Our New House

We are buying a house. After eight years of renting, we have finally been able to save enough for a deposit on a house of our own—and that feels good! As I mentioned in a few previous posts, we found a house about six weeks ago that we liked and could afford, and we have finally reached the stage where it’s almost certain that we’ll be getting it. We paid the deposit on it yesterday, and in the next week we’ll sign the final papers. We plan to move in two weeks.

This house is in Ahaura, in the West Coast region. We’ll be about half an hour’s drive inland, so won’t get the torrential rains that the towns right along the coast do. Most of the time, though, there is a lot more rain than here in Canterbury! This year is the exception; they are having a bad drought over there. It’s about 3 hours and 45 minutes from here, so that makes moving rather challenging. We’re thankful for friends who are willing to help us out! I’m planning to make a trip in a few days with the rest of our garden and whatever else we can fit on the load. In a week, we’ll load our shipping container, and two weeks from today we plan to finish the move. So, whatever you see coming through on the blog has already been scheduled—I won’t likely be spending any time here for a little while!

Here are pictures I took of the house when we looked at it in early December. Some of the children stayed home and took care of things while the rest of us went over that time, so I took pictures to let them get a glimpse of it while we were deciding whether to buy it.

This is the door into the laundry and then the kitchen. That’s a lemon tree in the corner, although there isn’t any fruit on it.

The master bedroom. This has an alcove to the right, for a nursery or office.

The closet in the master bedroom.

The view out the door of this bedroom.

There is a big closet/cupboard at each end of the hallway! The hallway is wide enough we can put our bookshelves in there, and do you see the clotheslines? A place to hang laundry on wet days!

Little Miss walked into this room and immediately announced that it was for her and Esther! We do plan to redo the walls soon. Not only are they painted garish shades of pink and purple, the wall covering is an old type that is a fire hazard.

I asked Little Miss which corner the bed should go in. She considered carefully, then announced, “Right here!”

The boys’ room. This needs a coat of paint, too.

The boys love the garage. Gayle stepped it off; he says it is 18 meters long—that’s nearly 60 feet! This carport goes about halfway along it.

The back yard.

Inside the garage.

We need to do some work on the outside of the house, but it’s not bad at all, considering it was built in the 1930s. One thing that was attractive to us was the quarter-acre paddock on the other side of the garage from the house. We’ll put our three sheep in it at first, and a couple of turkeys and a few chickens; next spring we’re hoping to turn part of it into a garden. We’ll be living in town on a half acre, which will be quite different for us country people. We’re hoping to pay off this place in a few years, and then buy something with more land. In the meantime, it will be a comfortable house.