My New Home

Meet the family behind the My New Home project

Article by Homes to Love

Oliver and Ella are about to embark on a new build. Follow us as we document their building journey through our helpful series My New Home 

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Meet the family behind the My New Home project

Oliver’s face will be familiar to many New Zealanders from his acting roles on Shortland Street and many other local TV shows, movies and theatre productions, but nowadays he’s more likely to be found behind the camera, and is currently directing a new season of Power Rangers.

His wife Ella has an equally high-powered CV, with a background in production, event management, arts curation and set design, and is now contracted to the Auckland Council ACE team. They’re living in a rented home in Mt Albert with their two young children, Etta and Otis, and Harry the dog, while their new home is being built.

My New Home Oliver Driver

It’s the image of unpacking their moving boxes into a brand new walk-in wardrobe that’s been keeping Auckland couple Oliver and Ella focused over the months it’s taken to bring their home project almost to the start line. The couple bought a section in the Auckland suburb of Te Atatu Peninsula more than three years ago. It was at the height of the housing boom and they were living in a rented Mt Albert home with their young family while they looked for a place to buy.

“We wanted to live somewhere that felt like it had a real community,” says Oliver. “We really liked Te Atatu Peninsula because a lot of our friends lived there and it was a very family- oriented place, but it was in the middle of the housing crisis and everywhere we looked at, a developer would buy it before we could, paying more than it was worth because they were planning to chop it in half. Houses were going for crazy amounts of money.”

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