Greenhithe, North Shore — Auckland

A full-home renovation of an original timber bungalow — modernised without losing the old-world character

Completed January 2020

Quick answer: This was a full-home bungalow renovation in Greenhithe, on Auckland’s North Shore — a complete kitchen rebuild, full rewire and security fit-out, repaint and timber restoration, all done before the family moved in, with every original timber floor, beam and door kept and brought back to life.

Why the Owners Took On This Bungalow Renovation in Greenhithe

The owners bought the bungalow as a future family home. It had everything you hope to find in an original timber house — solid doors, exposed beams, floating timber shelves, stained-glass panels, ornate light fittings, and a strip of coloured tile running across the timber floors. The bones were honest and the character was all still there.

The problems were the kind you only see once you start living with a place. Old wiring that was a genuine safety hazard. Tired paint and holes in the walls. Frayed carpet, dated bathrooms, and a kitchen that had none of the conveniences a family needs day to day. None of it was structural — bungalows of this era are usually built to last, and this one was no exception — but all of it needed sorting before anyone moved in.

So the brief was clear, and a little unusual: modernise everything that wasn’t working, and touch nothing that was. Keep the timber floors, the beams, the doors. Lose the dodgy wiring and the dated finishes. It’s a balancing act we know well — pulling a character home up to a modern standard of living without sanding the soul out of it.

“The whole job hinged on sequencing. We were rewiring the entire house and restoring original timber floors in the same spaces — so the trades had to run in the right order, or we’d have been sanding floors twice. Getting that programme right is what kept it clean.”
— Kevin Yang, Managing Director / Project Management, Superior Renovations

A Rare Period Home in a Modern Subdivision Suburb

Here’s the thing about renovating a bungalow in Greenhithe: most of Greenhithe isn’t bungalows. The suburb was farmland into the 1970s and built out mostly through subdivisions from the early 2000s — the council marked it as a growth area in 2002 and the population doubled over the following years. The streets around this place are largely modern homes.

That makes an original timber bungalow here a rarity worth protecting, not just renovating. A character home like this is the exception in the area, which is exactly why the owners were so set on keeping its original features rather than stripping them out for something that would have looked like every other newer house nearby. The job was to let it stay itself — only warmer, safer, and ready for a family.

The Kitchen: Modern Function, Classic Look

The original kitchen had a laminate benchtop, a steel sink, poor storage, and none of the conveniences the owners wanted. We stripped it back — everything went except the floor, which was part of the timber we were keeping — and rebuilt from there. The adjacent laundry was rebuilt in the same materials so the two spaces read as one.

We kept the palette in shades of white on purpose. Set against the original timber panels, trims and restored floor, white cabinetry holds the classic feel of the house rather than fighting it. The result is a kitchen that works like a 2020 kitchen and looks like it belongs in a bungalow.

“White cabinetry was the easy call once we saw the restored timber. Anything with more colour would have competed with the floors and the beams. Quiet cabinets, loud timber — that’s the whole look.”
— Kevin Yang, Managing Director / Project Management, Superior Renovations

Storage Built Into Every Corner

• BLUM “Magic Corner” pull-out shelving to use the hard-to-reach corners
• 350mm pull-out rubbish bin
• Cabinets fitted with internal shelving and baskets for condiments
• Open shelving around the cooking zone and beside the fridge
• Extra cabinetry above the cooking area

Materials and Fittings

• Induction cooktop and rangehood
• Water-resistant MDF cabinet boards
• 18mm HPL sink carcass (high water resistance)
• BLUM soft-close hinges
• DTC soft-close drawer runners
• Stefano handleless cabinet system
• Blanco Silgranit composite stone sink for durability
• 30mm engineered stone benchtop in a white-marble look
• Pull-out matte chrome kitchen mixer
• City White Gloss 100×300 glazed ceramic wall tile as the splashback

Restoring the Original Timber

This was the heart of the job. The timber floors, trims and doors were original and worth keeping, but years of wear had taken the shine off them. Rather than cover or replace, we brought them back.

The floors were cleaned, the bare timber sanded, and rows of old nail holes filled before any finish went on. Three coats of commercial-grade water-borne polyurethane went down first. After five days’ cure, we laid a satin finish of moisture-cured, water-based polyurethane over the top. The same process ran across the kitchen, lounge, dining and laundry, so the whole connected floor matched.

It’s slow work, and you can’t rush the cure times. But this is the part of the house the family sees every day — and it’s the part that makes a bungalow feel like a bungalow.

Flooring, Painting and a Full Rewire

The wiring and paint throughout were old enough to be a safety problem, so both got a thorough overhaul. Rewiring an occupied-to-be character home is one of the less glamorous parts of a renovation, but on a house of this age it’s the part that matters most.

All electrical work was carried out by registered electricians in line with the NZ Wiring Rules (AS/NZS 3000) and the Electricity (Safety) Regulations 2010, with the work certified on completion — the standard every legitimate rewire in New Zealand is held to.

Plastering and Painting

• Repaired all holes, damage and defects across ceilings, walls, doors, door frames and window frames
• Light-sanded every filled area until smooth
• Cleaned and plastered all interior areas
• Oil-based Dulux undercoat — twice on high-traffic skirting, once on walls and ceilings
• Two coats of oil-based Dulux topcoat across all ceilings, walls, doors, frames and windows

Electrical and Security System

• Full rewire throughout the house
• New LED downlights throughout
• All interior and exterior power points and switches changed to PDL 800 Series
• Panasonic VL-SWD272 wireless video intercom (7″ display) installed and configured
• ESL-2 controller with KP-TOUCH-W 5″ touch keypad
• 5 x PIR sensors, 1 x indoor siren, 1 x outdoor siren
• 1 x DAHUA 4-channel network video recorder with 2TB HDD
• 4 x DAHUA 6MP IP PoE cameras

What a Full-Home Bungalow Renovation Like This Costs in Auckland

Every renovation is priced to its own scope — the number of rooms, the materials, and how much hidden work sits behind the walls all move the figure. A full-home job like this one, with a complete rewire and timber restoration alongside the kitchen, is a very different brief from a single-room update. Rather than quote a figure that won’t match your home, use our renovation cost estimate tools to get a realistic Auckland estimate for your own project, or talk to us about scope first.

💡 Quick tip: On an older bungalow, the rewire is usually the cost you can’t see coming. Old wiring almost always has to be fully replaced rather than patched, and that’s worth budgeting for from day one rather than treating as a surprise.

Bringing a Greenhithe Bungalow Back to Life

This was a full-home renovation that respected what was already good about the house. The family moved into a bungalow that kept every original timber floor, beam and door — now safe, warm, and fitted out for modern life, with a kitchen and laundry that finally work and a home that’s wired and secured to today’s standard.

If you’ve got a character home in Auckland that needs the same kind of careful hand — modernised where it counts, left alone where it matters — we’d like to hear about it.

➡ Book your free in-home consultation with Superior Renovations
➡ See how we approach full-home renovations across Auckland
➡ Request a free feasibility report for your project

Greenhithe Bungalow Renovation — Your Questions Answered

Further Resources

1. More completed Auckland renovation projects
2. Real client stories from across Auckland