Home Sweet Home

My cute niece (Hi, Chloe!) has asked Julia a few times when I'm going to do a post about our house.  Here goes!

This is what our house looks like from the front curb.  It might seem strange to have the wall/fence around the home, but this is very common here in New Zealand.  It's rare to see a home that doesn't have some type of fence or hedge around it (whereas in Utah it is more common for front yards to be unfenced...if there are fences, they usually enclose the backyard area).  The building lots are quite small here, at least within city limits.  Therefore, the yards are small too, and it's normal for homes to fill entire blocks of land (homes in the front, next to long driveways leading to homes in the back, behind the front homes).  Maybe that's why the privacy fences are so common?

Here are a few more views from the outside:

Walking up the front step to the door:

Standing at the front door looking out:

Before we head inside, I'll give a quick summary of how we landed this home in the first place.  If you have read the blog from the beginning, you'll remember this, but there are a few new insights and details to note.

The family who lived in our home before us (the Hansens) consisted of a couple who are several years older than us, and at least one older child.  They tried and tried to sell the house, with no luck.  When our friend at the hospital expressed interest in finding a large home for rent (they say "for hire" here), word got back to the homeowners, and they shifted gears from "sell" to "rent" mode.  They hired a management company to oversee the whole rental aspect, wanting limited contact with us directly (although Mr. Hansen has come by a few times to pick up mail and packages).  We pay our rent through the management company, and they come by every few months to do an inspection and take photos.  The homeowner has continued to pay for gardening/landscaping services, so we haven't had to lift a finger in the yard.

The Hansens were very, very generous in the furnishings they left behind, wanting to accommodate the needs of our large family.  They even purchased some new items based on our needs.  We are so grateful to them.  We have only needed to buy a few things to make this arrangement ideal.  

Mrs. Hansen made sure that there were ample linens and dishes for our use.  The age and style of many of those items were a bit startling, but again, we are using them anyway and are grateful for them.  The abundance of ceramic cats and similar decorative items throughout the house have been carefully stored in one of the closets.  We've taken down some of the wall-hangings and replaced them with ones we've purchased which are more suited to our style, and we've bought a few pillows to add some color to the sofas and beds.  Nearly every room has curtains on the windows and glass doors.  Not wanting to remove or change them, we've tried to decorate around the existing color scheme in each room.  In some of the rooms, nothing matches, which is fine too.

In the kitchen, we bought a bright rug and a few colorful items for above the cabinets.  The color palate in the kitchen was very neutral, so we added a little burst of color here and there, without going too crazy.  Every single cupboard and drawer in the kitchen had many MANY items left behind...some useful, some not.  I'm not sure how we'll ever find a use for the very naughty Valentine's Day card from Mrs. Hansen to her husband, discovered by one of my kids.  Sometimes it would be so nice to have a delete button in the brain.....

All things considered, the house was overall in excellent condition when we arrived.  When we learned that the owners had smoked in the home and had also owned pets, we were concerned, but were pleasantly surprised to find that the smoke and pet odors were very subdued.  I sneezed pretty good for about a week (I'm SO allergic to cats...real ones...well, you could say the ceramic ones, too), but we vacuumed often and opened windows which helped clear out any residual allergens.  

Anyway...are you really reading this post to hear about my cat allergies?  I didn't think so.  Let's continue the tour, shall we?  Here are some inside views of the entryway:

The hallway heading to the bedrooms:

That last photo is Luke and Landon's room.  They have transitioned to big-boy beds seamlessly!  We'll often put them to bed, then hear them talking and giggling and switching beds for well over an hour.  They are so much fun.  Their friendship is occasionally volatile, but mostly adorable.

They like to look out their window at the lemon tree...

  

Here is the master bedroom.  The rose painting and curtains were in place when we moved in.  Although I love red, it's not my first choice for a bedroom, but we've made it work.  You'll notice that we are sleeping on two twin beds pushed together... the full-size bed that was originally placed here got moved to one of the kids' rooms after about three nights.  The comforter is king-sized and fits this double-twin setup quite nicely!

The home has two full bathrooms and a half bathroom.  The first bathroom pictured is the hallway bath, and we jokingly call it our 6th bedroom.  It is enormous!  You could definitely put a twin bed in here, right? :)  The huge bathtub is a pain when bathing little ones, but an absolute dream for mommy after the littles have gone to bed.  Aaahhhhh.  There is also a very large shower behind the door, not pictured.

Here are the other two bathrooms, the guest and the master:

We spend most of our time in the living room/lounge/kitchen area.  It all sort of flows together.  It's spacious and bright and open, and the kids have plenty of space to play and stretch out and run around. Since we don't have central heating, the fireplace has gotten lots of use, especially during our first few weeks when it was still the middle of winter.   If you close the doors leading to the hallway areas, the living areas get toasty fairly quickly when the fire and fan are on.  When it's time for bed, we quickly hurry down the chilly halls to our beds, where electric blankets/mattress pads provide warmth and comfort.  That's the kiwi way.  Even though this is a newer home and the windows are all double-glazed, it has gotten pretty darn cold around here at times, although paling in comparison to a harsh Utah winter.  We are heading into spring now, with great anticipation!

I had spot-cleaned several areas of the carpet on the day I took these photos, hence the darker spots (for those of you who happened to notice!).

This next area is the lounge between the living room and kitchen.  It also serves as our home gym.  I brought several of my favorite exercise DVDs to New Zealand, hoping that they would play, since some US discs don't play in the local DVD players.  Luckily, about 80% of my DVDs are playable on this player!  Now, I just need to actually use those DVDs about 80% more than I've been using them!  It's hard to squeeze in workout time between eating pastry and Tim Tams.  :)

On to the kitchen/eating area...we are glad that there was an empty wall just big enough to fit our new (nearly-one-hundred-year-old) piano.  We don't love that the table and bar stools are placed on top of carpet, but we're too cheap to buy area rugs for underneath.  We are trying to keep the carpets clean, but it has been a challenge.  The carpet is very low pile, almost industrial style, so that helps.  Whenever I scrub a spot clean and my towel comes up covered with pet hairs, I feel less inclined to care so much.

We love the bright and well-lit kitchen.  We also love the spacious pantry with a huge countertop, which makes preparing lunches so much easier.  Between sending lunch and snacks to school every day, and rarely eating out, this kitchen has gotten tons of use already.  It's a great space and much nicer than many of the other homes we looked at.

If the fridge looks smaller than what we are used to in Utah, it is...this is only the refrigerator portion.  There's a large chest-style freezer in the garage.  Since the trash bins are in the garage next to said freezer, I thought I'd add that kiwis are very environmentally conscious, and they take recycling seriously.  In our part of Utah, recycling is optional and you actually have to pay extra to have your recycling picked up.  Here in NZ, besides the weekly trash pick-up, we have paper/plastic recycling pick-up every other week, switching off with glass.  You can always tell when someone has had a "spirited" few weeks based on the amount of glass bottles in their recycling bin!  More often than not, the bins are overflowing (but who am I to talk about vices, since our plastic recycling bin is always chock full of empty soda bottles).

Here is the laundry room.  It's at the opposite end of the garage.  I'm used to having the laundry room inside the house, but this room is so open and bright that I don't mind walking through the garage over and over on laundry days.

  

We have an electric dryer in the garage, as well as a clothes line outside.

A few more shots of the backyard...

The girls took some pictures of one of our many fun bubble-blowing sessions on the patio...

We have been treated to some beautiful sunrises and afternoon rainbows, viewed right from our front yard:

I think that about covers it!  We feel incredibly fortunate to be living in this beautiful home in such a nice neighborhood.  Hope you've enjoyed the home tour!