Construction projects require solid organisation, excellent relationships between stakeholders, and of course, the very best products. This newly built home shows that when you work with Altus and our knowledgeable fabricators, all of these things come together. For family man Arn Mehta, there was no question of who to turn to for the joinery in the construction of his home in Westmere, Auckland. Three years in the planning, he and his wife Ella worked on the plans together and a chance encounter with Rylock's Darren Saunders at their stand at the Auckland Home Show was enough to convince them that the Fletcher Window and Door Systems product and the Rylock team were the way to go.

"To be honest, once we met Darren, we didn't go to any other supplier," says Arn. "We just felt comfortable that we were being guided in the right manner."

Darren says the brief was straightforward. The Westmere suburb and neighbouring properties were proliferated with bungalows, so it was no surprise that Arn and Ella had an affinity with the bungalow style. Bungalow spaces invite elements of life to flow together. They can be as individual as their owners. It was this flexibility that ultimately led them to pay homage to the bungalow but with the addition of a number of modern conveniences. Arn spotted one particular old bungalow down the road that he wanted to emulate:

"Arn said, 'Darren, meet me outside this address, I want to show you a house and this is what I'm after. That's the sort of colour we want, I'm looking for that style of window, can you make it happen?'" For Arn, the look of the windows and doors was a primary concern. Darren showed Arn a range of suites and products, including several standard options, but he really wanted the right aesthetic.

"We wanted a really seamless indoor-outdoor flow," he says. "We didn't want bi-folds, as there would be so many more vertical lines, it would look a bit like a jail. We also wanted the doors to tuck away seamlessly over the weatherboards out the back - creating a 'hole in the wall' from the inside to the back."

The Atlantic High-Performance Suite was selected for use in the living room of the home, which according to Darren was the only suite that would achieve what Arn wanted: big panes of glass and a big opening. With the capacity to reach up to 3.2 metres or more in height and over 2.5 metres in width, the Atlantic High-Performance Suite is ideal for homes wanting to create wide expansive openings and in Arn's case a space that provided great indoor-outdoor entertaining for family and friends.

"Not often do my customers have any choice when it comes to sliding doors," Darren says. "I tell them they have to have the Eurostacker®."

These doors have easy-to-clean sills with no channels, which means no yucky buildups of dirt and debris. They also allow for wide openings like the ones Arn and Ella were after. Smartfit Windows were also used on this property - Arn liked them as soon as he saw them on display at the Auckland Home Show.

"Arn thought they would work really well for what he was trying to achieve", says Darren, who believes the Smartfit® windows were one of the standout features of this home, as they were able to achieve the old bungalow-style window look by being colour-matched to the wide timber facing boards in the surrounding frame. For builder Louis Taylor of New Dimension Homes Limited, it was the first time installing Smartfit® windows, and his team spent a lot of care installing these due to the high-end nature of Arn and Ella's property.

"I liked the idea of them being fixed via a flange outside the frame opening", he says. All in all, Louis found Smartfit® a good product that kept moisture in the cavity and was substantially faster to install than standard joinery. As for the construction process, everything went pretty much according to plan. The most successful aspect of the entire build was the attention to detail. The home is so polished in its execution it is astonishing. Builder Louis Taylor, his team and all his sub-trades including Rylock® have shown what true craftsmanship and pride in your work is all about.

Fabricator - Rylock™ Auckland
Location - Westmere, Auckland
Systems - Atlantic48™, Smartfit™ Window System
Products - Biparting EuroStacker™, Overall Eurostacker™
Industry Sector - Residential