Loving everything right now

I love our new house. I love driving to work in the morning through the beautiful green canopies of the north shore, and seeing golden rays of sunlight peeking through the morning fog. I love how peaceful and spacious our house is, and best of all, I love that we own it. Its such a fantastic feeling. I do wish we were closer to our friends on "the other side" of the bridge, but still, the north shore is where I grew up, and I hope it is where my children will grow up too.

We have a tonne of renovations to do on the house, but we wont get a chance to do anything for about a year (no money left after this purchase - and we still need to buy furniture and appliances this weekend!). But I did manage to play around with some free architecture software, and that was mighty fun! Here's what we are thinking of doing with the house:

This is the current plan:



This is what we're thinking of doing with it:


(Basically, we would extend the back of the house and the deck so there is one long deck at the back, we would turn the bedroom#3 into a master bedroom with ensuite, expand the bathroom, move the wall between the original master and the smallest bedroom to make them more even, add a study/library at the back, and turn all the living areas into a big open-plan L-Shape space, with the kitchen facing out onto our beautiful backyard).

The following are some awesome 3D images that the software generated:


(The kitchen looking onto the fireplace/family room)


(The dining room looking onto lounge room)


(The deck looking into open-plan kitchen/living/dining)


(master bedroom - havent put the built-ins into the plans yet)


(a "skeleton" view of master bedroom/ensuite/main bathroom)


(Front of the house - with a timber deck instead of current concreate/tiled stairs)

How cool is THAT?

We also want to put totally new floors throughout, and put a new roof over the whole house with elevated ceilings, and a full external render. Oh, and new windows/frames, and a new remote-controlled roller door for the garage.. and possibly some landscaping. Hmm.. shouldnt cost much, right? Hence, the reason we have to wait at least a year before we start any renovations. But I think once it's done, it will be amazing :)

Anyway, the house as it is now is really lovely. Its homely, its warm, and its neat as a pin! But of course, it has its annoying quirks which we have to learn to live with for now.

This weekend we are going to be buying furniture and appliances. I'm pretty excited about it. We'll be doing the majority of the buying at a furniture auction place, and I'm super excited about picking up some bargains! Thanks to our wonderful friends for pointing us in the right direction (actually, literally taking us to the auction haha).

We currently don't have internet at home (so annoying) but it will hopefully get set up soon. Meanwhile, I spend my evenings watching Masterchef and reading my Sookie Stackhouse novels. Fun!!! :)

Oooh, last but not least, I finally got around to watching a movie last night! It feels strange going without my wonderful drool partner, Belinda.. But at the last minute, my sister invited me to join her and her boyfriend to watch Water for Elephants, and I thought, I could stay in the office and continue working (as it was around 6pm at this time), or I could go out and have a total perve fest (i.e. Robert Pattinson. yummmmy.) Movie was great, I really enjoyed it. Best movie ever? Not by a long shot, but it was really enjoyable! That's all kiddos!