Cute house with surprising interior is the 17th renovation of the owner

While the pretty exterior of this cute little cottage in Freemans Bay, Auckland is enough to make you look twice, the interior will leave you speechless.

And that’s because owner Elaine Ferguson’s flair for design and her passion for bold art has transformed the interior into a veritable gallery of sculpture, painting and antiquities.

The cottage is Ferguson’s 17th renovation, and she’s done it in less than two years, spending hundreds of thousands. And while it may seem amazing that she would ever want to move, Ferguson is about to list the property because that’s what she does.

She fixes them and then gets itchy feet for the next refurb, which will likely be a Ponsonby villa – she’s already made an offer. Her cottage will be listed on Wednesday, July 20, but Ferguson, who is a real estate agent with Ray White Ponsonby, will not be handling the sale herself.

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Her amazing collection travels from house to house – somehow she always finds a place for everything. But she has had disappointments.

“I lived in Christchurch at the time of the earthquakes and lost a lot. It was pretty devastating.”

Ferguson also found it impossible to calculate the value of all the broken items, so he took a $20,000 lump sum from the insurance company and promptly broke it on a spectacular head-and-shoulder statue of Christchurch artist Sam Harrison — one of the many of his works at home.

An oversized hand statue was found in Paris and she found a matching foot online. Today, sculpture adorns every room in the house and has filled her very dark sitting room with portraits, including several by figurative artist Viky Garden.

Ferguson says much of the renovation is unseen — it included re-lining the house, replacing all the ceilings, adding heating and cooling, new dark-stained oak floors and a new fireplace.

“There wasn’t really a working fireplace here, although in pictures it looked like it was,” she says. “I added the entire chimney and the new gas fireplace (which mimics a wood fire).”

There is a bold black and white palette throughout the house, with gold accents and blue in the guest bedroom. The sitting room is painted black and the sofas and cushions are black. Lighting, from an antique chandelier, is deliberately intimate and atmospheric.

Many of Ferguson’s items are antiques, including two Japanese figurines in display cases sitting on antique black cabinets that happen to be the exact same size – serendipity seems to be strong. Items all seem to have found the “perfect space” in every house she’s moved into.

A tall black shelf running down the hallway contains a spectacular collection of black Crown Lynn ceramics. Ferguson says she just keeps an eye out and replenishes her collections if she sees anything.

The kitchen has white cabinets with paneled doors that match the cottage feel. A large skylight provides plenty of natural light. There is a second, more informal sitting area next to the kitchen and dining table.

Narrow wooden stairs lead to the master bedroom and second bathroom upstairs. Here the ceiling follows the gable roof, with exposed beams.

The third bedroom in the house is Ferguson’s office – a white-painted room filled with white sculptures, white lighting, a Phillipe Starck Ghost chair, and black floors.

Items even find their way out. Ferguson has created an idyllic outdoor area. The raised deck leads to a lawn lined with hedges.

It all seems hard to follow, but Ferguson has plans and is looking forward to renovation number 18.