We found a House ...

So, having secured the land, we went searching on the net for a house, both near and far afield. We found one not too far away from us being put up for sale by a specialist building relocator.

You will agree it doesn't look too bad on site as we saw it ....

Inside, a completely different matter. I think Denise was rather appalled at first, but very quickly (sparked by my fertile imagination) came around to thinking outside (or rather, inside) the box; and the possibilities of more windows, a sunny kitchen, AND a separate laundry became very appealing.

Very high studs; you can see the roofing iron from inside; two holes in the floor where the chimney was removed - to name a few horrors. Flooring in the main front original house (it has been added to at some stage at the back, and we intend to add another room) is native matai, which we would like to maintain and use in some parts of the house.

With the house purchase came the services of an architect, and after a brief meeting with Willem and several emails; we came up with the following for the purposes of submission to the Carterton District Council for building approvals and permits :

So, the plans were churned out in the matter of a few days, then we had to meet with Willem on site so he could place the house on the site plan. We knew the Wairarapa, like Wellington, had had its fair share of rain over the winter, but we were not prepared for the small craters and lakes dotting the pasture right where we had envisaged locating the house, near the south line of willows ... and the locals tell us it wasn't TOO wet a winter ...

Surface water on the proposed relocation site. Google Earth shows a diagonal natural depression. Note the small building from previous owner still on site. Too wet to remove it.

The previous owner had many horses on the land until we bought it; hence the bad pugging.

So, common sense prevailed over disappointment, and we resigned ourselves to the house being positioned at the north end of the property (to the right of the above photos, down near the letterboxes in the photo on the first blog).

The plans were submitted to Council, and after a small hefty fee of around $3,500; the plans were all approved in a remarkably quick three weeks. Then we had to wait until the wet weather stopped and the ground dried up ...