Two cats in the yard even!

So here’s the deal.

We had a sudden attack of adult and decided it was time to accumulate some worth and buy a house. People keep asking about it, and although I didn’t really want to write much about it before it was set in stone (jinx jinx jinx) it’s easier to be evasive if I can just say ‘go read this’.

Read this:

In the beginning

Y’all know we got kicked out of our flat at the beginning of the year because the stinky landlord wanted to move back in. It was decided the sensible thing to do was leech off the parents, save more of a deposit and find a nice wee place to buy for our very own selves.

There were various issues with this sensible idea, the biggest of which being that Auckland houses are Very Freakin Expensive. For our budget we could afford to  either live in an area we weren’t comfortable living in for safety / lifestyle reasons, or buy a small leaky home in an OK area.

So we stayed, and saved and tried not to be too annoying. We also kept looking for something not-suck that we could afford, to no avail.

Finally,  once birthdays and weddings had passed, we ramped the search up again. It went a little like this:

Tuesday: agent rings, says she will show us House A on Wednesday, but she would also like to show us House B (they agents had just seen it that morning) – which is somewhere I’d never actually been and didn’t really want to mess about getting to, so pretty much ignored the suggestion.

Wednesday: looks like rain. Diane offered to drive us to House A to have a look around. It’s OK, character-y, requires a fair bit of work. She has time so she agrees to drive us over to House B.

We arrive at House B and immediately go ‘Wow. This is it.’ First time that happened during the entire search… naturally I assume it’s outside the budget but as it turns out it’s on the high end of achievable.

It didn’t rain.

Friday: Take Dad to see both houses. Not impressed with House A, quite likes House B. Father-builder decides it’s sound enough to pursue so we decide to make an offer on House B.

Saturday: After fluffing around – deceased estate, one executor’s away on holiday etc etc – our offer’s accepted. We now have 5 working days to run around like mad cows getting reports and inspections and go unconditional.

Next Friday: Not unconditional! LIM issues require the vendor to take action, which they get right on. Hopefully next week…

Lots of bits missed out there, but you get the idea. You probably don’t care about it, but it’ll be of interest to someone someday I’m sure.

So why did we say ‘wow’?

First, it’s in Mangere Bridge. This is easily walkable from Dad’s place and waaaay nicer than I was expecting (because I was expecting Mangere). It has a nice old beach feel, with palm trees and pohutukawas. It has a wee village and a waterfront. It’s possibly quaint.

The house is down a long driveway off a cul de sac, off a cul de sac. Yes people, it’s down a long driveway off the END of a NESTED cul de sac – can’t make a much bigger tick in the ‘off the road and safe for cats and toddlers’ box. Of course the cats could escape over the back fence and make a mad bid for freedom across Coronation Road, but there’s no accounting for crazy.

Carrying on, the minty house has:

• 3 bedrooms
• separate lav
• bath
• separate laundry (which nobody noticed the first time they visited the house – including the agents)
• an actual washing line. For those who remember our garage washing line that we got to through the trapdoor in the bathroom floor, this really is a Big Deal
• no stairs
• window latches
• ceiling insulation
• honest to goodness indoor-outdoor flow with serious room to improve
• a huge lawn for mad racing around, badminton games, paddling pools, backyard tenting and other assorted hilarity
• nice flowers
• room for a huge vege garden (passionfruit!)
• a lemon tree
• a grapevine, although this is only interesting to me for its retrosity as I don’t actually like those grapes – we  had backyard vines when I was a kid
• room for a chicky house
• huge garage for storing our crap
• more crap storage under the house
• wood burner (source of the LIM issues, but source of free heating care of Thames firewood)
• a cat door!1!!

It is also fully fenced and gated and is a nice easy walk to the shops, an even easier walk to primary school (with playground) and Mt Mangere is literally over the road for summer evening hikes and means the area has a semi-rural feel.

And. AND PEOPLE. There is a vet right on the freakin corner. Mere metres not-requiring-a-car away, a vet.

Now do you see? DO YOU?!

It had everything on our need list and like 90% of the things on our wish list – the only box I can think of that it didn’t tick was dishwasher (I hate doing dishes).

People don’t just randomly find the perfect place like this, I’m sure!

But enough from me, you want the photos.

 

This is what we see when we walk through the gate. Hence the ‘wow’ and the ‘I can’t afford this.’ Which you’d fully understand and appreciate if you’d looked at some of the places we’ve looked at over the past few months.

Cute little minty green house and enormous flower gardens (Mum and Di have offered to prune the roses ;)) Some trail-blazing required to recover the path to the front door (otherwise known as ripping out the shrubs).

The kitchen, it is purple. And a dining room! Old school!

One can even look out the kitchen window and watch birds and small children cavorting on the lawn.

Two ranch sliders off the lounge: one out to a BBQ patio area and the other to a small deck for having morning coffees and watching the birdies. The wood burner also has a cooktop for further winter savings.

Two doubles and a single bedroom…

A bath and a separate shower. With a slidey uppy-downy detachy shower thing, just right for cleaning toddlers!

The BBQ area off the lounge. It has a fishpond that will be filled at some point when that baby has grown enough to be trusted around it. It also has a Sam.

Random unused area behind the garage. This will be our vege garden and chicky home. The little raised garden has already been granted to Amelie for growing her strawberries and flowers and caterpillars.

The morning coffee deck overlooking the gardens. This is handily gateable for the restrainment of certain small persons (should penning be required).

So yes, it’s very nice.

We will go unconditional sometime early next week and settlement is still officially December 10.

NOTHING WILL GO WRONG NOTHING WILL STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING. Everyone has decided this is our place, and although it does mean we will need to budget for the first time in like… ever… we will make it work.

If my next update in this saga contains lots of swearing, it’s because I have jinxed the whole process by writing this much. So I’d better stop now.