Mark Ahearn and his Australian restaurateur wife Liz are taking time out from their hectic lives in Perth to build a legacy family holiday home in Abel Tasman.

Matthew and Rosemarie Dunning are put down roots in Mangawhai and have decided to throw convention out the window by embracing their son's intriguing concept of a brick house in a sand dune.

Eternal globetrotter Tessa Kingsbury's dream is to convert an old Dunedin Sunday school into her forever home, but it comes with a twist - she's incorporating a glasshouse into the heart of it.

On a steep site in the wilds of Mahurangi, just north of Auckland, architect Felicity Brenchly is prepared to do whatever it takes to get their family home built.

An hour - and 7 river crossings - inland from Geraldine is where arborist Li Tane and his landscaper wife Michelle are building their rammed earth, off-grid, sustainable mountain home for their family

When John and Sharon Russell bought their vertiginous site above Queenstown for their shared-ownership holiday house, they thought their biggest challenge would be signing up other owners...

In the Waitaki Valley, Michael and Olivia Pavelitch discover they have their work cut out for them when they embark on breathing life into an historic rabbiters' cottage.