Our House

I will admit that we are not the best at blogging. We started this as way to inform you all about what we are doing in New Zealand, but once life got on its way we kept getting side track and bogged down with typical life things. That being said let me fill you in on our house that we found!

When we arrived we immediately started looking for homes to rent. Finding housing is never a fun task nor is it made better while doing it in the middle of winter. Pickings were slim and we quickly found out about few quirky issues with how they build houses here in New Zealand.

To quickly interject, let me tell you about one in particular. HOUSES ARE NOT INSULATED! We heard this maybe an issue prior to moving to New Zealand, but thought there must be that are. Well, in the ways of rental homes that was a big wish. Homes here are not really built to last, instead more worth is put on the plot of land than on the house that sits on it. That being said many of the homes here have single pane wood framed windows and have no insulation. As a result many homes developed horrible mold problems and soon the government had to make it law (the first being in 2004) that all new dwellings were required to be insulted and have at least double paned windows. That being said we found many of the homes we looked at had either mold issues, the home was colder inside than outside, and/or did not have good heating options (wood burning fireplaces or heat pumps are the best forms of heating for New Zealand homes).

Our options were looking grim and we were getting to the point were we considering temporally leasing a home until better things came along. We were going to 2-4 house showings a day and we were searching for any and all new listings that would pop up on Trademe (NZ's Craigslist). Finally one listing popped up. They didn't have many photos of the house but the description sounded good. We made an appointment to see the house the next day and upon walking into the home we knew we found it. We were so stoked to have finally found it that we moved in two days after the previous tenants moved out.

Our house has 2 Bedrooms, one office, one bathroom, a garage, and a big back yard. It is partially insulated- only in the roof, but it's better than nothing!  It is owned by a really great couple named Jo and John who have proven to be great landlords. They too have once moved to live abroad for work-related circumstances so they are vey empathetic as to what we are going through, including home sickness.

The Front of the House

Our sunny deck at the back of the house

Moving in was an adventure. Knowing we needed to fill our new found home with furniture, we tried to do it as efficiently as possible. The quickest way was to rent a trailer for a day and pick up as many furniture items as possible. The following week consisted of frantic Trademe searches and bids, followed by a whole day of driving around the Waikato Region collecting all of our furniture purchases. We ordered a bed through Richard and Clare's (the moteliers) business discount at their behest, fantastic! It saved us nearly half a grand off a new mattress. In the meanwhile, they lent us two twin mattress so we wouldn't have to sleep on the floor until our bed arrived. To date, we've furnished all of the living spaces, but have yet to furnish the guest bedroom or office. Putting together a home is tough work and is expensive, but we're slowly making some headway.

We're slowly getting adjusted to life in New Zealand. The first step towards feeling comfortable here was getting our home in order. Apart from organizing the furniture, we've been working in the yard and gardens. We tore out the old planter boxes that the previous tenants left and made a new one out of the scrap wood we found under the house. We also planted a very productive veggie garden along the side of the house to offset the cost of vegetables. We found the yard to be overgrown in places as yards get with a lack of attention, so we've spent several weekends clearing undergrowth and mulching the yard to make it seem a bit more organized.

We have come a long way since we have moved in but still have a few more things to do, but it's starting to feel like home to us. We'll type up another post soon about some other adventures, but until then, here's a few photos:

the Sunroom/ future office space

front yard

back yard

One of our veggie