My brother and I used to love building tree huts. We'd compete with each other to build them higher or to make them more difficult to find. As adults, though, so often we get held back by convention. But what if you held on to that childhood dream? (HAPPY MUSIC) (SIGHS) Whatever your grand plans are, we'll help get you home. ANZ ` proud sponsors of Three's Grand Designs New Zealand. (LILTING, FANCIFUL THEME MUSIC) Captions by Glenna Casalme www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018 (TUI CALLS, CHIRPS) (LIVELY STRING MUSIC) The geothermal resort town of Hanmer Springs is nestled beneath the Southern Alps. It's a place of wild natural beauty that attracts nature lovers like Rik and Boio, who were looking for a place to retire to when they bought a plot of land here just two years ago. Rik is an English hydro engineer, and Boio, a legal PA from Papua New Guinea. They met 18 years ago at a party in Christchurch. I got a phone call one evening, and this voice at the other end of the phone goes, 'Do you remember who this is?' (LAUGHS) And I knew straight away who it was. (ROLLING PIANO MUSIC) They'd both moved to New Zealand with their families in the '80s and were recently separated. I was thinking, 'Oh, I'll give Boio a ring. I like this lady. I'll see what eventuates,' and we've had an interesting relationship ever since. Certainly we're very dynamic. When the last of their children left their Christchurch home, it was time for a change. Yay! I wanted to live in the country and have a, you know, some space where I could grow my own veggies. Life isn't about spending 60, 70 or 80 hours in the office, which is what I was doing. I wanted to find something that we could share together, because I saw greater value in my life in having something that my wife and I could share, and this is what we've tried to do. Why are you laughing at me? I'm not laughing at you; I'm just loving you. (GENTLE MUSIC) (CURIOUS MUSIC) The couple's pine-covered lifestyle block just outside Hanmer Springs was everything they'd been looking for, with room for Boio to garden, and Rik to tinker to his heart's content. It was the perfect place to build their retirement home, so they converted the garage to live in while they worked out where and what they wanted to build. So why did you choose this place? Well, just look around you. It's utterly fantastic. It's a feeling of being close to nature, being able to look at the views, being able to, um, just be part of everything. What's the plan? To build a tree house. A tree house? To build something that is a little bit quirky, a little bit unusual, but we're in the` probably the worst earthquake risk region in New Zealand. We're also in the highest wind zone in New Zealand, and you have to design for 200km/h. But why a tree house? I've... played in tree houses when I was a kid. My wife is... not averse to living in a tree house, as long as it's got some useful mod cons. This will be a modern tree house with a single steel pole clad in bark to look like a tree. Another eight wooden poles will help hold up the house 3m above the ground in a high wind-speed zone. Like spokes in an octagonal bicycle wheel, the joists radiate out to the poles, giving the first floor a modest 97m2. A lobby area inside the front door opens to a bedroom and laundry-bathroom. This leaves the rest of the first floor for living and dining, with windows revealing sunset views of the snow-capped mountains. The second floor mezzanine has a glass roof so Rik and Boio can lie in bed and look at the stars. The house will be clad in locally-sourced timber. An earth driveway built up to the front door gives easy access while maintaining the tree house aesthetic from the road. Once surrounded by mature plants, the house should blend into the surrounding forest that first drew the couple to their Hammer Springs haven. So effectively you're gonna be living in a round house with a pole in the middle, up in the air. I'd like to describe it slightly differently (LAUGHS) to that, but if you want to use the minimum amount of words, yes. I'm sure for many people this sounds pretty kooky. For me it sounds absolutely magical. (LAUGHS) Ask us in a couple of years' time, after we've lived here. (LAUGHS) So what is the budget? Probably about $350,000 for this house. OK. Well, that's pretty lean. And how long is all this gonna take? Four months. What?! Four months? I'm sure you've heard that before` From start to finish? From start to finish. The builder that I'm using, who is our neighbour, he's only just built his house, and that was about two months. So I've doubled it for good luck. (ALL CHUCKLE) If you can pull this off... in four months,... Four moths. ...I'll get you a damn good whiskey. How's that? Well, I'm definitely a whiskey drinker, so there's good motivation there. They're going to need more than a bottle of Scotch. Rik and Boio have an earthquake-damaged house in Christchurch that they need to sell to free up money for the build. But that's not holding them back. They're charging ahead anyway. The complex octagonal tree house is going to need a skilled carpenter. It's an eccentric design for slightly eccentric clients. Builder and neighbour Dan McGuire is going to have to work fast. He asked lots of hard questions about how the build would proceed and then came up with very interesting solutions. And it was pretty much a no-brainer to use him. I don't tolerate numpties, and I don't think Rik is. And we'll develop between ourselves as we go along. We'll see who's the strongest. (CURIOUS MUSIC) Impatient to get started, they're taking a risk and beginning the build without full consent, and already their tree house is starting to grow among the pines. The concrete pad has been laid to support the central steel tree, and today the builders are setting up the eight tanalised posts in buried 40-gallon drums to hold the corners of the octagonal house. We've tapered up on the drums so the water doesn't stick around the posts. It's just too wet to do anything with it, so it's just better to let it settle down then come and pretty much plaster them up. (CURIOUS MUSIC) The concreting is the easy bit. From here, things get complicated. In spite of the detailed plans, every stage is going to throw up new problems for Dan and his team. We're always looking for projects that interest the guys, keep them on their toes. And we're starting with a circle, which can put a lot of guys off, for a start. There's no diagonals, no parallels. And with the main central pole, which everything drives off, there'll be a lot of head-scratching going on, and we'll make decisions as we go in. (DELICATE MUSIC) It's such a fast build. Everything needs to be planned and ordered now. Keeping pace with Dan is probably the biggest problem, because we've got a roof to purchase and we haven't ordered it yet, and we've got windows to purchase and we haven't ordered them yet. And we're at the point now where the delivery dates will probably delay the build. So they're on the critical part. With all eight posts in, it's Rik and Boio's first opportunity to imagine the height of their new house. Is it what you were expecting? No, it wasn't, actually. (LAUGHS) I mean, you were` I thought it was gonna be lower, but it's very high. (LAUGHS) You were telling me that 3m was too low. 3m is not high enough! And, no, that's high. Yep. I see that now. 3m is high, especially in a high wind-speed zone like this, surrounded by pines that blow over easily. But Rik's nothing if not optimistic. I can't help admiring Rik and Boio's enthusiasm for their big dream. It's really really special. But just wandering around here and seeing all of these other unfinished projects,... (TARPAULIN RUSTLES) ...finished in four months? Hmm. (THEME MUSIC) (BRIGHT ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC) Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools are surrounded by iconic redwoods. When two of them were condemned, Rik and Boio snapped them up. Oh, aren't these magnificent?! They are. Look at this! Just a beautiful sequoia. Wow! These trees define Hanmer Springs. You come in and you see these majestic redwoods poking into the sky. These particular two redwoods that we purchased were starting to die, and so for health and safety reasons, the thermal pools decided they needed to be cut down. (ENGINE TURNS, RUMBLES) (LIGHT, FANCIFUL MUSIC) The redwoods are just the type of cladding Rik's been looking for. They're enormous. Instead of trucking them to a sawmill, Rik's friend Rod has brought his portable mill to cut them onsite. We're going to use it for board and battens for the exterior of the house. The giant redwoods are an enormous job for Rod's portable mill. But it helps that he shares Rik and Boio's love of timber. That's one mother of a tree. It's 96 years old? I think around 96 years old. We did have a go at counting the rings, but there was a large number of them. What I like is that the trees aren't disappearing. They're not being burnt; they're not just being dumped. They're going to live on in a sustainable tree house, and the story's going to be there for future generations. So it's a good feeling. I don't think it's that heavy. (GROANS, LAUGHS) Oh, it's not that light! (DREAMY MUSIC) There's something really magical in the idea that big, old landmark trees will be refashioned into a different sort of landmark. We've realised this is an exciting journey that we both want to go on. This is the fun part ` (CHUCKLES) is the designing of the house. I don't think the actual build is going to be fun, cos it's gonna be quite stressful. But I'm prepared for it. I'm up to the challenge. (DELICATE, BRIGHT MUSIC) Rik and Boio have now amassed quite a collection of locally-sourced timber in preparation for the later stages of their build. Oregon is a beautiful timber, and this timber here is going to be flooring, and some of the timber behind me and what has just been loaded on to the trailer is going to be structural framing timber. Boy, it's like a giant wood library, isn't it? How extraordinary. It is exciting, isn't it? But I'm most fascinated to see how these giant redwood scrub up. Oh, it's gorgeous. Look at that colour. This is a fantastic timber. It's really unusual to use this in New Zealand. We're very lucky to have it, and it's gonna go on the outside of the house. We're going to have a beautiful red-coloured house ` naturally coloured. And doing it like this, has it saved you much? Fingers crossed. I'm hoping that the timbers that we've milled, which we use in the house, will be about half the cost of buying it commercially. This is a complicated project. Home-milled timber for a bespoke build, and before it gets to Dan, the design has already been through three sets of hands ` the architects, the engineers and Rik's. What we haven't had is a discussion yet about if I've made any mistakes. I like to warn people that I make mistakes. I haven't seen you make them, but I bet you do. Well, it's one of those things. If you're not making decisions, you're not making mistakes. No, that's right. Rik's upfront about his shortcomings, but he's confident of his engineering skills. If he alters the plans, any mistakes are on his head. Already his changes to the mezzanine are holding up full consent, so I've come to Rangiora to meet designer Sally Turnbull to find out why. So you're lifting the roof and changing the angles which... We are. We're lifting the roof in two of the octagonal plains and putting a glass roof on it, and so you can lie in bed in the mezzanine and look up at the stars. Oh boy. That sounds pretty exciting. It also sounds a lot more complicated. (BOTH LAUGH) I know! And a lot more expensive. The original plans had a 300-kilo glass roof right above the bed. Rik's worried about it crashing down and turning his stargazing dream into a nightmare, so he wants it changed. It's been a bit of a challenge for the manufacturers of skylight. Really? Why is that? Rik has put a maximum weight on it ` weight limit. But I do believe it is being constructed as we speak. And it's still in with Council and Building Consent? (BOTH CHUCKLE) Correct. That's confident. That is. Yeah, that's Rik. That's our Rik. (LAUGHS) (ROLLING, FLOWING GUITAR MUSIC) The uniqueness of the octagonal tree house means there's constant problem-solving. Some builders might find this frustrating, but I get the sense these guys are enjoying it. Well, your choice of doing this is to have a bracket, and then you've got your three studs in here. Remember, though, that there's actually five, because you've got your wall plates coming in. Yeah, yeah, but we can notch these out, you see. We'll do that. In fact, if anything, if you do this... That's right. There you go. We're getting there. Too easy, innit? Always (!) (GUFFAWS) Can I keep the pencil? Oh, get out of it. (LAUGHS) Yeah. (RISING STRING MUSIC) There's one last piece of the puzzle before the house starts taking shape. Rik has driven down to Christchurch to sign off the steel pole designed to be the tree at the centre of the house. This is the key element that's going to help us build the tree house. It's the main structural item in the tree house. We got the right pipe. And if you look down there, we're exactly in line with that one there. And if we get this bit wrong, we're... the house will be pointing the wrong way. Although there's an engineer on the build, Rik's reworked some of the drawings, so it's on him to ensure everything is just so. Nothing like this before. Not many people work on tree houses. (CHUCKLES) And we certainly have never before. Yes. I was sort of expecting a poorer job than this, but in fact, this is brilliant. (GUFFAWS) No, I'm very pleased with it. With the floor and roof beams coming off the pole, every bracket and every angle are critical. Even the tiniest error could have major consequences later in the build. (CURIOUS MUSIC) But in late July, with the central pole up, the complex framing for the first floor fits perfectly. I just love this. A little bit of madness, local history and local timber, throw in the oddball engineering, and then having to dust off his old woodworking skills, and it's starting to feel like a wee bit of a fairy tale. It's good to get the old tools back out again, you know? Get the rust off them anyway. Yeah. But while Dan's in his element with the carpentry, Rik's discovered he's got a bit rusty with his engineering and miscalculated the height of the roof. I forgot that our floor is 360mm in depth, and what this means is that the floor is slightly higher than designed. Whilst the height of the building is sufficient to accommodate it from the top part of our pole, the brackets that you see halfway up are now in the wrong position. The bottom pole should have been another 150 mil taller. So that building. It's not a science. So, uh,... you just... you just keep getting on with it. (THUNDER RUMBLES) The short pole isn't the only setback. Last night the violent winds and heavy rain of a winter storm brought down half a dozen pine trees, some disturbingly close to the house. With the site now flooded, work has stopped, costing time and money. What do they say? A sharp chainsaw makes for a happy marriage. We are in a wind zone which is called 'extra high'. 'Extra high' means trees fall down. (FILE BURRS) One might ask why we want to live in an 'extra high' wind zone in a tree house. Um, my wife and I keep asking that question. (CHUCKLES) The short answer is that it's rather nice most of the time. But if you have trees crashing down around you, it's not so much fun, I guess. With a crane due to lift in the roof beams, Rik urgently needs to clear the site and find a solution for the central pole. (CHAINSAW WHIRRS) (WHINES) Three months into the build, and once again, the alpine air of Hanmer Springs rings out with the cry of a hardworking chainsaw. We've got trucks coming in to lift the rafters up, and I have to have this area cleared so that they can have safe access. Plantation pines like these have shallow roots, so it doesn't take much wind to blow them over. With so many trees down around their tree house, Rik and Boio must be getting nervous. That stumps going to have to come out anyway, cos that's your ramp. Yeah, but if I pull it out now,... Nah. It gives us a big swimming pool, doesn't it? It gives you a big hole, yes. Mm. (CHAINSAW RATTLES LOUDLY) It's dangerous work, but Rik seems to thrive on it. (CHAINSAW REVS) This is gonna be a nightmare to get down. It's on two trees. It'd be all right. It's on its way. (CHAINSAW REVS LOUDLY) (LIVELY, DELICATE MUSIC) For a man who loves trees, he seems to be spending a lot of time chopping them up. I have to be a bit careful that I don't end up having a tree house in a paddock, (CHUCKLES) which is a possibility. Hey, you're over here again, and you're banned from trees. Do you understand that? Death and destruction awaits you if you stay where the trees are. (GENTLE, PENSIVE MUSIC) The snowy peaks of Hanmer Springs are beautiful and as far away as you can be from Boio's birthplace in coastal Papua New Guinea. But there is a connection. This won't be her first house on poles. This is where you grew up? That's the village I grew up in. Just basically houses on stilts over the water. I can't tell you exactly how long that village has been around for, but a very long time, yeah. These old timber posts are just taken from the forest, I imagine. Yes, yeah. Some straight ones, a lot crooked ones. (LAUGHS) It's beautiful looking through, though. It makes it all the more interesting. So what's it like to actually live in one of these houses? Do you have strong memories? I do. I think it's no different living in a normal house, like, in New Zealand. Life is just different over there. You can have about 20 people living in one house. Mm-hm. So every` You know, the brothers and the sisters and their wives and husbands and children. I enjoyed that. And I miss that, living in New Zealand, you know? There's just your, like, family ` with Mum and Dad and maybe two children. It's a bit of irony that here you are on sticks on the water, in a very tropical, hot, sticky climate, and here you are, building right next to the snow and the mountains. It's almost the opposite. It is, yeah. I still prefer the hot weather. (LAUGHS) Ah! So now what you need to do is pack up the house and move it to the right country. Move it to` Yes, I think so. I've been trying. (LAUGHS GENTLY) Do you feel homesick watching this? Yes, I do. (CHUCKLES) Aw, really? Yup. I'm always homesick. That's making me, I don't know, mixed emotions ` happy and sad. Yeah. Yes. I guess, then, it's better than nothing, isn't it, that if you can't get back to Papua New Guinea, then you at least build a recreation of what it was like when you grew up. I think so, yeah. I agree. (CHUCKLES) (PENSIVE MUSIC) The tree house is starting to make sense to me now, and I wonder whether Rik is building it for himself, or if it is really a labour of love for Boio. There's something quite unique and special about a house in a round, like this. It's more like a traditional building used to be ` for example like a tepee or a yurt or an igloo. And the thing that's so extraordinary is that it's so incredibly compact. You're very close to everything, and everything, in this case, radiates from the central pole. But it's incredibly intensive in terms of the amount of work required. Every piece has to be cut, measured and fitted individually. And there's good news about Rik's mistake. Bolting in a short extension brings the pole up to the right height. We were going to change the height of these flanges, for the mezzanine here, but if we'd done that, it would've raised that mezzanine to the right height, but the pitch of our roof would've been wrong. So we had to actually raise the whole pole. So that brings our roof pitch back to correct. And after a couple of days with the chainsaw, with the pole now at full height and the trees cleared, the truck can get in to lift the huge roof beams into place. Where most builds use standard lengths and sizes, nothing on this build is standard, and every one of the eight beams need to be carefully shaped to fit the steel flanges. After misjudging the pole height, it looks like Rik has got the rest of it right. It's always good when things go like they should go ` especially when you're paying for it. (LAUGHS) The whole thing's gone smoothly. The joins have gone in nice. Got a good reach with the crane. Beautiful day. Doesn't get much better, really. After all the storms and flooding, to be working in the sunshine and actually progressing with the build is a great feeling. No problems at all. All the cuts were good. So we're pushing forward on trying to get a roof on this thing now, so, yep, get more days like this and we'll be sweet as. (LIGHT, LIVELY STRING MUSIC) On a good day, Hanmer is absolutely gorgeous. The distant snowy peaks are like an oil painting. With less than a month to finish their self-imposed deadline, Rik and Boio are positive and still hoping to finish on time. And today they get to stand on their platform and imagine the house around them. Gidday, guys. Oh, hi, Chris. Things have progressed! My goodness! It has. Thank you! Nice to see you. You too. (BOTH LAUGH) Everything is coming together. The beams are going up. I mean, you guys must be pretty excited. Well, I think we are. Aren't we, darling? It is exciting. Yeah. We've got a structure now. You can actually see how the whole house is being held together. And it's like a spiderweb. You've got these radial beams going out; you've got the support structure going up; and you've got these beautifully strong laminated beams going across. So you're as happy as Larry then, aren't you? I feel safer. (CHRIS AND BOIO CHUCKLE) What about you, Boio? For me, even before all this came up, I was already thinking of how the interior was going to look and things like that. So you're just itching to get into that much more detailed part of the build. I am. But I think, for the interior, he just left it to me. Oh, really? So it's, '(WHISTLES) Catch!' Yeah. Yeah. No, but you have a stronger interest in it than I have, I think. If the house doesn't smell, doesn't ditch, I can drop things on the floor and walk around and` Not in my new house. (LAUGHS) It's great to see Rik and Boio so happy and relaxed. But it's Dan who's tackling the difficult work today. You know there's a bottle of whiskey in this, don't you? Is that today? No. Oh. If it's done in four months. Really? Yeah, it will be. Yeah, no, it's all a numbers game. I've got men coming off other sites. Oh! That's the trick. That's cheating. Nah, it's not. That's forward planning. (BOTH LAUGH) Now that I know there's a bottle of whiskey involved, there'll definitely be a lot more men here. (BOTH LAUGH HEARTILY) No matter how many people Dan brings on to the job, there's still months of work here, not weeks. The house is just a shell without floors, walls or roof. There's been so much holding up this project ` from engineering issues to the weather, not to mention the decision to build in a plantation that keeps dropping pines in the way. These trees are amazingly close, really, aren't they? Yes, they are. And so we'll try and keep the ones that look friendly. And the ones that might potentially become enemies, we'll deal to. The one enemy they may not be able to deal to is time. There's so much left to do, they're going to need an army of builders to finish in the next three weeks. I feel for Rik and Dan, but I don't think I'll be forking out for that bottle of whiskey. (DELICATE, MOODY MUSIC) Rik and Boio wanted a summer build for their Hanmer Springs tree house, but construction didn't kick off until autumn, and their four-month build has stretched into five. After yet another storm and, yes, more pines on the ground, the roof is underway. Finally the tree house is starting to look like a house. But work has been painfully slow. The winter storms have cost time and money. Rik has to face facts and take out a few more trees. We have a tree over there ` about three trees over there ` that can, in fact, just touch the tree house. So the intention is to take probably three, four or maybe five of those out as well. The weather's been everything. We've had torrential rain. About 120ml in two days, howling nor'westers. So everything you can imagine to stop you getting into a roof has been happening, so, yeah, we've just gotta make hay while the sun shines. Hanmer Springs is a place of extremes. The roof has to be well-insulated for winter snow and able to breathe so it doesn't sweat in summers that can hit 30 degrees. We're watertight above now, so it's gonna be a lot easier for the builders to put the walls up and then get the windows measured. (FLOWING, ROLLING MUSIC) While Rik's been focused on the exterior in the building, I have a suspicion that Boio has just as interesting ideas for the tree house interior. What have you got planned? I mean, what are the things that excite you about it? I want to give it a rustic look. You know, like, in the bathroom, for the vanity, I was thinking it would be nice to have a, you know, tree stump,... OK! ...and then the sink can go on top of that. Oh, you're having fun now, eh? Oh, yes! (BOTH LAUGH) So, lots of textures and obviously a lot of timber. I have to be very careful. Whilst I like timber, too much timber can be too much timber. (LAUGHS) It's very much a shared project, isn't it? It has been, from day one that it's both our project, not just our home. You know, it's our project together. Having said all of that, he can be a pain. (BOTH GUFFAW) (LIVELY STRING MUSIC) Back in May, the guys were so confident of a four-month build, they put a bottle of whiskey on it. It's now been nearly six. Work is full steam ahead, but there's still a long way to go. Gidday! How you going there, mate? Good, good. Come on. And at last I get a chance to see the home-milled redwood planking up on the walls. It's looking really lovely, Dan. How long has it taken to get to this point? A long time. A long time. Pretty much every board` Mm-hm. ...is cut down below... Yeah. ...and then manhandled up into place ` so measured to fit. Yeah. Yeah, it's a three-man job for each board. Good old fashioned craftsmanship. Well... Yeah. We'll see how it comes out at the end, eh? (BOTH CHUCKLE) So it's all redwood out here. Yep. But what's going on through here? So the flooring's Oregon. This is extraordinary. It looks like a huge amount of work. Uh, yeah, it is. Yeah. It seems to be the thing that we've got going. (LAUGHS) You would expect an octagonal build to come with challenges. But the flooring is the sort of geometry puzzle that can put schoolkids off maths. Dan's building the floor in separate sections to match the octagonal house. Nothing is uniform, so effectively, he's flooring eight quite different segments. It would be easier if all the walls were actually parallel to each other. But none of these walls are. Every wall is a different angle. So, uh, not only have you got mitre cuts; you've got splayed cuts as well on the same stick. So when it's done, it will look awesome. It really will. It already does look awesome. And the fit and finish looks superb. But I'm just thinking how long it takes. I know. (BOTH CHUCKLE) I know. I know how long it's taken already. So I'm thinking, oh, you just start looking around the place and think, 'Holy!' Yeah. Mm. (DELICATE, LILTING MUSIC) With every single piece of wood needing to be cut to fit, it's not only laying out the floor that is labour-intensive; so is preparing the cladding. I'm giving them a light sand to try and clean up the surface so that it has a good appearance on the house. When it's first cut, it's absolutely red ` a very pinky red, a very beautiful colour. But it quite quickly changes to a sort of a darker red and then to a sort of a browny red. It's a magical colour for a magical house. What more can I say? Normally timber turns up in a truck, ready to go. But using the home-milled redwood means Rik has to rout weather grooves in every single plank, just to keep the rain out of the house. It's a massive amount of work to cut it, massive amount of work to store it and so it dries properly, and a massive amount of work to then do the finishing touches like this, and then a massive amount of work to install it on the building. It's all hand-done, so it's a lot more labour intensive than perhaps I anticipated at the start of the project. We're hoping to be in it by... before Christmas. And so that's where the big push is at the moment. It perhaps doesn't look like we're going to get there. Getting there depends on how fast the team can work. There are no shortcuts. It's all labour and remembering to measure everything twice so the builders only have to cut each piece of timber once. Living in a forest, with your building resources literally growing around you, you might have thought a tree house would be a cheap way to build. Unfortunately, time doesn't grow on trees. We're behind schedule; it's a complicated build. Everything's designed for simple structures. So your gib, for example, is rectangular. So if you have rectangular walls, you get a very quick install. If you have triangular walls, then you're buggered. You use that one. OK. The delays, and a budget blowout, means Rik and Boio are having to be even more involved to hit the Christmas deadline. All of these have been done by my wife and myself. They're nice and thick, 140. We're gonna be as toasty as toasty can be in the middle of winter. We'll also be overhot in summer unless we work out how to cool this place. The complex octagonal design and the use of labour-intensive materials have put Rik and Boio in a difficult financial position. Over budget. By how much, it's painful to think about at the moment. But significantly over budget. Time equals money. (RISING PENSIVE MUSIC) As you can see, when I'm not doing anything there, I'm clearing the area. So I think it's all hands on deck with Richard and I. I can't say that painting's one of my favourite activities. I've done a lot of it, and I hate it. And I don't even feel satisfied after I've done it either. I just think, 'Shit, that's a waste of my life.' I think we're going to have to stop... the` yeah, the builders,... probably in the next couple of weeks... and just finish it ourselves. Put off the builders? That's a worry. Rik's handy, but this carpentry is so complex, it really needs a craftsman like Dan. Without the money, I can see this all grinding to a halt. It's a specialist build. You end up spending more money than you expect to on the build. Some people might get 10%; some people might be 20%, and we're much higher than that. Possibly around 30 or 40, and that's a lot. Kind of a bit... unhappy. Um, not to mention the stress. I think we're both stressed... about it. We've got a house in Christchurch that we need to sell, and that needs a retaining wall fixed, and that's what's delayed us selling it at the moment. So that's put pressure on us financially, because... we had to borrow money to... to get this build underway. (THOUGHTFUL MUSIC) I don't think Rik and Boio will be in for Christmas. Next Christmas, maybe? (GENTLE, FLOWING PIANO MUSIC) It's early spring, and Rik and Boio have finally invited me back to Hanmer Springs to see the tree house. Rik thought that he could build the house in four months flat. It's been a solid 16 months of hard yakka, and I know they've really really struggled. So I've been feeling very nervous about this. I really hope they've managed to pull it off. (GENTLE, EXPECTANT MUSIC) Look at that. A real tree house in the woods. How exciting! Wow! Oh gosh. And look at that redwood cladding! Beautiful. (GENTLE MUSIC SWELLS) Wow. He-hey! Hi, Chris. I can't quite believe it! My goodness! Lovely to see you. Lovely to see you both. And your house is... amazing. It really feels like I have finally come to the woodland tree house. I can't wait to get in and have a look. Shall we go in? Yes, please! Come on in. (CHUCKLES) Wow! Exciting. The way this expands into the light is beautiful! I'm immediately struck by the airy feel of Rik and Boio's octagonal room. Just like being up in a tree, you get a sense of space all around you. There are even branches striking out from the central steel pole as it flows upwards from the exquisitely handcrafted wooden floors to the conical ceiling above. The branches of the tree are fabulous! They're really working, and... it's kind of a dance. The intention was you come in and you're in part of a tree, and you look up, but then you can go up the stairs, into the other bedroom, and you're looking down through the branches. It's almost as if you're in a tree house within a tree house. It's heart-warming to see how Rik and Boio have stepped up here. After they let the builders go, I was worried the wouldn't have the skills to complete such a bespoke project. I can't believe how resilient you two are. Well, I can't believe how good my wife is at building! (LAUGHS) That ceiling... was a nightmare. There's just over 800 pieces of timber up there. It was the better part of two months' work. I'm surprised either of you have still got hair. Ha! It was a nightmare that I never thought I'd wake up from. (PENSIVE MUSIC) Boio was originally concerned about having too much wood in the house. But I love the way that she and Rik have cleverly married different types of timber, creating a warm, subtle wooden journey throughout the house, that includes a beech kitchen bench top. Upstairs is the master bedroom with Rik's long-awaited skylight ` a place to lie in bed and survey the universe. Looking at the stars at night is quite fun. I can quite easily sleep with the stars above me. It's very romantic. (BOTH LAUGH) And I love all these quirky details that you've got. What's going on here? That's... Richard's loose end. Loose end? (ALL CHUCKLE) The builder basically said, 'What am I going to do with this?' And I looked at it and I said, 'Well, we'll leave it there.' And he said, 'I know. Let's call it a loose end.' One idea we talked about was he would cut the top here so you could put your hot Milo on top there. So a loose end with purpose. (FANCIFUL MUSIC) Downstairs is a guest bedroom, and opposite, a generous bathroom. This is my favourite room, Chris. I'm amazed at how big is. It is. Yes. We've got a shelf for a glass of wine each. So we can sit in a nice, hot bath, reading a good book, watching it snow outside. And for summer dining, there's an outside deck eccentrically shaped around a newly planted tree. I love being out here and just enjoying seeing your wonderful redwood cladding. All that blood, sweat and tears that you two have put into it, and it looks gorgeous in the light! This has been, for me, a really extraordinary experience, following you guys. This is a very unique, original home, and here you are ` you've done it. How does it feel? Everything about it is magical ` something from a storybook. It also reminds me of my home, where I grew up, with houses on poles. After about six months, you had to let the builders go. What exactly did you have to do then? We were left with a house which was basically a shell which had been gibbed. There was no ceiling. The floor was about three-quarters complete, so we had to complete the floor. It took over our lives. Instead of like, 'I wanna go for a run,' or, 'I want to go for a walk in the forest,' you know, I've gotta do this. Tell me, what have you learnt from each other? I think the whole process of building this house wasn't as frustrating working so hard every day; it was frustrating Richard telling me how to do things. SOFTLY: Oh! Um... (LAUGHS) From my point of view, I had a surprise. My wife was on the cross-cut saw, and I'd say, 'Yes, I need a piece this long, with this angle,' and out would pop a piece that long and with that angle, and it became quite streamlined towards the end. So you've become a building team. Actually, yes. We have. (GIGGLES) I'd say we have. This house has brought us closer, I think. Yeah. How did you do with your budget? How did that come out? You know that you're in trouble when you stop looking at your bank account. LAUGHS: Oh dear! We're probably quite close to the 600K mark. Do you remember, Rik, we made this bet that there was a bottle of whiskey in it, depending on how long the build was gonna take? You thought maybe four months or so. And here we are, a solid 16 months, and I thought, 'Wow. They've actually managed to pull it off.' Deal's off. Oh my goodness. Oh! (LAUGHS) The whiskey's yours! Oh, thank you very much. Indeed! (FANCIFUL THEME MUSIC) This house has always been about trees. And the irony through the building process was each passing storm thinned out the surrounding forest. But as the new trees that Rik and Boio planted push up around the house, it will feel like it's always been here ` an integral part of this evolving forest. (GUESTS CHATTER) Only now we can mention that. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS) I'd like to propose a toast to Boio and Rik for this wonderful creation in the middle of the forest in Hanmer Springs. Well done, the two of you. Cheers. ALL: Cheers! (CLAP) (GLASSES CLINK) Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air.