After a somewhat long and drawn out process, we were finally able to take possession of our new house earlier this week. We spent the entire weekend working on clearing the native bush that had grown up all around the property. We are pretty sleepy now, but pleased with the progress we have made. I thought I would put a few photos on here to show the ‘before’ photos and will plan on providing updates as we start to work on the place.
Above is the main entry for the property, you come down what is currently a very overgrown driveway, round a couple of hairpin bends before arriving at the house.
The inside is much like our house in Boulder, with post and beam construction. On our to-do list is to paint the beams white to help lighten the room.
The picture above gives an idea of the deck, and in particular the wild vegetation that has grown up in and around it. We spent the weekend clearing many of the plants that were growing into the deck and hopefully I will have some ‘after’ photos next weekend.
The house has a saltwater pool, obviously it needs a bit of work, but everything seems to be functioning so hopefully we might even get a quick dip before the end of summer.
This is the master bedroom, up on the second floor the rooms are able to take advantage of the steeply pitched roof. Of course the view of the water is pretty amazing from here too!
This is the view from the master bathroom, not a bad place to stand and brush your teeth in the morning! This was taken at low tide, so you can make out the mudflats below the rim of the old volcanic caldera.
This is the view from the small balcony off of the master bedroom. Although we look out towards the port of Lyttleton, the curve of the bay means that we are hidden from a lot of the development. We are hoping that with some more work on the vegetation surrounding the deck we will be able to get similar views from the lower level of the house too.
This picture shows the hillside behind the pool. It is clear that at one time the area was beautifully landscaped. I think it is going to take some time to try and bring the gardens back to what they once were, especially as I can only recognise about two of the plants!
The detached garage has been converted into living space, below is a media room that we will probably be changing into something that better suits our needs. The upper level is one big, light-filled space complete with a beautiful Norfolk Island Pine tree growing outside the window.
We took a break today to walk down to the water, although with the tide out, it was more of a mudflat! We don’t have much water frontage, but hopefully it will be just enough to launch a sea kayak one of these days!