crazyscot

... or perhaps that should be "staying warm" strategies. Living in what passes for a wooden fridge at this time of year means you quickly learn a few tricks. I've spent most of this weekend wearing four or five layers in the house, and will often put on another, as well as my gloves, to go downstairs or to the loo. ( Read more... )

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. 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!