Neil | Red Beach
“I grew up in Paekakariki, which is just north of Wellington. I shifted to Auckland in the mid 1980s; a mixture of sporting ambitions and career choices. I ended up living in Red Beach, which was a big suburb at that time. It’s since morphed into a residential suburb of Auckland, but it was a part of the charm. It was a beach side suburb when I shifted there. I’ve always been, I suppose, a water/ocean person. Still enjoy getting in occasionally.
I suppose refurbishing my property would be the last challenge earlier this year. I bought a property for my daughter and spent a couple of months refurbishing that from top to bottom. I think she’s a typical, sort of, 20-something person in Auckland these days, and can’t afford a house on her own, so it’s family assistance that is going to get her there.
It’s just a simple little brick and tile flat, not far from our house. So it’s a chance to cross it over the Christmas holidays, and we’ve decided to fix it up for her. It’s currently being rented out until she can actually afford to take a mortgage out on it and buy it off Dad, but that is the goal. So it’s just been tidied up in general for the moment and once she actually shifts in, we’ll make it a nice little home for her. Yeah, no great mental challenges, just physical hard work I guess.
It had previously belonged to a lady who’d lived there for 30 years or whatever; it’s surprising just how many coats of white paint you need to paint on ceiling tiles to make them white again. It was just general maintenance; painting, wallpapering, cleaning, more cleaning, more painting, and, yeah, it took my wife, daughter and I three months I guess doing a bit here and a bit there.
It was really just a time and effort challenge trying to fit it in around work and general life. I suppose there’s two sides of it. You always want your children to be able to get on with their life, and progress, and the other side I suppose, half jokingly, is if I didn’t help her out she might never leave home. I mean you do what you can for your family.”
