MASSEY, WEST AUCKLAND
Modern Kitchen & Bar Renovation
in Massey, West Auckland
An open-plan entertainer’s kitchen and bar in black, white and gold
Completed January 2020
RENOVATION
Designed & Project Managed
Dorothy Li
Design Manager
0800 199 888
Project managed by Jin Park, Sales & Project Management.
Quick answer: We opened up a closed-off kitchen into a single entertaining space for Guru and Neeta in Massey, West Auckland, then built a matching bar in the lounge — a modern kitchen and bar renovation finished in black matte, white stone and gold LED.
| Location | Massey, West Auckland |
| Completed | January 2020 |
| Scope | Open-plan kitchen, built-in lounge bar, new flooring and full repaint, with project management throughout |
| Designer | Dorothy Li, Design Manager |
| Project type | Owner-occupier |
Why Guru and Neeta Renovated Their Massey Home
Guru and Neeta love having people over. The trouble was their house wouldn’t let them do it properly.
Their lounge and dining ran together in an open plan, with a balcony wrapping the space — fine on its own. But the kitchen sat behind a closed door in a separate room, which split the cook off from everyone else and made the whole entertaining area feel smaller than it was. Anyone who has hosted a dinner from a sealed-off galley knows the feeling. You’re in one room, the party’s in another, and you spend the night shouting through a doorway.
They wanted one space. A kitchen that opened straight into the living and dining, modern fittings throughout, and room for guests to mingle while someone cooked. The look they were after was modern with a bit of luxury to it — not flashy, just considered.
They talked to a few companies before they came to us. What settled it was the first conversation with our project manager, Jin Park.
“Jin was great! He helped us in choosing everything for the kitchen. We did it together. He has become one of us now.”
— Guru, Massey
That’s the part people underrate when they pick a renovation company. Your project manager is your one point of contact for the whole job — the person who helps you make the calls, keeps the trades moving, and sorts the problems when they turn up. Get on with them and the renovation runs a lot smoother. Guru and Jin hit it off straight away.
The Design Brief — One Open Space, Modern Finish
The first decision was the biggest one. Every wall separating the living areas from the kitchen came out, turning three boxed-in rooms into one continuous open-plan kitchen, living and dining. Old cabinetry, benchtops and flooring were stripped right back so we were starting clean.
Then the colour story. Dorothy built the whole scheme around three colours — black, white and gold — repeated through the kitchen and carried across to the bar so the two zones read as one design rather than two add-ons.
“Black, white and gold can tip into gaudy fast. The trick was restraint — matte black cabinetry doing the heavy work, white stone to open the room up, and gold kept to thin LED lines and the odd accent. That’s what keeps it modern rather than blingy.”
— Dorothy Li, Design Manager, Superior Renovations
White wasn’t a random pick for the benchtops. It does two jobs: it throws a hard contrast against the black cabinets, and lighter surfaces make a room read bigger — exactly what you want when you’ve just knocked three rooms into one and you’re chasing a sense of space.
Before & After
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
Custom Kitchen — Cabinetry, Benchtops and Storage
Every cabinet and shelf was custom built in a black matte finish — no off-the-shelf carcasses, so the run fits the new open space exactly.
Benchtops
White engineered stone, custom cut, finished to look like marble. That gives the luxury read without the upkeep and cost of real marble in a working kitchen.
Storage that earns its keep
- Magic corner shelves to claw back the dead corner space
- Custom-built pantry with pull-out shelves
- Pull-out rubbish bins and storage baskets
- Undermount Blanco Silgranit sink
The quiet details
- BLUM soft-close door hinges
- DTC soft-close drawer runners
- Stefano handleless cabinet setup with warm gold LED lighting
- Tiled splashbacks behind the sink and stove for easy cleaning
💡 Quick tip: A handleless setup looks clean, but it lives or dies on the runners and hinges behind it. Soft-close hardware like BLUM and DTC is what stops a no-handle kitchen feeling cheap a year in.
Adding the Luxury Touches
Mirror-finish glass went up on the wall above every benchtop run in the kitchen — it bounces light around and visually doubles the space, which matters in an open plan where the kitchen is on show from the lounge.
Put the pieces together — matte black cabinets, white marble-look stone, the handleless fronts, and thin gold LED lines — and you get a kitchen that feels dramatic without being loud. It’s the restraint that makes it work.
“In an open plan the kitchen is furniture — you see it from the couch, from the dining table, all night. Mirror glass above the benches was the move that made a fairly compact footprint feel generous, without us touching the building’s bones.”
— Dorothy Li, Design Manager, Superior Renovations
The Lounge Bar — The Showpiece
The real talking point of this renovation isn’t in the kitchen at all. It’s the bar we built into the lounge — same black, white and gold scheme, so it reads as a deliberate extension of the kitchen rather than a bolt-on.
This is what an entertainer’s home is meant to do: pour a drink without leaving the room the party’s in.
What went into it
- Custom wall cabinets with black matte doors
- 30mm custom stone benchtop with waterfall ends, finished to look like marble
- Handleless Stefano setup with gold LED lighting, matching the kitchen
- Black mirror-finish glass on the bar wall
- Wine glass hangers built into the upper cabinets
- BLUM soft-close hinges and DTC soft-close runners throughout
💡 Quick tip: Carrying one material palette across two zones is what makes a bar feel built-in rather than added later. Same stone, same finish, same lighting — the eye reads it as one room.
Flooring and Paint Across the Home
A renovation this size doesn’t stop at the cabinetry. While the kitchen and bar were the headline, the job carried through the rest of the house.
- Light laminate flooring through the living area over a new 10mm underlay — easy to keep clean, and the pale tone keeps the open space feeling bright
- 12mm tiles through the kitchen and dining
- Old carpet pulled from every bedroom and replaced with new 55–60oz shadow carpet
- Wallpaper stripped throughout, then walls sanded, plastered and filled
- Oil-based undercoat on all window frames, door frames and doors for durability, with low-sheen water-based paint on the interior walls
It’s the kind of work that doesn’t show up in a hero photo but is the difference between a renovated room and a renovated home.
That end-to-end follow-through is how we run a whole-home renovation across West Auckland, with cabinetry, flooring and paint handled by one team under a single project manager.
Why Massey Homes Suit This Kind of Renovation
Massey grew as a commuter suburb after the Northwestern Motorway pushed west, and the bulk of its housing stock went up through the 1970s and 80s. That era of West Auckland home tends to share a habit: rooms boxed off from each other, with the kitchen walled away from the living space — exactly the layout Guru and Neeta were fighting.
The fix is usually the same one we used here. Take out the non-structural walls between the kitchen and the living zone and the whole ground floor opens up, often without touching the footprint or the roofline. For a lot of Massey and wider West Auckland homes of this vintage, that single move does more than any amount of new cabinetry.
Is That Wall Load-Bearing? How We Check Before Opening Up
Not every wall can just come out. The first job on a plan like this is sorting which walls are structural, carrying load from the roof or the floor above, and which are only partitions dividing the rooms. A non-structural partition can usually be removed without a building consent. Taking out or altering a load-bearing wall is a different story: it counts as structural building work. MBIE’s Building Performance guidance lists structural alterations among the work that needs a building consent, and says to get advice for anything done close to load-bearing walls.
Where a load-bearing wall does come out, the load it was carrying has to be picked up again, normally by a beam sized by a chartered engineer and supported on new posts. That work is Restricted Building Work, so it sits with a Licensed Building Practitioner and is consented through Auckland Council. Whether a specific wall in your home is structural is a call for an LBP or the council once they can see it, not something to read off a floor plan.
Sound familiar? If you’ve got a 70s or 80s home with a kitchen stuck behind a wall, the bones are usually better suited to opening up than people expect.
What a Kitchen and Bar Renovation Like This Costs in Auckland
Every renovation is priced to its own scope. Removing walls to open up a plan, custom cabinetry, engineered stone, and a second built-in bar all move the number — a job like Guru and Neeta’s sits well above a like-for-like kitchen swap. Rather than quote a figure that won’t match your home, use our kitchen renovation cost calculator to get a realistic Auckland estimate for your own project.
💡 Quick tip: The custom waterfall stone bar is where a project like this carries a premium — waterfall ends mean more stone and more fabrication than a standard square edge. It’s a finish worth budgeting for deliberately, not tacking on at the end.
“Jin was great! He helped us in choosing everything for the kitchen. We did it together. He has become one of us now.”
— Guru, Massey
Thinking About Opening Up Your Own Kitchen?
Guru and Neeta went from a sealed-off kitchen to a single open space they can host from — kitchen, bar and living all reading as one room. If your West Auckland home has the same boxed-in layout, the starting point is a conversation about what your floor plan will actually allow.
➡ Book your free in-home consultation with Superior Renovations
➡ See how we design and build a modern open-plan kitchen
➡ Request a free feasibility report for your project
Modern Kitchen & Bar Renovation in Massey — FAQs
What was involved in this Massey kitchen and bar renovation?
We removed every wall separating the kitchen from the living and dining areas to create one open-plan space, then built a custom black-matte kitchen with white engineered-stone benchtops. We also built a matching bar into the lounge in the same black, white and gold scheme, and carried new flooring and a full repaint through the rest of the home.
Can you knock a kitchen and living room into one open-plan space?
Often yes. Where the walls between them aren't load-bearing, removing them opens the ground floor without touching the footprint, which is exactly what we did here. Whether a specific wall can come out depends on whether it's structural, so we assess that early. For West Auckland homes built in the 1970s and 80s, opening up is usually more achievable than owners expect.
What benchtop was used in this Massey kitchen?
White engineered stone, custom cut and finished to look like marble. We chose white deliberately — it contrasts against the black matte cabinetry and makes the open space read larger. Engineered stone gives the marble look without the maintenance and cost of natural marble in a hard-working kitchen.
What is a handleless kitchen and does it work long term?
A handleless kitchen uses a push-to-open or recessed system instead of visible handles for a clean, modern face. This one used a Stefano handleless setup with gold LED lighting. It holds up long term as long as the hardware behind it is good — we used BLUM soft-close hinges and DTC soft-close runners so the cabinetry stays smooth and quiet over years of use.
How do you make a lounge bar match the kitchen?
By carrying one material palette across both. The bar here used the same black matte cabinetry, the same marble-look stone with waterfall ends, the same handleless Stefano setup and gold LED, and black mirror glass to tie it to the kitchen splashbacks. Same materials and finishes are what make a bar read as built-in rather than added on afterwards.
How much does a kitchen and bar renovation in Auckland cost?
It depends on scope — opening up a plan, custom cabinetry, engineered stone and a second built-in bar all add to the figure, so a project like this sits above a standard kitchen swap. We don't publish a single price because it wouldn't match your home. Use our kitchen renovation cost calculator for a realistic Auckland estimate based on your own project.
Do you handle the whole renovation, not just the kitchen?
Yes. On this project we also installed new laminate flooring and tiling, replaced the carpet in every bedroom, and repainted throughout. You get one project manager — here it was Jin Park — as a single point of contact across the whole job, from design decisions through to the trades on site.
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