Perched on the Stepneyville hillside overlooking Nelson, Alesha Pyers and Louis Picot’s family home was five years in the making. Built through plenty of blood, sweat and tears, it’s now home to the couple and their two young children, Ira and Poppy – filled with op-shop finds, collected treasures and an ever-changing mix of their very different styles.
Photos: Tessa Claus
The story
Louis: There were a lot of blood, sweat and tears – mostly tears. I was looking to buy and came across a small building company that promised me a home in eight months for similar money. Long story short, they dragged me around for three and a bit years, built themselves a nice new house, started a new business and spent all my money before liquidating. All I had to show for it was house piles, built in the wrong place.
I had met and started a family with Alesha during all this. Then, on a night out licking our wounds, her cousin Hamish, who’s a builder, suggested we build it together. Once Hamish came on board, the build moved quickly – it took just a few months. But from the day I first set out to build, it had been five years of sleepless nights. It cost us exponentially, not just monetarily, but in the times Alesha didn’t have a good partner and Ira didn’t have a present dad. But we did it. I still need to hang a door or two, but I don’t care anymore – we’re happy.
Was there a positive experience that stands out during the build?
Louis: I brought a $20,000 voucher for Trends Kitchens at a Big Brothers Big Sisters Charity Auction at the beginning of the house build. I went to see them the following week, and they told me to design my dream kitchen. Big island, huge pantry, fancy drawers – the full kete. A week later, I had the plans in my inbox alongside the price (an additional $30,000ish), along with a note telling me to ignore it and there’d be no extra charges, just what I had donated to BBBS. The kitchen quickly dropped off my to do list following the building ordeal and three years later I enquired back with them. Even with years of Covid price increases and inflation they didn’t want to charge me anything more, and honoured our handshake from years back. I was lucky enough to work with the installers during the build, and they were excellent. Passionate, hardworking, friendly, but most importantly, good people. They are all good people. I had lost a lot of trust in the industry at the start, but Trends brought it back to me by the bucketload.
In four words
Louis: Should hang that door.
Alesha: Love infused chaotic sanctuary.
Decorating style
Alesha: I think I am naturally drawn to Japandi – Japanese and Scandinavian influences throughout architecture, as well as Mediterranean accents. Then for interior styling, I’m a sucker for eclectic quirky pretty things. I love Art Nouveau detailing and fabrics, as well as pastels/maximalism, and biophilic and Memphis styling. I’m a bit of an op-shopper and love to collect things that just pull on my creative heart strings. Whereas Lou is more minimal/neoclassical/brutalist vibes. So I feel like since we moved in, we have been battling between the styles and honestly landing somewhere else entirely. If we had the budget to pull it all together intentionally, I think we could find a really fun and beautiful flow to our home. But for now, we will keep pushing and pulling the spaces for function and see where the wind takes us on styling later down the track.
Favourite spot in the house?
Louis: My darkroom has unexpectedly become a laundry – so maybe the bath. I like it so much I’ve even been in it twice.
Alesha: I love the bath looking up through the sunroof. This is my little precious moment to connect with the universe and breathe. Second would be sitting on the couch with a glass of red, kids in bed and the house still. I leave my glasses off and the lights down the valley and over the CBD become big blobs like a river of light trickling down the mountains into the valley. A little reminder of all the lives being lived around us.
Did any of your purchases cause a debate?
Louis: Alesha bought a humongous desk for ‘organising our art room.’ It’s a cabinet. You can’t sit at it. Only put stuff in it, and bump into it because it takes up half the room and I look at it with despair. So silly.
Alesha: Yes, in short! All the storage furniture I thrifted. Lou has been adamant about investing in some quality shelving. In hindsight, we should have done that, but I kept sneaking in large HEAVY furniture hoping to hide my mountains of things (things ranging from art supplies to kids toys, to clothing and more). The chest I got from ReStore to have as a toy box was a little big for our spaces and has broken wood inside the seat, so it is not functioning as I had planned. This could be the first time Louis reads that he was right and it wasn’t the best buy for the room sizes. Oh well. It’s still cute though.
Favourite pieces
Louis: Dad was getting rid of some furniture years ago and I unwittingly ended up with a kauri dining table he built in his 30s. I don’t particularly love it, but I love him, and since its now reached ‘heirloom status’, all I can do is wait to give it to one of the kids. Maybe the naughtiest one.
Alesha: I have three that pop to mind. I think our kids’ art. My mum collected mine for years and has given me a box of it. There is something so special about these pieces that spark my inner child. We have been celebrating our son’s kindy art, either displaying it on the fridge or in his treasure box to keep for later. We often get him to decorate paper to wrap gifts in. I also have the dried flower bouquet Lou gave to me early in our dating life. It’s a feature on our table and I hope I can save it for the long haul. The third is a water jug and glass set I picked up in a Dunedin op-shop for $8. It is the most beautiful peachy, apricot pink. I hardly use the jug, but I just love looking at it.
