Jul 27 2010

Welcome to our house

By Simon

So, here we are, work has begun on transforming this house from quite the run down, dated, hodgepodge of pieces into what we hope will be a fantastic family home for many years, and yet I haven’t properly introduced the house have I? How rude. Allow me to remedy that at once…

Front of house

Front of house, as it was advertised

We lived for a couple of years in a house that most everyone thought was darn pretty, very English, very nicely renovated, had a huge block, great garden, and was just all round amazing.

Old home
Our previous home

But we had a few issues:

1. It was on a main road, and it was quite, quite noisy

2. We got broken into, had quite a bit of stuff taken, and never felt quite ‘at home’ again after that

&

3. Someone else had renovated it, not us. So it almost felt like living in someone else’s house as we couldn’t add our ‘touch’ because everything was already very nice and new and beautiful.

So, we decided to sell up and find somewhere else. And we did what we did last time, and should have learnt the first time… We sold before buying… don’t sell first. I’m sure there are markets where it makes sense, or situations where it’s best, but for us, the first time, we ended up having a 15 day settlement to get the house you see in the photo, and this time… this time we ran out of time.

So we had to rent, which of course means moving from one house to another house with the knowledge you’re going to do it again once you find the home to buy. That, and the market seemed to be defying all logic and continuing to rise and rise and rise…

To cut a long story short, after renting for 6 months, we found a place that needed a lot of work, and which the owners were asking far too much for. We put in an offer much lower than they were asking, and after it got passed in at auction we put in an even lower offer… and we got it.

And now we have a house with a LOT of work to do, it has arches and… actually, it’d be quicker if I just took you through, come on in. (By the way, most of the photos of rooms here are auto stiched collections of photos I took in order to be able to see the whole room as I don’t have a wide angle lens. As such there are weird effects like walls being chopped off half way here and there and such… don’t be alarmed, the house doesn’t really have phantom carpentry)

Our new house

Look, rooms and doors and such!

So, what we have is the main home sitting over what used to be a double car garage, but is now a ‘rumpus’ room with a ‘workshop’ and ‘study’… let’s just say all of those are serious works in progress.
Upstairs you come in from the porch, turn left and see mmmmm… redish, pinkish carpet, lovely, really…

Lounge Room

The Lounge, with its lovely carpet... mmmm

Go through those sliding doors you can see and you’re in the living room. This is actually an extension, and has a concrete floor that used to be external to the house… quite lovely.
Living Room

This room has such potential... unrealised at present

Then, we have the kitchen

The Kitchen

We have average cupboards/benchtops and horrible oven... oh, and lino

To the right of the front door we have what will be our 1 year old daughter Eibhlin’s room
Eibhlin's Room

They sure did like that carpet

Then, down the hall we have the laundry to the left
Laundry

What a delight.... hopeful site for a stairwell in the future

and at the end there is what will be the boy’s bedroom (we have three boys: almost 7, 5 1/2 and almost 4)
The Boy's Room

I dislike the sliding doors quite a lot

Turn right at the end of the hall and it’s the Master bedroom

Master Bedroom

Nice windows, shame about the old little air conditioner

which does have an en-suite and room for a walk in robe
Ensuite

What? No toilet... this will not do

Now we go downstairs, via outside, as there is no internal access, and when we open the door we have what is billed as a ‘Rumpus room’, and what I call ‘a lot of work down the track’.
Downstairs main

The so called 'Rumpus' room... yes, needs work

And off that we have a ‘Study’ and a ‘Workshop’

Downstairs study

It was a home office

So, there we have it, bar the outside areas which we’ll show in a later post… our house, our project for years to come, and our very, very busy time for the next 4 weeks while we get in new floorboards throughout all the living/bedroom areas of upstairs, do a lot of plaster/wall/door type work and paint the entire place… all before we move in. This is fun!

Downstairs... storage

Torture chamber?

Categories: About us