Moving Week: Day 7

I have taken some "work in progress" pictures. I was going to wait a bit to post any, but I realized that given our aversion to buying things (especially having just spent lots of money on a car), the house will be a work in progress for a while, so I might as well give you a sense of where we are now. We want to be quite minimalist, so we won't add too much, but we also want to have a few pretty things on the walls, eventually.

As you will see in the pictures, the house finally looks like a place where someone lives! Considering this fact, and that it has been a full week since we started moving in, I have decided to declare us MOVED IN! There is still a lot of work to do, but now it is settling in and perfecting, rather than moving in. Yay!

Here is the lounge. The big, beautiful bookshelf was too big for the last tenant to move, so she left it for us, which is great, since books are one of the things we actually brought here. She also left the not-so-nice TV stand, which we will use until we find something better. Since we are in no hurry to even get a TV, that might be awhile.

This is the kitchen. There are more cabinets on the other side of the table, and a nice, big pantry next to them. It is a nice, open, functional kitchen, and I look forward to cooking in it (once we buy pots and pans, which I am not looking forward to).

This is our bedroom, complete with our beautiful Trade Aid handmade quilt from India, and my pretty vanity. (When I took this picture, I was disappointed that I couldn't get both windows in it, but then I saw that the second window is reflected in the mirror!)

In all of the houses we looked at, there were shelves built into the water heater closet, and the owners told us that that is where you store sheets/towels, because it keeps them warm and dry. So we put our extra sheets and towels there. That means we're doing it right.

Above the water heater closet is a neat storage space/awesome fort. It looks small in the picture, but it is about 5 ft long, 3 ft wide, and 3 ft high inside. It makes me wish that we had kids to play up there with, but we'll have to find something cool to do with it anyway.

In addition to these rooms, J has a small office, and we have a spare bedroom. We haven't even started on those rooms yet, so pictures will have to come later.

We only looked at a couple other houses, but this one seemed newer, in better condition, and less mouldy than the others. Mould seems to be something that Kiwis just deal with, which is understandable, given the humidity here. They also seem (again, from my limited experience) more comfortable with less insulation and weatherization, but that also makes sense, given the mild climate. 

Also, I should mention that many houses in NZ have the toilet in a very small room all by itself, separate from the sink and shower. This is how it was in Japan as well, which I find interesting. Our house has the toilet with the bath and sink, like in America, which is not uncommon here either.