Homes of the Hunter | 100-year cottage in Morpeth reborn | Photos

But Irena had other plans.

"When Peter [Burke] was waiting for drying . . . he just did this in the paint he used for waterproofing," Irena, who discovered Peter had worked for animators Hanna-Barbera in Sydney, explains.

"When I saw it, I thought, I just have to preserve it.

"Peter is an artist in his soul. He came back and signed it. He loved the idea."

The artwork, protected by non-reflective glass, is an eye-catching feature of the beautiful bathroom designed by Irena, who grew up in Poland.

Another is the floating timber vanity, made from reclaimed Messmate timber.

The bathroom is part of a new, sympathetic extension to the 100-year-old, three-bedroom Morpeth cottage she has shared since 2003 with husband, real estate agent Allen.

The extension, completed early this year, also incorporates a dining and living area and a storage-rich laundry. They installed an IKEA kitchen seven years ago.

The pair have played to their strengths - creative Irena's eye for style and Allen's passion for preserving history - to transform the cottage into their forever home.

For Allen, it has been a 20-year investment of time and effort that started with a dash of serendipity when he was looking for somewhere to live with daughter Melissa after his first marriage ended.

"When my children were young and we lived at Nelson Bay, we would come for a Sunday drive, park around near the [Morpeth] Common and walk up the main street," he recalls.

"We'd walk past this old, derelict house with a bullnose verandah and the kids used to joke they could see Dad sitting on the verandah with his pipe, in a rocking chair.

"When I was in Morpeth looking at a house for sale [after his separation], the agent said, 'I've got another one but it needs a lot of work', and she brought me to this one, the old place we'd joked about.

"I made an offer on it straight away and it was accepted."

Family members referred to the cottage as the "leaning shanty" but Allen, a determined novice, was on a mission to restore its original parts to working order and reveal its beauty.

He repaired double-hung, sash windows and interior transom windows that had been painted shut, marvelling at their mechanisms, and removed the brown wall panelling that hid hoop pine lining boards as well as coloured glass next to the front door.

In a "mongrel of a job", he freed the spotted gum floorboards from their black shellac.

He retained the original weatherboards, light switches and even the front screen door.

Allen and Irena were adamant that the original flooring and three-metre ceilings had to flow through to the extension.

They credit Gavin Storrier, of Chameleon Constructions, and his crew for achieving the seamless transition by building the extension on new bearers and joists rather than the existing slabs and patiently slotting in reclaimed spotted gum floorboards sourced by Irena from Australian Architectural Hardwoods, in Kempsey.

The focal point of the living area is the Invicta Ove free-standing fireplace, framed on either side by stained glass panels made by Allen's late mother, Margaret.

Allen, who opened Jesmond-based Reece Realty 13 years ago, is happy he deferred to Irena on decisions such as the gorgeous, curved wood burner.

"Irena was looking at it [the extension] as a home and I was still looking at it as a real estate agent, with concerns we were going to over-capitalise," he says.

"My wife would remind me that I often advised people that if they were going to live in a property for the next 10 years as a home, it didn't matter as much what they spent because they were doing it for them, for comfort."

It's not time yet for rocking chairs on the verandah. The Chameleon crew has just built a handsome, practical backyard pergola and attention turns next to a new garage and an art studio for Irena.

The pergola, also made from reclaimed spotted gum, crowns a courtyard laid with sandstock bricks from a chimney demolished on-site in 2007. Allen, who chipped each brick clean of its mortar, says such painstaking work has paid off.

"The best thing that ever happened to me going into real estate was this house," he says.

"Because I took this back to a bare shell, I learnt so much. It is knowledge I can share . . . it's in my fingertips."

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