Sunshine and Busyness
July 2012, by Tom
It took a year of searching, three failed tenders and a bitterly cold winter at a cold, damp flat to finally find a house that ticked most boxes and within our budget!
Welcome to 78 Sunshine Avenue, Karori. Our new home. A home of our own!
With winter quickly approaching, and the dread of having to go through another winter in a cold, drafty, damp, slug infested flat on a street with a name to match - “Hildreth”, we were getting desperate.
To it’s credit, Hildreth has given us an insight into Karori, a suburb we have grown to love. With Karori Park around the corner, a choice of supermarkets a 10 minute walk away and a nice community feel about it, Karori has a little bit of everything. It’s also the largest suburb in New Zealand. Finding a house here shouldn’t be too difficult, right?
We submitted three tenders during our weekly open home adventures. This was after quickly whittling down the suburbs we would like to live in to four: Wilton, Northland, Wadestown and Karori.
The first lost tender was in September 2011, on a cute little two bedroom ex state house on Cheshire Street, Wilton, with a lovely outlook and a garden full of potential. We were tied with another couple who submitted a tender and lost out by a small margin after both couples were asked to re-submit their tender and the other couple decided to increase their bid by $11k, and us, by a mere $3k. We were devastated. We thought we had this one in the bag. Oh the naivety of first home buyers. In hindsight, we would have already outgrown the two bedroom property before we even moved in.
The second tender we submitted was in November 2011, for a beautifully decked out three bedroom 60's house on Bourbon Terrace, in Karori. I was sold on the street name alone. The house was nicely modernised, open plan with three bedrooms, but the selling point was on the landscaping. The owner had painstakingly landscaped the front of the property with curved fencing, gorgeous lighting and a perfect indoor, outdoor flow. It was breathtaking. Unfortunately another couple thought the same thing - and we were again in a tender bidding war, and again, we lost, this time by a significant margin. Again, in hindsight, it was probably for the best - as there was no off street parking, and the access to the house was not particularly buggy friendly. But oh, the landscaping!
The third house we fell in love with was a massive 4-5 bedroom mansion on Campbell Street, again in Karori. The Turners and Pecks joined us for a viewing and all agreed, it was a nice property. The size and number of rooms being the selling point. The RV was within reach and QV didn’t deter us. Our tender, submitted in January 2012, however, was blown completely out of the water by the numerous other people submitting tenders. We still had a lot to learn by this point. Third time not so lucky.
By this stage, Olive was due, so house hunting took a back seat for a few months. We still kept our eyes peeled but had pretty much decided to only view properties that were absolute possibilities. These were very few and far between and by the time Olive was one and a half months old, we had only seen a couple and none of which were potentials. With summer long gone, and winter quickly approaching, we had pretty much resigned to the fact that Olives first winter would be spent with the slugs of Hildreth.
However, all was not lost, as in early April a property came up around the corner in Sunshine Avenue. With open minds, the three of us trotted over to view the property and we were very surprised with what we found. A lovely house with no major issues and surely in a price we could afford! It was full steam ahead, with the first and only open home two days later, which was crawling with young couples with baby-bjorn toting mothers. We submitted our offer on the Tuesday following the first open home, and while out at the movies, I received a call from Will, our real-estate man, and the house was ours! What have we done?!?
We agreed on a settlement date with Alice, the properties current owner, and with only three weeks till move in date went to work on packing up Hildreth. Luckily, this was also the time that Olive started taking naps during the daytime and so Gini could do the packing while I was working. It worked out well, and on move in date, Friday the 4th of May, we had Cool Moves doing the heavy lifting and both sets of parents helping with the smaller bits and with the cleaning. It was the smoothest move to date, and hopefully the last for a number of years.
We returned to Hildreth on the Sunday to give it a quick once over and to say our good riddance to the slugs, and to the owners who were so cheap and painfully slow at agreeing to do anything.
We were now in our own home. What an amazing feeling. I set to work straight away on making holes everywhere.
1) Hole in the wall in the lounge to mount the TV in front of and to hide the Apple TV and cables
2) Hole in the back door to put Lyons dog flap (a life saver now that Lyon knows how to open doors himself but not close them again)
3) Second hole in the back door to put a new lock on
4) Hole in the side of the house to put the dryer vent into
5) Holes in the ground to put up a simple fencing to stop Lyon from visiting the neighbours
Next task was to get my office up and running. Our house had three good sized rooms upstairs and a random, pink painted, concrete walled room under the house which looked to be used for storage. This was to be my office. Dave the builder came round and did the hard stuff - jibbed the walls and the ceiling, the first layer of plaster and returned to do the skirting and the scotia. Gini and I, with the help of Andy, completed the plastering and then spent a week of 6am starts to get the painting done. Gini’s motivation at this point was impressive. Her small windows of opportunity when Olive slept was all we needed to push things along and get the room completed.
The carpet went down on the 30th of June and I was working from my new office the following morning! Having my own office is something I have dreamed about for years, and now it is a reality. Very happy.
We also constructed a woodshed to house the new pile of wood we had delivered after burning through Alice’s wood in record timing. This took two days, except for the replacement roof fitted a week or two later.
These two projects are nothing, however, compared to what we are going to undertake next: a complete re-do of the back yard complete with two new retaining walls and a large deck connected to the French doors from the lounge. Our aim is to get it done before Christmas, so watch this space!
And so there we have it. Our weekends are now spent pottering in the garden or around the house, after spending a small fortune at Mitre 10, our new favourite store. According to Dad, the saying goes “Did you have a good weekend, or do you own your own home?”. At this stage, I don’t think they are mutually exclusive!
T
Welcome to 78 Sunshine Avenue, Karori. Our new home. A home of our own!
With winter quickly approaching, and the dread of having to go through another winter in a cold, drafty, damp, slug infested flat on a street with a name to match - “Hildreth”, we were getting desperate.
To it’s credit, Hildreth has given us an insight into Karori, a suburb we have grown to love. With Karori Park around the corner, a choice of supermarkets a 10 minute walk away and a nice community feel about it, Karori has a little bit of everything. It’s also the largest suburb in New Zealand. Finding a house here shouldn’t be too difficult, right?
We submitted three tenders during our weekly open home adventures. This was after quickly whittling down the suburbs we would like to live in to four: Wilton, Northland, Wadestown and Karori.
The first lost tender was in September 2011, on a cute little two bedroom ex state house on Cheshire Street, Wilton, with a lovely outlook and a garden full of potential. We were tied with another couple who submitted a tender and lost out by a small margin after both couples were asked to re-submit their tender and the other couple decided to increase their bid by $11k, and us, by a mere $3k. We were devastated. We thought we had this one in the bag. Oh the naivety of first home buyers. In hindsight, we would have already outgrown the two bedroom property before we even moved in.
The second tender we submitted was in November 2011, for a beautifully decked out three bedroom 60's house on Bourbon Terrace, in Karori. I was sold on the street name alone. The house was nicely modernised, open plan with three bedrooms, but the selling point was on the landscaping. The owner had painstakingly landscaped the front of the property with curved fencing, gorgeous lighting and a perfect indoor, outdoor flow. It was breathtaking. Unfortunately another couple thought the same thing - and we were again in a tender bidding war, and again, we lost, this time by a significant margin. Again, in hindsight, it was probably for the best - as there was no off street parking, and the access to the house was not particularly buggy friendly. But oh, the landscaping!
The third house we fell in love with was a massive 4-5 bedroom mansion on Campbell Street, again in Karori. The Turners and Pecks joined us for a viewing and all agreed, it was a nice property. The size and number of rooms being the selling point. The RV was within reach and QV didn’t deter us. Our tender, submitted in January 2012, however, was blown completely out of the water by the numerous other people submitting tenders. We still had a lot to learn by this point. Third time not so lucky.
By this stage, Olive was due, so house hunting took a back seat for a few months. We still kept our eyes peeled but had pretty much decided to only view properties that were absolute possibilities. These were very few and far between and by the time Olive was one and a half months old, we had only seen a couple and none of which were potentials. With summer long gone, and winter quickly approaching, we had pretty much resigned to the fact that Olives first winter would be spent with the slugs of Hildreth.
However, all was not lost, as in early April a property came up around the corner in Sunshine Avenue. With open minds, the three of us trotted over to view the property and we were very surprised with what we found. A lovely house with no major issues and surely in a price we could afford! It was full steam ahead, with the first and only open home two days later, which was crawling with young couples with baby-bjorn toting mothers. We submitted our offer on the Tuesday following the first open home, and while out at the movies, I received a call from Will, our real-estate man, and the house was ours! What have we done?!?
We agreed on a settlement date with Alice, the properties current owner, and with only three weeks till move in date went to work on packing up Hildreth. Luckily, this was also the time that Olive started taking naps during the daytime and so Gini could do the packing while I was working. It worked out well, and on move in date, Friday the 4th of May, we had Cool Moves doing the heavy lifting and both sets of parents helping with the smaller bits and with the cleaning. It was the smoothest move to date, and hopefully the last for a number of years.
We returned to Hildreth on the Sunday to give it a quick once over and to say our good riddance to the slugs, and to the owners who were so cheap and painfully slow at agreeing to do anything.
We were now in our own home. What an amazing feeling. I set to work straight away on making holes everywhere.
1) Hole in the wall in the lounge to mount the TV in front of and to hide the Apple TV and cables
2) Hole in the back door to put Lyons dog flap (a life saver now that Lyon knows how to open doors himself but not close them again)
3) Second hole in the back door to put a new lock on
4) Hole in the side of the house to put the dryer vent into
5) Holes in the ground to put up a simple fencing to stop Lyon from visiting the neighbours
Next task was to get my office up and running. Our house had three good sized rooms upstairs and a random, pink painted, concrete walled room under the house which looked to be used for storage. This was to be my office. Dave the builder came round and did the hard stuff - jibbed the walls and the ceiling, the first layer of plaster and returned to do the skirting and the scotia. Gini and I, with the help of Andy, completed the plastering and then spent a week of 6am starts to get the painting done. Gini’s motivation at this point was impressive. Her small windows of opportunity when Olive slept was all we needed to push things along and get the room completed.
The carpet went down on the 30th of June and I was working from my new office the following morning! Having my own office is something I have dreamed about for years, and now it is a reality. Very happy.
We also constructed a woodshed to house the new pile of wood we had delivered after burning through Alice’s wood in record timing. This took two days, except for the replacement roof fitted a week or two later.
These two projects are nothing, however, compared to what we are going to undertake next: a complete re-do of the back yard complete with two new retaining walls and a large deck connected to the French doors from the lounge. Our aim is to get it done before Christmas, so watch this space!
And so there we have it. Our weekends are now spent pottering in the garden or around the house, after spending a small fortune at Mitre 10, our new favourite store. According to Dad, the saying goes “Did you have a good weekend, or do you own your own home?”. At this stage, I don’t think they are mutually exclusive!
T
The Cheshire St property we put a tender on
The Bourbon Terrace property we put a tender on
The Sunshine Ave property we put a tender on - and won!
Olives room was our temporary box room.
The chaos increases!
Lyon's stick addition is brought to new heights at Sunshine Ave
Lyon's new dog flap works a treat
Dave comes round to do the jibbing.
And the wood is moved into place - it fits!
Meanwhile, the painting is completed in the office.
The carpet goes down
Olive enjoys the $50 couch after a clean, in the office.
