Meet Alisha Goodwin. Lover of “house stuff and food stuff,” Mum of three, and all-round good chick who would “Absofrickenlutely!!!!” recommend the Reno School to her friends and family. #weloveheralready

We’ve been eyeing off the project Alisha shared with our Reno School community for aaaages now and thought it was well overdue to take a tour of her passion project, The Alpine Abode. The only catch is that it’s located in the gorgeous ski town of Wanaka, New Zealand and we’re in Sydney, Australia. #havepassportcannottravel

So, we asked Alisha to give us the low-down on her project, in her own words…

Spill the beans ON YOUR BACKGROUND

“My husband and I had previously built a granny flat on our property in Auckland which we subsequently renovated and extended to become a full-time rental. This is when I first discovered Three Birds and actually started the online course. It was super helpful then and we turned that place into a wee cutie which had huge demand as a rental.”

We wanna go to Wanaka

“We just absolutely love the beautiful ski town of Wanaka, in the South Island of New Zealand and were wanting to build a holiday home/Airbnb there which we could use on-demand but also make an income from. We have a huge passion for skiing and the outdoors and knew this was somewhere we wanted to spend a lot of time in as our kids grow up. The demand in Wanaka is also perfect for a holiday rental as the tourists visit during summer, to enjoy the beautiful lake, and winter, for the abundantly snowy mountains.

When it came to the Wanaka holiday rental I knew the look I was after and, after honing the vision boards through the Three Birds’ modules (THE MOST AMAZING TIP OF THE WHOLE COURSE I RECKON!)… I was away.”

Who wouldn't want to holiday here? Wanaka, New Zealand. Image Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

Alisha’s Vision

“I was obsessed with the beautiful holiday homes I kept seeing popping up in Byron Bay and knew that this was the look I was after, even though I had never been there - much like Lana’s love of Santorini (although I have been there 😉). I loved the feel those Byron Bay homes were giving off - the mix of rattan, white, pampas grass and the like that made the homes seem dreamy, relaxed and somewhere you wanted to sit and put your feet up. On top of this though, I knew I needed to bring in elements of black and texture to this look to give it the raw, rustic feel that would help it fit in within the mountains of Wanaka, so needed a really clear vision on how this would look.

I used my vision board constantly to keep me on track with my purchases and design decisions and actually made individual vision boards for each room too. With these, I found images of exactly what I wanted to go in each room and played around with them until I got the look right. This is how I styled all of my rooms as I’m a super visual person and its really interesting looking back at how similar the rooms look finished, to the pics I had pasted into these vision boards almost a year in advance.

Being a remote build and knowing I would have to manage everything from afar (Wanaka is 1,500kms and on a different island from home in Auckland!), I knew it would be much easier to project manage a new build than a reno, so we looked for an empty section. We found a pile of dirt that hadn’t even come to the title yet and 3 years after putting an offer on it, we finally put spade to dirt and started the build.”

Alisha's Vision Board. Image credits: Pinterest

COVID hit her like a wrecking ball

“Little did we know that a global pandemic was going to hit us only a month or so into the process… and given the distance between our home in Auckland and the build location in Wanaka, the travel restrictions meant we never got to visit the site once during the entire process. Talk about sad! This is something I had never imagined. There’s nothing like standing on your freshly poured slab for the first time, walking through framing when it first goes up and being able to visualise and imagine how the spaces will work. We had none of that this time around so it became an exercise in complete planning and communication to get everything the way we wanted it. This is where the planning module from Three Birds came in so handy. Plan, plan and plan again. I ran with a bunch of spreadsheets and timelines that I went through with the builders on a weekly basis. They were awesome and totally understood the complexities being presented by the situation.

We put a project manager on site which was well worth the money! On previous builds and renos I had done this myself, but again being remote it meant that I could liaise with a central person who was responsible for keeping everyone else on track. Don’t get me wrong though, I still had to manage the project manager to keep everything ticking along, but it was a massive help! A couple of top tips we used: 1) Facetime - we asked the project manager to walk us around with the camera as often as we could, so we could see things being completed and understand the questions they were asking or things they needed clarification on, much easier than trying to explain over the phone and 2) Chalk! We found a local tennis court at a school near our house and we would go there with chalk and draw the home to scale so we could walk through it and actually feel how big it was going to be. Might sound crazy to some but it was a way of us actually being able to get a feel for the house when we couldn’t visit the site. I would even draw the beds in and things so I could get a sense of the scale of other pieces I would be able to fit in the rooms. Genius!”

BUDGET

“Our little property was always being done on a really modest budget. I knew to achieve the look I wanted I would have to find a balance between save and splurge. Again all the advice in the Three Birds modules was priceless at going through everything from the pros and cons of various flooring options to benchtops and everything in between. It really helped me narrow down my options and then go forward and research these for myself with a more manageable place to start. I had some advice a few years ago which was to think about walking into a home to buy - which details would you care about and which would you not even notice? If it’s something you wouldn’t even notice, don’t put your money there! Prioritise it instead into spaces and things you actually know you’ll love.

Everyone is sooooo chilled in Wanaka, the hardest thing is keeping them focussed on sunny days when they want to be up the mountain snowboarding! I put a bit of a buffer into my timelines to allow for that as while I had a deadline to meet, happy tradies, happy owner😊. I ran spreadsheets for everything from the overall budget and the weekly progress tracking with the project manager to the fixtures, fittings and furniture that would go into each room. If I adjusted something in my vision board for the room, I got the cost and adjusted it in the spreadsheet so I was always on track. I can happily report that this build came in closest to budget out of any I have done, only $3k over in the end which was actually for an additional patio I put in and an amendment to the laundry, so I was thrilled!”

ALISHA’s RENO SCHOOL REVIEW

“I signed up to the Reno School initially because of the abundance of beautiful images that were being produced and the skill and efficiency within which the girls were turning around their renos. I think seeing Bonnie's ‘new build’ included here and subsequently Sophie’s, really put new builds on the map for me. There are pros and cons to both renos and new builds and complexities with each so it was great to see both represented by the Three Birds.

I also loved that the girls were only too happy to share their ideas and design decisions for us to gain constant inspiration from. I actually put a central space into our home design inspired by Bonnie’s breezeway which I adore. It’s a courtyard that has glass doors going from the hallway on two sides as well as our master bedroom and I have sheer curtains on each which blow in the wind and make me smile each time I walk past."

The other thing I don’t think I ever expected was how fantastic the Facebook group is. What a fountain of knowledge everyone is on there and how helpful to have tips and tricks to read on the regular from other renovators and builders. I wasn’t a frequent poster but I sure lapped up the insights on the page. Oh, and I loved the live sessions the girls ran too… especially the ones with wine. Renovators who have a brilliant work-life balance, my kind of girls! I didn’t find any issues with doing this Aussie based course from NZ, many of the products are the same anyway … I just wished I had been able to walk through some of the finished houses!!!

I honestly think of everything I learnt, the absolute pivotal piece of knowledge was the vision boards. How to create them and use them to guide your build. The number of times you get confused over a design decision and I can hear the Birds in my head saying “go back to your vision board” really helped with that focus and clarity. I really love the way they teach you how to create these and use them and even share their own, and I still adore my original vision board (made about three years ago) to this day.

I read every single word on every single page multiple times and was chomping at the bit waiting to the minute each time the new modules would be launched. Talk about #nerdalert! But I adored it and couldn’t wait to lap up the new content week on week. The fact I still have access and can read everything whenever I want continues to be a fantastic source of knowledge years on.”

happily ever after

“All of a sudden we weren’t confident in the holiday rental market anymore given we really didn’t understand what the future of the COVID pandemic would mean for travel in New Zealand and our hope of a holiday rental income. So, we made the big decision and decided to actually move to Wanaka ourselves and start a new life! What had been initially intended as a holiday rental was now going to be our home. It was only a small three-bedroom so I knew I needed to be smart with the space we had to make it work for our family of 5, especially as being a holiday town we wanted to keep a spare room for all our visitors! After the initial nerves of moving our family down the country had dissipated thanks to a couple of nights worth of ‘what are we doing’ stiff drinks, we got super excited about our new life and went about getting our current home ready for renting and refocussing the Wanaka team on the new timelines.

We had a hard deadline to complete the build now that we were moving in! In total it took us 24 weeks from first dig to moving in… not too bad by my reckoning!