Life + Style 5 February 2015

21 August, 2015 life+style The Weekend Sun 1

Featuring Sustainable living | Food | Valentine’s Day treats | Living trendsTHE WEEKEND

From showroom to your home: Tile Gallery

is a work of artSee page 2

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2 life+style The Weekend Sun 21 August, 2015 5 February, 2016 21 August, 2015 5 February, 2016 21 August, 2015

It’s one of the most important decisions a homeowner can make

– we’re talking about tiles.

Tile Gallery owners Gay Barber and Robyn Davis know how important it is to get the right ones to match your space, décor and desires.

“It’s a big investment,” says Robyn. “Tiles are glued to the fl oor for a long time so every effort needs to be made to make the right choice.”

Having been in the tile industry for 19 years, Robyn and Gay have recently relocated to their new showroom in Judea, previously working out of Pahoia until November last year.

The move has allowed them to display their unique collection of tiles in one space, as well as providing a

“designer hub” in-house for the interior designers and architects that they work closely with.

What makes Gay and Robyn different from other tile outlets? For one, they’re extremely passionate about tiles.

“They’re quite exciting!” shares Robyn. “Like any changing fashion trend, it’s interesting to see what new designs are being manufactured.”

They are also committed to quality and service, and from the moment you step in the showroom door to the ‘chink’ of Champagne glasses as you celebrate your renovations or build, Gay and Robyn are there to help.

“We get a real feel for our clients’ needs, what they are looking for and can help them with tough choices, or put them in touch with different

A work of artBe inspired by Tile Gallery’s unique collection

designers they may choose,” says Robyn.They are focused on quality, which

means many of the porcelain tiles in the showroom are from Italy and Spain, the home of gorgeous tiles.

“We are getting new tiles every week. A large percentage are exclusive to us in the Bay, so we do stand out and offer everything from affordable to the high-end luxury tiles.”

So what’s hot right now? Trends shown at the Tile Fair in Italy this season were

a marble-look (Calacatta, Carrara and Statuario) porcelain, and wood-look tiles are perfect for all areas, especially in spaces where there is a lot of moisture, if you want that timbered style.

Another trend is big is best, even for smaller areas, and as well as the ‘normal’ size of 600mm x 600mm, Tile Gallery offers 1200mm x 600mm, 800mm x 800mm and 750mm x 750mm.

Tile Gallery’s showroom, corner of Birch Ave and Amber Cres in Judea, has both an

interior and exterior display, showing their comprehensive and ever-changing range, including deck jack 20mm porcelain pavers, suitable for decks and level entry, which can be adjusted to any height/slope.

Tile Gallery has been fortunate enough to be associated with several award winning homes and the latest being the National Supreme award for registered Master Builders 2015 House of the Year, located at Mount Maunganui, plus Regional 2015 Renovation of the Year.

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Gay Barber and Robyn Davis.

“We o� er everything from

a� ordable to the high-end luxury tiles”

life+style The Weekend Sun 3

BeeInspired

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5 February, 2016

Best buzz-ness in townNew store earns its stripes

It’s easy to fi nd Kris Jansen buzzing around town – just look out for her little yellow

and black car with plates BEEUTI. Adopting the sunny shade of her favourite insect,

the honey bee, is no coincidence as the business woman has an affi nity for the winged creature.

Growing up the daughter of Robin Jansen, owner and beekeeper of the now-named Huka Honey Hives in Taupo, bees and their by-product have been a big part of her life from day dot.

“I was one of fi ve kids – three boys and two girls. One of my fi rst memories is of Dad and his Bedford J4, full of beehives and millions of bees. As kids we’d sit in the truck and watch him go from hive to hive, beekeeper to beekeeper. He had about 5000 hives. I loved it. I’d often get stung though because the bees would come through the vents. I didn’t mind.”

When her beloved father passed away in 1992, Kris took up the mantle. She was a busy bee, opening her fi rst Honey Hive retail shop on the Kapiti Coast in 1995, before bringing the factory production down from Taupo as well, and opening a central city Wellington store under the name Honeymeisters. Then, eight years ago, she travelled to Christchurch to expand the brand.

But then earthquakes hit, her marriage came to an end, and Kris suddenly found herself wondering, ‘What next?’

“I tried and tried to make it work there, but people weren’t coming into the CBD, which is where I wanted to be.

“I looked at what I wanted to do. I had a couple of brothers in Tauranga, so I moved up here. I spend most of my time in the store and just a couple of days in the factory, as one of my brothers is now helping me out.”

The factory she refers to is her Greerton-based production facility, where she makes the various honey products she sells out of her Honeymeisters store in Mount Maunganui.

For the serious honey lovers, it’s the shelves of edible goodies that catch their eye in store. Gingerlicious Ginger Bee (a mix of honey and ginger) is a popular choice in the Bay of Plenty, while Rob’s Apricot and Honey is created using her father’s 30-year-old recipe. And then there’s the Beenut Butters, a caramel-like combination of honey and peanuts that tastes heavenly.

“I always want to be able to create more and interesting products,” she says. The store allows me to directly connect with my customers and better understand their needs.

She’s turned her Mount store into a pseudo offi ce, in which she can be found educating visitors on the joys of the honey bee – or rolling her own candles.

“There’s a growing awareness of the danger to the honey bee, particularly in New Zealand, but the problem is there are many people doing beekeeping for solely manuka, and in some areas there is too much. As soon as you do intensive farming in one area, that puts pressure on the animal and before we know it, there may be serious sustainability issues.”

Laura Weaser

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4 life+style The Weekend Sun 21 August, 2015

HOME FRAGRANCE COLLECTIONis at

5 February, 2016 21 August, 2015 5 February, 2016 21 August, 2015

Entertain your wife over dinner with these pure beeswax candles, hand rolled by the Honeymeister

in Mount Maunganui.

Metal and wood signs of love and inspiration

– available in the CBD at Indelible, Devonport Road.

Share the love this Valentine’s Day

Give your signifi cant other a special treat to mark the occasion and show

them how much you care.Valentine’s shopping

made easy with Paradise @ The Mount.

21 August, 2015

Stowed safe and close to your heart, a Stow locket

fi lled with precious charms captures your story – from

Molyneux Jewellers.

21 August, 2015 life+style The Weekend Sun 5 5 February, 2016 21 August, 20155 February, 2016 21 August, 2015

Give your loved one something hot this

Valentine’s Day! Raw, fresh and natural sambal from

sambalofthegods.com

These indulgent scented soy candles are the perfect gift this Valentine’s Day!

Available at Flux Boutique,

Maunganui Road.

Take a look at the fabulous range of ‘loved up’

accessories, soft furnishings and furniture – available

from furnish.co.nz


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5 February, 2016 21 August, 2015 5 February, 2016 21 August, 2015

On a typical day, Tess and Marco Partridge’s farm in the Papamoa Hills is the picture of serenity – million-dollar views of Tauranga Moana, lush rolling green fi elds, bordered

by the wilderness of evergreen natural bush. Nothing but you and your thoughts to

keep you company. But for the past nine days, it’s been buzzing; the

tranquillity replaced with the sound of chainsaws, drills, impassioned voices, laughter and funky beats as a community of locals and international guests have joined together to build a ‘cob cottage’.

The 10m2 structure is compiled of mainly recycled materials, including hardwood poles from Whangarei wharf, stones from earthworks on Rocky Cutting

Road, recycled cedar shingles from the ‘Yogi Bear’ movie set, recycled glass bottles and macrocarpa rafters from Tauriko sawmill.

Where Gib and plaster would normally be erected as walls, instead stands a thick layer of cob, a natural building material made from a mix of subsoil, water, straw, aggregate and clay that requires daily mixing.

“We have cob stomping sessions,” explains Tess. “Our friend is a local DJ, so he played some funky music, and everyone does a little dance on the cob and that’s how it’s mixed. It’s quite a mission – the clay came from the bottom of the bush block on our property – but the power of people is amazing.”

That power is evident today, when Life + Style visits the 5ha property. Seventeen volunteers, a mix of Kiwis, overseas travellers and locals, have signed up to be part the cob cottage building workshop, under the umbrella of Tess and Marco’s company Crafty Gatherer, another local company Plenty Permaculture, as well as Sculpted Earth.

Despite the Bay’s 30-degree heatwave, they are all getting stuck in – mixing cob, building up the walls, hammering rafters in place for the roof, or keeping spirits up with water and coffee.

“Everyone has bonded, it’s been amazing energy. I haven’t heard one person complain that it’s too hot or too hard,” says Tess.

The workshop and the creation of the cob house are just two of many ways Tess (28) and Marco (30) aim to live more simply and sustainably, a goal they hope to achieve and share with others under the banner of their Crafty Gatherer collective.

By the end of workshop, Tess explains there will be little more than one plastic bags worth of waste

Gathering resourcesLiving o� the land

“Back to

homesteading

basics”

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21 August, 2015 life+style The Weekend Sun 7

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5 February, 2016 21 August, 20155 February, 2016 21 August, 2015

– including all the food consumed during the two weeks – which is immeasurably less than a typical building site.

“Marco is a builder and sees fi rst-hand how much waste there is on a new build. We’re just starting to get involved in ways to reduce our waste and this is an example of how it can be done.”

Teen sweethearts, meeting at Te Puke High, Tess and Marco embarked overseas early in their relationship and were inspired by the simple living they experienced across Europe and South Asia.

“We’re lucky – when you get together young there is a chance that your interests change, but because we travelled together, it really solidifi ed our similar beliefs and ideas,” says Tess.

They spent much of their time as WWOOF-ers – Willing Workers on Organic Farms, which gave them real insight into the workings of rural areas.

“There was a place in Italy where they were pretty much self-suffi cient,” says Marco.

“They had goats for milk and cheese, big veggie garden, would make all their food and the woman there was into growing her own herb medicine, and in France we experienced different natural building.”

Feeling inspired, when the pair returned home they looked for somewhere to call their own, to start their own place where WWOOF-ers could come and learn the skills to live sustainably, independent of consumerism and less wasteful.

Their Papamoa Hills property, which they purchased 14 months ago with Marco’s father, ticked a lot of the boxes for the young couple – somewhere they could make an income off the land, a water source in the form of two natural springs,

but also not too far away from family in Te Puke and Papamoa. It is also where they will bring up their sons, two-and-a-half-year-old Tahl and fi ve-month-old Jai.

While they are not completely off the grid yet, requiring a power and internet provider, the pair are making headway. The 8acres of useable land they have has been transformed into a vegetable garden and mini-orchard with foraging ducks. Chickens provide meat and eggs, 14 cattle for grazing and meat and potentially milking one next year, and Marco has fashioned his own beehive to provide honey, pollen and beeswax.

But as well as developing their own systems,

one of the biggest drivers for Tess and Marco is education, to share their skills and Crafty Gatherer creations with others, to show how accessible this living can be.

They’ve begun creating their own products, made from recycled or local natural materials which are designed to aid the home gardener or outdoor enthusiast.

“Our motto is ‘back to homesteading basics’,” says Marco. “Everyone has something in them that makes them want to live a little more natural, but some are more passionate and will act on it. It’s not meant to be easy, but there is something satisfying about living off the land.”

“Our generation is really

spearheading a move back

towards this kind of living”

Laura Weaser

Tess and Marco Partridge, with

son Jai.

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Life + Style 5 February 2015