Our Wellington Flat (with a View)

We still have no Internet at home, nor do we have much hope for getting it before mid-December. It is deeply inconvenient, but we'll cope. I found a cafe/bar where I can use wifi, so I thought I would (finally) post some pictures of our new flat.

Our flat is nice, reasonably priced (for NZ), tidy, and in a good location. The absolute best part of it, however, is the view. I cannot get enough of the view, and every time I look out, I am so impressed and so excited that we live here! I don't think I realized that a view would be such an amazing addition to a living space, but now I don't know how I ever dealt with not having one!

This is a panorama of the view (click on it to make it bigger). That's our balcony and part of our flat that you can see on the right, and the balcony of the other half of the duplex (they don't use that word in NZ) on the left.

Isn't that amazing? It is such a stunning view, with multiple hills and many trees with houses nestled in between. 

The big green hill on the left with no houses is a reserve and mountain biking park. I've gone biking and walking (with Kirsten) in it, and the whole thing is beautiful.

You can see more hills in the distance (and you can see them better in person).

The sun rises behind these hills, but since it's summer, it does so very early in the morning, and I haven't gotten up to see it yet, but I will sometime.

Way up in the hills as we are, sometime we are in the clouds, which I thought would be annoying, because it would ruin the view. In fact, it is quite exciting being "fogged in," especially as the high winds whip the clouds/fog around, and I've been enjoying it!

When the sun sets, it often lights up different sections of the hills opposite us, and it is stunning!

I love watching the lights come on as it gets darker and darker.

It's too bad a picture can't capture the wonderful twinkling effect we get once it is all the way dark, but I'm sure you can imagine it.

Now that we've established that the view is amazing, which is really the important thing, I will show you pictures of the actual flat.

Our flat has the balcony on the left, and the other half of the house belongs to a family who we haven't met yet, but the landlord says they're nice. The yard behind our part of the house is ours as well. We have a downstairs as well, but it is unfinished and still partly full of the rock side of the hill it's built on, so it's just a storage space, but it's very cool, and storage is always good.

We are not sure whether this is the back or the front of the house, actually. You can't get in and out this way, as it is the edge of the hill, but the yard is on this side, and the other side is quite low compared to the hill. I think that this is the back, because the "front" (only) door to the house is on the other side, but others have disagreed. I just realized that I don't have a picture of the other side of the flat, so I'll have to take one and post it later.

This is my beautiful balcony for sitting, reading, and enjoying the view.

Looking down from the balcony, this is the back yard. It is a bit wild, which I love. I'm interested in growing something in the little garden spaces, but I don't have much gardening skill, so we'll see. It is a very nice place to sit and read, though. You don't get the view, but you get to feel like you're almost in the woods, which is awesome.

This is the lounge. Notice the amazing sun! I love sunny rooms, and this flat gets lots of sun in all the rooms.

Other view of the lounge, on a cloudy day. Still lots of natural light.

This is our bedroom. You can't tell, because I took the picture on a foggy day, but we get the amazing views out of the bedroom window as well.

We have a little (but perfectly functional) dining room between the kitchen and the lounge.

Small but lovely kitchen, with plenty of cupboards.

This is the spare bedroom, which Kirsten has already stayed in and declared quite lovely.
J's desk is in this room, which is not completely ideal, but there is not room for it in the lounge. We'll just do a little reorganizing if we have long-term guests, but that will be fine.
This room is on the opposite side of the house from the lounge, so it gets the afternoon sun.

Tiny laundry room. No room for the dryer in here, but it works out perfectly to put it in the unfinished basement, because then we don't have to worry about pouring humidity into the flat. Humidity (and the resulting mould) is always a huge concern in NZ houses, and this one is no exception, so we're being careful about it.

The bathroom is pretty small, but nicely put together.

Well, that's our flat. We're very happy with it, and I never, ever want to move away from the view, so we'll probably have to stay forever.