also reassured by the terms of the Signature Homes Comprehensive Guarantee Programme, which contains eight separate guarantees covering aspects such as the maintenance, structural integrity, weathertightness and total price of their home.

So the extended Webber family can just relax and enjoy their idyllic little slice of New Zealand coastline.

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