Preparing to move.

So moving a house takes a lot more planning than I ever thought.  So the first lesson I learnt in this phase was think of how much time it will take to do things and double it.  That will minimize any further stress being added to your life. 

So moving a house 30km to you site goes something like this.

1.Here is another look at the house in its original site.  The owners of the site had to clear everything from the site so the house could be moved off.  The garage out the side had to be demolished carefully before any work could be done because of the asbestos in it.  Thankfully we did not have to do any of this as it was in the contract clearly laid out.

2.  A builder comes inside and prepares the house for cutting.  I don't have any photos of this phase but you can see in this shot the vertical cut line between the top and bottom story along with the large brick chimney demolished.

Inside because the house is going to be cut right down middle on both top and bottom story, doors and door frames need removing, a couple of windows need removing. and inside the house needs bracing.

Inside lounge and dining room.  Yes they are mirrored tiles on the wall.

Garage gone.

This is a much more invasive process than I thought it would be but there was no turning back.  Not that we wanted to anyway.  After two weeks of work the house was ready for the next phase. 

Next blog post will be the move.

The story so far.

This time last year we decided to sell the house we owned and buy something that better suited to our needs especially growing children and one disabled son.

Now those needs were a little long term but really revolved around my able bodied children having a quiet place to study and a space for time out from living with a disabled sibling.  Then there were things like spaces that would not easily get broken and made our life easier such as an easy to clean toilet, an easily accessible place to store medication and medical supplies etc etc.

The only way we seem to be able to afford this was to buy an older house and move it to a place that was suitable to us. 

So that is where our story began.

We found this lovely 1959 house just waiting to be moved off site and to a new home.  Hmmmmm...we had no idea that once we decided to take this house just what a journey it would be.  A journey that we really are only a small part of the way through.

Phase one was to wait for spring to arrive.  Logically you can not move a house you have cut into four bits when the weather is terrible.  Of course there were all those decisions regarding changes we wanted to make to we could submit it to council for planning permission.  Now that was very tricky especially since we had not lived in the house and only visited it twice.

After much work were given the large package to deliver to council.  Yes there I am with all that important paper work.  Without it nothing can happen.  The house cant go on the truck, it cant be put on the land and we wont be able to move it off its original site.

After much stress and running around the paper work came through and phase two began.  The moving of the house.

We had already learnt some lessons.

• allow lots of time to council to work through the paper work.
• banks don't want to deal with old houses that are about to be moved so creative planning is required.
• patience is a virtue in may ways and this phase certainly reinforced that.
• Remember your husband (yes I love his heaps) is your partner in this and is after the same end goal.

Phase two will follow Thursday so drop on back.

I am so Lucky....

Well we have been living in a house under renovation.  It is a story for another post but let me say that the house we have was built in 1959 and its framework is made of rimu and native New Zealand wood.  We have a large pile of undressed rimu sitting in a pile outside.

The pile of rimu sitting outside after being removed from inside the house.

Yes the wood came from inside the internal wall of the house.  It is fulled with nailed and rough sawn.  I had this ambitious project of using the wood to help make a table studying on.  Luckily we had the top of the table (recycled from the laundry and nearly two meters long) and time on our hands.

So armed with a tool for pulling nails out of wood, a plainer, wood glue, clamps, some screws and little brackets.  Not much really....ha ha.  That was the easy part.  My husband and I have never made furniture.  So I started with the bit I knew how to do.......remove the nails from the wood that had been selected from the pile.  Then I got the measurements drew a couple of lines on the wood and there it sat for about a week with nothing happening.  But it became quickly evident we could no longer think about this project.   In our house with no tables in it at the moment, doing homework and study was an issue especially as the school year had just started.

So the next phase started.  The legs and framing for the table were plained to make them lovely and smooth and show off the all the character of the old wood.

The underside of the table looking fabulous after being glued, screwed and braced into place.

Then there is the character of the wood.  Just lovely with nail holes and these beautiful spots like we have on the leg.

The top of the table was gently sanded back and trimmed to get rid of the water damage obtained while it was the laundry bench.  Out came the wood glue and it was all glued in place, clamped and left with crossed finger to see if it would happen as we had planned.  Then while I was at work, yes that's why there are no photos, screws and little brackets were put into place.

I just love it.  It just needs varnish on it.  I will post an update when that is done.

Spring brings variable weather.  In fact just a couple of weeks ago it rained so much that the very small creek  overflowed with the help of a king tide.  Oh yes and see that shed on the right.  Yes the really large one with the white door......well all our house hold posessions are there.  Underwater just a little.    Hmmm and guess what.....last time we lived in the same temporary accommodation (thanks Mum and Dad) with the same household storage situation, the creek flooded.  Yes the last two times that that creek flooded we have had stuff in the shed.  

Boy life can be cruel sometimes.

Oh boy ...oh boy

It is amazing how time flies.  I have been so busy in my house that I think I will be busy wiping cobwebs off until Christmas....and oh boy Christmas is less than 100 days away so not far.

Well what has life been throwing at me.  Since I last posted I have got my house ready to sell.  Sold it in 10 days and then packed and moved  a house load of belongings.  Then of course we had no place to move into so my wonderful parents, once again opened their house up so that we could have a place to stay.  So in cabins, yes two of them, my husband and I have a bedroom and in another is one child.  Two children are inside each with their own bedrooms.

So we have been busy trying to work out our next step.  That has taken a lot of time and energy.but finally the solutuon to our long term housing needs has been decided.  The next exciting adventure in our lives has begun.

Our needs were specifically related to my disabled son and the need for my other children to have space.  A place for peace and quiet, a place to study, and a place where the bathroom facilities are clean.  I know the last one is an unusual item on the list but essential when you have a child who does not appear capable of using a toilet without flooding the bathroom.  Hmmmmm

Luckily we had access to purchase a piece of land but to build was prohibative to fill our needs.  So we came up with a solution that comes with some risk.  We are going to move a large house from a place about 30 kilomerters from out land.  How very exciting for us but very stressful and keeping us, in our house, very busy.

There is no doubt that I am going to have plenty to blog about in the weeks, months and years to come as we move this house on and fully renovate it.

So while we take a break from the stress of ordinary everyday life with two teenagers (one being disabled) and tweenage boy I will be able to catch up on some sleep, make some new lists of things to do, clear my brain ready for some of those creative decisions that will need to be made to get the house ready for use to live in.

Oh yes the weather is terrible.  While we have no control over this fingers are all crossed in our house that the rain goes away so the ground is firm enough and the weather dry enough to cut a house into 6  pieces and move it onto site.

A photo taken while Iwas out walking,,,yes in the reain.

It is all about colour

It really is about perception of space when it comes to paint and indoor space.  While I am no expert when it comes to colour and design but as my house is under going a complete colour change.  A previous owner had painted feature walls with heavy bold colours.  Black walls with heavy black curtains....lets not forget the canary yellow family room.  Yes every wall canary yellow.  In fact every room in the house had a feature wall equally bold as the black.  Each room had black curtains.  I had always joked that a colour blind person had last painted our house.

I had always thought that living where we do, in the countryside that the colour canvas should be from outside the windows.  You know, the green grass and barren trees in the winter and in the summer the browning grass, green trees and flowers.

So we are painting neutral walls and boy does the outside really come into us now.  The curtains are still to be replaced but I can't wait.

So you can see what I am talking about here is the blue feature room in my daughters room (couldn't find the right photo to show the black walls).  We just emptied her room on Monday.

Here are the cathedral ceilings that are the feature in half the house.  Each beam was sanded primed a number of times and then top coated twice.  My husband did a great job of that.

Of course the final colour is  as you can see. 

Colour has made just the most incredible difference in our house.  I will try and write more about it we finish dressing all the rooms.

It worked.

I take a lot of advice from the WWW with caution especially because you just don't know who is to be trusted and who is not.

With this in mind I was looking for a solution to remove the few paint splotches that ended up on our carpet.  Having used a water based paint I thought that it would be an easy fix but the paint had already dried and was being very stubborn.

A quick search of the web and I found numerous solutions and cautiously picked the one that would not impact on my carpet in any undesirable way.  So I was pleasantly surprised when my painted started lifting with relative ease.

So here is the recipe.

Recipe for Removing Dry Water Based Paint.(as found here)

Mix together

some very hot water, not too much as it goes cold quickly
a small squish of dish washing liquid.

A soft cloth

That's all there is to it.  Put a small amount of the mixture onto the paint.  Give it a few moments to warm the paint up and then you will find it will lift very easily.

You have to trust me the paint on the carpet was just right of the container. 

Wordless Wednesday 8 January

I can't believe that is 2014 already.  I am ready to blog more regularly but of course starting this weekend we will be on holiday so you will have to excuse my absence.

Anyway while trying to blog, scrapbook, take memories during the school holidays we are trying to paint the inside of our house.  So to start off the photo journey of renovation here is my disabled son with my DH who is working on the cathedral ceiling in our lounge room.







Now excuse my photo as blogger is playing up a little but anyway.

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys

Happy Wordless Wednesday

Can you believe it?

For three years we have had a beautiful antique Chinese piece of furniture.  I have never been happy about how it looked once I had wiped it down.  I could always see the greasy finger marks I had just tried to wipe off.  Just so frustrating.

So now that we have finished renovating our lounge room it was time to put the furniture back.  Oh boy why I had not done this before but I decided to Google a cleaning solution for the lacquered finish that was causing me frustration.  Success.....I now have one really clean piece of furniture.  So here it is;

Furniture Polish

equal parts of white vinegar and lemon juice.  Mix and there you have it.

I just love the results.

Stones

Have you ever wondered what 2 cubic meters of driveway stones looks like?  Yes that's it.  Dropped in the middle of our drive was this little pile of stone.  No going anywhere until they are dealt to.  So with only three of us at home we armed ourselves with spades, a bit of kiwi ingenuity and some muscle power we set to work.

 (the muscles on show)

 (the plank of wood to move stones....a bit of Kiwi ingenuity)

Two hours later and after a lot of laughter the pile was gone and we had a lovely smooth top of the driveway.  Free of pot holes and lovely to drive over.

Isn't it funny how something like this can become a family bonding moment.

When Painting the House

We have begun plainting the house outside.  All 320 sq/m of roof, 150 sq/m of deck and house walls to match.  Thats just this summer.  The inside will need doing to but that will be the next phase.

So the tin roof is a constant work in progress.  It can only be done when it is not too hot and needs a double coat so the roof and walls are both in progress. 

We have tried to be a little less traditional with the wall colours but at the same time not offensive to the main population.

I have been helping during the weekends and my husband is painting all the days when he is home from work.  I love that DH is beavering away at it while I am working hard to pay for all that paint.  I am sure there will plenty of posts about this project as we go.

Here is part of the house front.  Lets call this the before photo

Here we are in the shade doing the carport wall last week.  The photo makes the paint look grey but you can take it from me it is a pastel shade of teal.  I guess that will be for another post.

 

You will note the small part of me showing has my hair totally covered.  That is because it costs me heaps to colour my natural greying hair and don't want to add freehand splatters to the piece of art on my head already.

Insulation

Our house is not new.  In fact it is old enough to be in need of a good renovation job.......30 something years old. 

New Zealand is not well known for robust building construction.  Now I don't mean here the structural work but the everything else stuff...insulation in particular.

This year we have been lucky enough to take advantage of a government initiative to insulate homes built before 1980, that is us.  It also targets families with the medically fragile.  That is us again.  So with two big ticks and the lure of a 66% discount on ceiling and under floor heating we went ahead with the process.

Now that we are having really cold days and even colder nights I can tell you that this is the best piece of investment that we could have made.  I know that I love my house warm, and that I run my fire all winter day and night, the insulation has made a great difference.  My fire does not need to run as hot to make my house tropically warm, my electric blanket is not getting a long workout and of course I can still walk around my house with shorts and t shirt on while it is frosty outside.

Now we just need to look at our curtains as there is no discount for double glazing and we will be ready to wear swim suits inside all winter next year  (insert a big smily face right here.)

So there is the truck with the insulation.

and here is the ceiling, now well insulated keeping us toasty warm.

Why is it that you tend to make a mess before things start looking better?

I am looking at the front of my house.  It is sadly needing some work done to the garden...well that is if you call it a garden.  Of course gardens cost money to construct and that is something that is not available just yet.  Fortunately it is the right time of the year to do some planting.  We, in Auckland, have just experienced the warmest April since records begun and even though we are having cool evenings and very fresh mornings the days are beautifully sunny.  Just look at this morning, the sky and my paddocks look just perfect for a May morning.

Costing nothing but our labour DH and decided to move the lovely New Zealand native flaxes that have been planted in the front.  I love these flaxes as the attract the Tui when in flower.  Unfortunately they grow really large, have plenty and messy flowers when really close to the house and really look best in wide spaces.  This flax can be seen road side in a large group.  Spectacular really. 

Well, with spade in hand, DH and I dug and pulled and tugged and transplanted the three flaxes and put them in our yard. 

(Here is the front of the house with the blocks just resting waiting for me to do something with them.  The dirt will all need to be moved back from the deck so we can paint it and then dirt with need to be bought so we can build a garden.)

Now of course the front of the house looks way worse than when we started,  the masonary blocks need to be sold or got rid of and something a little more tasteful put in the front as a border and eventurally in place of the flaxes and Yukkas (they are going too) we are planning a cottagy kind of garden.  You know the sort.  One that has lots of green and flowers and is very tolerant of my type of gardening.  Hmmmm the plant and hope sort of gardening.

So after a few days work work and looking glorious our flaxes have a new home.  I could not help but take this photo of one in its wide space looking stunning against the setting sun.  So I guess that the messy front is well compensated for my happily surviving, newly transplants New Zealand Flax.

Ladders

Our new to us house requires some DIY work.  Naturally all these things require money and then time to get them achieved.  We currently have two projects on the go both keeping us busy currently. 

That is where the ladders come into play as a board or two is needing replacing along the roof line and preferably before winters wet weather arrives in full force.  I know that it just the beginning of autumn here but because summer did not really arrive here this year I am thinking that winter might make a hurried arrival this year and then the window of opportunty to do this outdoor work would be lost.


So out came the ladders (my height phobic husband does not like ladders much) and with a little help and me to fetch and carry anything and everything, a little board replacement has started.

Naturally the paint job will be next summers job.  Something bright and breezy I am thinking.  You know summer cottage in feel.

The Grassy Knoll

The yard at our house is a work in progress.  Now we have the paddock/ now lawn under control I am about to tackle the grassy knoll.  Really this part of our yard is the large pile of clay with a little top soil mixed in that is leftover from digging the hole for the water tank we installed. 

(Here the digger is creating the pile of clay)

It was too difficult to spread out over my uneven lawn places so I have decided that a grass knoll is the way to go.....the way to make the very unsightly space look more pleasing to the eye.

To be honest it was difficult to even imagine that anything would grow on clay I thought that I would start with a sample area as we were getting very close to summer and the idea that clay would induce plant growth at any time was tricky to imagine.

So I purchase a little wild seed pack and sprinkled, watered and then crossed my fingers and wondered what would happen.  By some miracle some grass grew. Of course the space was still unsightly but just imagine what it looked like with nothing except a clay layer.

A little disappointed that no wild flowers were there.  That was all before Christmas.  Now it is the end of February and I find the wild flowers still small, but slowly emerging from their clay bed.

If you look closely you can see a few specks of colour from the flowers. 

So what does that mean for my grass knoll.  I think that come autumn I am going to treat my clay with a little organic matter and mow the grass once the flowers have seeded.  I now a little more research is needed and come next spring I am going to give this another go.  I am sure in this part of my yard a little wild flower spot will look spectacular.  I guess though like with any good thing it is going to take some time to make it work just how I imagine.

Big Boys Toys

Just sometimes girls need what is commonly referred to as Big Boys Toys.  Since I seem to be in charge of the lawn mowing at my place I thought that I might just as well enjoy sitting while mowing instead of hand mowing for 3 1/2 hours ( Ok the first time I mowed all of that space it took closer to 4 1/2 hours).  Now I can happily hand mow the bits that need a catcher and around the trees and sit down and ride my way around the rest.  I should add just here that I flooded the mower right about the moment the photo was taken and was more than a little upset that THAT machine had let me down.

It is hard to believe just 4 months ago most of the part I call backyard was paddock.  The children love all the space there is to play in and I can't wait for it all to be easier to mow.

Reaping the Rewards

There is nothing more satisfying than sitting outside on my deck after a hard days work reaping the rewards of all that labour.  It all started looking like this

and here we are now, well for the moment.  (Of course there is still work to be done but it is somewhat of a long term project.)

Peace reigns and I can briefly sit back and enjoy.  Long may it last.

Moving the Pool Part 3

As you would have read here and here just on a month ago we moved the swimming pool in our new house out of the ground.  I don't know if I said before but it needed to be moved for the safety of everyone but especially Hayden.  You could get access to the pool from every ranch slide in the house.  In the middle of summer those doors would be unlikely to stay shut thus a huge safety risk.  Also space.  We live on 1 1/2 acres and had no yard....this had to be fixed.

So the pool sat in our yard for sometime until I got into get to sell it on Trademe.  This is a site like Ebay.

Rather an eye sore if I might say so.

So after 10 plus enquiries the pool sold.  We were so excited that it would be gone and that we would have a few dollars to easily finish the last of the jobs before summer really arrives.

This is how the pool left our property

In comes the truck, it braces itself, gets its crain ready, attaches strops and chains.

The pool is drained of water and lifted onto the truck.  It is a tight fit but does the job.

The pool is situated lopsided on the truck because of our driveway.  It is going to overhang our fence line.  It is a really tight fit, it even scratched a little mud off the bottom of the pool.

Then finally there is the tight 90 degree turn to navigate. The pool needed to be repositioned on the truck to get around the corner.

We all stood there heaving a huge sigh of relief.  Please that it left our house in one piece and that the truck was able to get around the corner.

Now our yard is looking like this.  The photo was taken this evening.  Hmmm all that grass will have  to be sowed and mowed but that will be for next weekend.

New Water Tank Part 2

Following on from this post you might have guess that our 30,000 litre water tank in now installed and working.  Of course it has not rained to start filling it.  The new pipe work all done by my Father and DH who have pottered around at this for 2 days.  I have to say that they have done a marvellous job.  It is so neat and tidy. 

So after the first days work no pipe work but we still had water from the older concret tank.  You might as why we need to install a second very large tank.  Well it is very simple Hayden.  Yes we do many things for him and his needs.  He creates one load of washing mainly consistently of bedding on a daily basis.  He needs to use the toilet twice as much as the rest of use and thus flushing, then there is all the water he drinks, the water he plays with etc.  Of course I can not ignore the fact that I will have teenagers in my house soon and the whole idea of a short show will be foreign. 

Here is the tank after the first day.

It is not a good looking tank but it supplies us with all the water we use.  At the moment it is about 3/4 full and summer is just about here.

Then there are my wonderful workers studying the pipe work that was in existence.

Then there it all is.  Lovely looking pipes.  I still have water running, my big hole (yes right there in front where the dirt pile is) just needs a little grass seed tomorrow and some plants to make things look a little more like eye candy. 

 Naturally I still have a few more jobs before we can sit on the deck and enjoy the summer but that will be for another post.

The New Water Tank Part One

We have been waiting sometime to put together the cash to finish installing the water tank and today was the day to being phase two.

The Little Yellow Digger needed to return to finish the hole and help us find the feeding water pipe.  While at our place a couple of other jobs were finished too but that is another story.  As you can see we have an exsisting concret tank from the 1980's.  While there is nothing wrong with that tank Haydens medical condition uses a lot of water through washing and flushing the toilet etc.

Behind the fence the hole is for the next much bigger tank.  Then the little bit of grass that is good enough to mow was defaced because we needed to find that all important pipe.  Hmmmmm more mud created.

So back to the hole.  In rolls the digger.



He increases the depth and width of the hole that we had there already.  Of course it is always worth a look I say.

Especially when this is what the action looks like.

So tomorrow I will post Part two with it all in site and my wonderful helpers.