crazyscot: Roadsign warning of kiwis (kiwi)
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posted by [personal profile] crazyscot at 09:43pm on 22/07/2011 under ,
This house was built in the early 1970s, on a small lot which seems to be the result of subdividing (possibly a sub-sub-division) of a much larger section. Depending on who you ask it might be in the suburb of Bryndwr, Fendalton, Ilam or Burnside.

The house is broadly typical of Kiwi housing stock: timber-framed, with a brick chimney that's blocked off as the wood burner was taken out relatively recently. (Older wood burners are frowned upon for their pollution. They still sometimes get smogs.) It has no central heating, wood-burner, nor heat pump, though it does have electric under-floor heating. It's single glazed and the carpets and curtains are getting thin (dating back to when the house was built, judging by their patterns). Unusually, there are cupboards everywhere, more than you can shake a stick at; it'd be brilliant for hide-and-seek.

It's very much a house of two halves. One half is single-storey, comprising a sitting room, an open-plan farm-style kitchen/diner, bedroom 4, a shower room, utility room and loo. It adjoins the other half of the property only by the hallway; you can go down a couple of stairs to the garage, or up to three bedrooms, bath and loo.

The living room is exposed to the elements on two walls, so is cold.
The kitchen/diner are exposed on three walls and a patio door, so are cold.
Bedroom 4 is south-facing and ground-floor, so is cold.
Bedroom 1 is upstairs, but exposed on two walls (you're spotting a pattern here, aren't you?).
Bedroom 2 is exposed on two walls, as are bedroom 3 and the bathroom.

It's not a very rosy picture, is it? Well it has its advantages too, and we expect the summer to be great. That is, if we don't freeze to death first. [livejournal.com profile] rustica and I have built ourselves a little cave in the main bedroom, which has this evening reached the heady heights of 18C; I have just unzipped my fleece and might have to take it off. However, in the rest of the house my breath condenses (it's +4 outside). When the sun comes out the upstairs heats up really quickly, which happens most days - but, as luck would have it, we're staring into the teeth of a miserable weekend with snow forecast on Sunday - which would be Chch's first for three years.

Not (yet) having much furniture is a double-edged sword. We've nowhere to sit, other than on the stairs or bed; I'm alternating standing and kneeling at my laptop which is perched on top of a built-in chest of drawers. (My back isn't going to thank me for this.) There are two airers of (slowly) drying laundry on either side of me (let's face it, it's not going to dry anywhere else in the house).

We wanted an adventure; by 'eck, we've got one!
There are 2 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
phoebesmum: (Tree of Life)
posted by [personal profile] phoebesmum at 02:20pm on 22/07/2011
It is an adventure, and you're both still young enough to enjoy it (and survive it, more to the point), although when I say 'enjoy' I think this will actually only apply in retrospect. The house in Cornwall I used to live in that had a built-on loo with only half a roof so you sometimes had to pee whilst holding an umbrella seems amusing in retrospect ...
bens_dad: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] bens_dad at 09:52pm on 22/07/2011
You don't have much stuff in the house yet, so would it be a good time to line the inside of the exterior walls with some sort of foil or polystyrene to keep the winter heat in and the summer heat out ?

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