who lives here? - Femme de Brocante

A cushion Jo bought
in a favourite shop in
Paris has found its home
across the world in this
snug corner of the lounge.
The table was an online
find that Jo painted. Inset
Letters spelling ‘kitchen’
come from Jo’s shop
Femme de Brocante.
72 Your Home & Garden
RECYCLE
✚ Don’t throw out that
old lounge suite. If it’s
good quality, comfortable
and you love its shape, it’s
far more economical and
eco-friendly to re-cover it
than it is to replace it.
jo and Paul Robertson vowed they
would never relocate a house
again. They meant it and they
stuck to it… for all of a few
years. The North Canterbury
couple had previously moved an old house
onto a rural site near Tauranga, and then
set about beautifying it. The end result was
good enough to feature in Your Home &
Garden magazine five years ago.
“It was so much hard work,” Jo
remembers. “Old houses swallow up so
much cash and nothing is straight. We
swore we would never do it again.”
But then Jo, Paul and their girls,
Keighley and Hollie, moved down south
and went on an unfruitful house-hunting
mission. Unable to find a house they liked,
they thought of building.
“We found a 4.5-hectare block of land
with expansive views, but it wasn’t cheap
and to build what we wanted would have
meant a huge mortgage,” Jo says.
Not sure what to do, she found the
solution in a local newspaper. “There was
a house for relocation advertised with a
photo and description. I started hyperventilating
with excitement. I checked it out
online and got really, really excited.
“Paul didn’t take much convincing.
We went to see it and knew we had to
have it. Even though it was going to be
a major, and we never thought we’d be
going down that road again, we knew
the end result could be incredible.” The
Robertsons loved much about the twostoreyed
weatherboard house topped with
Welsh slate; from its sense of solidity,
character and permanence to the details –
the big spaces, wide skirting boards, wood
panelling, lead lights and rimu kitchen
with granite bench.
The 246-square metre house was
moved in three parts in April 2008. From
their previous experience, the Robertsons
knew that it would not be a case of simply
slotting the pieces back together. It was
a few months before they could move in.
They needed to reinstate and revamp
the fireplaces and chimneys removed for
the shift, add more insulation and get the
plumbing and electrics sorted.
Then, during their first six months in
the house, they all bunked together in the
Left A country-style
hutch dresser in
the kitchen/dining
area. This photo Jo
has clustered the
bulk of her religious
icons in this corner
of the study. The
Ralph Lauren curtain
fabric arrived at her
store – and then went
straight home!
formal lounge while the bedrooms upstairs
were re-gibbed, plastered, painted and
carpeted, with much of the work tackled
by Paul and a friend. They moved into their
revamped sleeping quarters just before
Christmas in 2008.
Paul worked on the decks to get them
ready for summer, and then the french
doors, to let the sun into the study. Finally,
the house was painted. It went from green
and cream to a warm grey with off-white
detail – the couple chose Resene ‘Half
Truffle’ with ‘Alabaster’ for the trims.
Jo, too, is a dab hand with the
paintbrush, tackling interior walls and
furniture transformation. A fine example is
a second-hand dressing table find that is
now a multi-coloured eye-catcher in Hollie’s
duck-egg blue bedroom. Jo stripped it back
and then had fun with test pots. Another
piece she loves is the curvy-legged table in
the formal living area. She found it online,
then painted its base and legs, and sanded,
oiled and waxed its top.
But Jo’s major influence on the interior
is the way she has used fabric. It’s not
surprising that she is adept at choosing
the right fabrics for all manner of soft
furnishings, including curtains, cushions,
blinds and upholstery fabrics, given that
she and a friend, Emily Rowse, own Femme
de Brocante, a business specialising in
beautiful fabrics. Jo’s favourite is an old
French print of subtle floral on heavy linen,
used on the drapes and roman blinds in the
main bedroom.
Spotted fabrics are hot sellers in
Femme de Brocante’s Rangiora store and
Your Home & Garden 73
HOMES