We've moved!

So I set up a blog hoping it would allow for more frequent and interactive updates and then don't look at it for 5 months. However, apart from the demands of a busy work and home life my excuse is that we've had a little distraction on our hands.

 

We'd been toying, not very seriously, with the idea of moving to a bigger house. Flick is an open home junkie and keeps a pretty close eye on the market but I wasn't really in the zone. The general thinking was that if we moved it would be within our immediate neighbourhood - ideally staying in our much loved Cecil St if one of the coveted larger houses ever became available.

 

So Flick was surprised when, browsing the property section of the paper one Saturday night I saw a write up about a place around 2kms away and suggested we should take a look. She'd already noted and dismissed it, thinking I would never consider it. But it was in a street we both knew well: a cul de sac leading to the harbour Marina where the yacht we sail on is moored. A bush reserve on one side, the harbour within a stone's throw, a nearby park and playground accessed via a foot bridge over a cascading stream. A yacht club friend lived next door to the house.

 

And what of the property? A compact but character filled 1925 farm house (one of the original properties in a now suburban area), somewhat the worse for wear but essentially sound, on an overgrown section nearly four times the size of our current one. Plus an out building, which neighbours have told us used to house the local forest ranger. Potential to add value: huge. Potential for the boys to be boys: priceless. The indicated price: potentially affordable.

 

 

An auction was scheduled in less than two weeks and we hadn't even viewed it, so we had a lot to do in terms of confirming our interest and arranging finance. We went with a 10% level of confidence but our research had determined that the owners (who also owned and occupied another house) were keen to sell.

 

Perhaps due to the fact that the house did not have a functional internal bathroom at the time of sale and an almost original kitchen (see below - the oven didn't work and the gas pipes were leaking), the level of interest was not nearly as robust as the agent would have had us expect and we were able to position ourselves as the last bidder before the property was passed in. This gave is an exclusive right of negotiation and with only a small additional concession we had a signed contract with an extended settlement period.

 

 

That was the easy bit. Next we had to sell our house and attempt to synchronise settlement dates to avoid bridging finance. We appointed an agent the next day, a chap who we knew (through Flick's open home habit), who had a good track record with similar properties in our immediate area and, importantly, who we felt we could work with.

 

Then we had to prepare our house for sale, which in Sydney means making it look like it's being photographed for a House and Garden spread. This involved "decluttering" (by moving a heap of excess furniture and stuff into several neighbours' places), fixing a few minor problems, pruning and tidying the garden, touching up the paintwork and cleaning the place to within an inch of its life. We then had to keep it all immaculate for six weeks leading up to our auction, through photography and two open home inspections a week - no easy task with two pre-school aged boys.

 

Our old house, as you've never seen it before...

 

It was also around that time that it started raining. And raining. And then the bottom seemed to fall out of the property market in our area, with auction clearance rates plummeting to 24%.

 

It was an anxious time and we had a few challenges, like our bifold door mechanism breaking days before they needed to be open for the marketing photos (emergency repair: $350). But Lady Luck smiled upon us: on the day the photos were scheduled, when bucketing rain gave way to bright sunshine literally 15 minutes before the photographer arrived and resumed as he took the last shot. And again when Flick befriended a couple who had been unsuccessful at a nearby auction. And again when that same couple (on another wet day) were the only party to register to bid at our auction, and did bid, and reached a price that fell within our comfort zone (due also to some effective theatrics on the part of our agent). And they agreed with our settlement date.

 

That took us to phase three: the move, after seven weeks surrounded by what became literally hundreds of boxes (one of the disadvantages of a house with heaps of storage space) and with the rain having continued, moving day was a cloudless warm (for early winter) stunner.  The simultaneous settlement meant we had to be fully out during the morning but could not start unloading until the lawyers and banks had done their thing, which was scheduled for midday.  After the removalists filled two trucks we gave our home of nearly 10 years a final clean and shut the door.

 

We were treated to a great send off from our fantastic neighbours.

 

At the new house we waited for the call from our lawyer. The removalists turned up from their lunch break, but we couldn't let them in. There was a hold up: one of the other lawyers had forgotten to bring paperwork to the settlement meeting. We held our breath... And then the agent drove up with the keys and a bottle of bubbly.

 

 

Once the removalists left and we'd picked up the kids from care we took stock. We couldn't unpack much because of the work we still had to do. Phase four - urgent renovations - therefore commenced immediately with the re-assembly of some Ikea wardrobes we'd bought second hand, which I had disassembled in a flat in Bondi several weeks before and stored in our new neighbour's basement (along with Ikea bathroom cabinets and a new toilet).  Once we had the boys down we worked into the evening before collapsing on a mattress on the floor.  Only to be woken by a noisy possum in the tree outside and the scritch scritch scratching of something in the cavity wall.  Rather large rats, as it turned out after we put baits in the roof.  Or perhaps a wayward possum - we found one's skeleton in the roof.

 

On a brisk Saturday morning we enjoyed our first showers in the outbuilding, which is not lined and full of holes so pretty much the same temperature as outside.  But the water was warm (thank goodness) and the pressure good.

 

Over the weekend, Flick sorted out the boys' room to make their transition as smooth as possible, while I tooled up (at last, a Makita cordless drill driver!), picked up the shower cubicle and did a run to Ikea to get the new kitchen cabinets.  We'd planned to install a temporary kitchen and bathroom to get us through the next few years, as our long term renovation plans will see them relocated (and expanded).  So we attacked the bathroom walls (which a previous owner appeared to have started to strip back and then given up on) with a cold chisel and mallet to get them into shape for the renderer, who was due on Sunday to make them look presentable.  We re-hinged a gate (and have subsequently added a kiddie lock) to secure the section, We secured bookcases to the walls so we could unpack our books. 

 

On Monday Ken the plumber and Brett the sparkie turned up and got to work, while I ripped out the rather disgusting old kitchen cabinets and started assembling the new ones.  We set up the washing machine in the outbuilding (luckily there was a tap and a drain available).  By Tuesday we'd advanced enough with the unpacking that Flick was able to get into the garden.  A few hours work yielded about 3 cubic metres of green waste, which we put out for collection the next day.  It didn't appear to have made any visible difference to the state of the garden though! 

 

On Wednesday I went back to work, but by day's end Ken left us with a functioning toilet and vanity and Dirk our builder had mounted the kitchen cupboards and put in a temporary benchtop so we could use the new basin.  On Thursday night we had our first inside showers (what luxury!).  The new kitchen appliances were delivered and Brett and Ken returned on Friday to wire and plumb them in: we now had a semi-functional kitchen, just awaiting benchtops, drawers and doors (plus a splashback and a lick of paint).

 

 

Just in time, as Flick's mother Susan arrived that evening to give us a hand with the boys while we carried on with jobs.  Saturday I visited Bunnings (hardware) three times (due to car capacity) for more tools and ceiling insulation batts, which I then spent the rest of the day installing (that's when we found the possum).  Luckily the roof cavity is huge, with standing head room over about two thirds of it, so while not pleasant it wasn't too onerous.  In conjunction with a new gas heater this has made the house quite warm and cosy.  It was a long weekend, by the end of which I had all the new wardrobes up, shelving installed in the garden shed and an Ikea toy storage unit assembled for the boys and we'd made a good dent in the number of boxes.

 

By the following weekend the place was starting to feel like home, particularly once we put a sealer, primer, undercoat layer on the fresh render to seal in the concrete dust.  Flick, with Melissa's help attacked the garden, finding many "treasures" amongst the weeds.  We paused for a wander through the bush to our local beach, which features an enclosed swimming area with a little jetty, a grassed picnic area with gas barbecues and tables under shady Norfolk Pines and a set of swings for the kids.  On Sunday night we had our first dinner party, with our former neighbour Mark plus Melissa and Susan.  And that more or less brings us up to the present.

 

 

We would like to acknowledge and thank our fabulous helpers: neighbours and friends who have donated their time and effort to our project:

• Stef, who scrubbed and painted over several shifts to help prepare our old place for sale;
• Phil, who spent time up a ladder working on some leaky gutters;
• Frank and Linda, whose spare rooms we filled to the brim with our clutter for three months;
• Helen and Mark, Mike and Kerry who provided emergency child care and other support;
• our new neighbour Ivana, whose basement we filled with disassembled wardrobes and bathroom fittings before the move;
• Kameel and Melissa, both of whom helped prepare the house and did child care shifts. Kameel presented us with a home made pie on our first weekend while Melissa helped with wardrobe assembly and gardening;
• Tina, Belinda, Vanessa and others who helped us unpack;
• Steve, who unleashed his inner-tradie with a cold chisel on the half stripped bathroom tiles;
• John, who also gets an Ikea assembly badge;
• Susan, our first house guest, who kept domestic affairs under control so we could get on with unpacking and renovating.