Week 30, day one hundred and forty-six: moving day!

Friday, 19 August 2011

As anyone who is keeping tabs will know, this post was not written on the above momentous day – more like ten days later but hey, we've been a little busy unpacking...and revelling in our thoroughly gorgeous new house. Sorry for the delay – this time I'll call it post-move malaise.

After beginning the moving process one last time (I really really hope) on the Friday before last (it rained all day long, pretty much) and continuing it for the rest of that weekend, our lack of time in preparing for the move was fairly obvious – it was a messy and drawn-out affair, despite our vast experience in this area! But by this time last week we were feeling pretty settled in, with all the important stuff unpacked and given new homes. Though we were still wandering around in amazement, most of the time, wondering how on earth we managed to find ourselves in such a beautiful, well-designed, warm, sunny and – damn it – cool house! It was quite a bizarre experience for a while, and I personally wasn't at all prepared for just how perfect this house was going to be for us to live in: it shouldn't have come as quite the surprise it did, I guess, given the input we'd had into every decision along the way, but there you go – sometimes the obvious just stares you in the face!

So to live in, it's great. The hydronic heating combined with passive solar design and thermal mass of internal bricks is amazing: the house is toasty all day and night long (we have to turn the heating down at night so it doesn't come on and make us overheat in bed!) while the gas boiler powering it barely ever seems to need to even switch itself on and boost the internal temp up. It's a really lovely, even heat, with no hot or cold pockets and no blowing of air anywhere. The bathroom is glorious (that shower arrangement really works!) and even though it faces south and it's winter, it never feels in the least bit dark. The sun and light throughout the whole house is fantastic – there's always somewhere to sit in the sun at any time of day (if the sun's out, of course) and for a small house it feels remarkably spacious and airy. And wherever you sit, there's always some gorgeous confluence of lines and angles to admire as you look around you... Thanks, Charlie, you bloody genius!

The kitchen...is bliss

So for now, here it is in pictures, without furniture and still with a few cabinetry details to be finished (lounge room cabinet, dining room desk/shelving and windowseat, our bedroom built-in doors, ply light-shades). I may have a couple more posts in me, if anyone is hanging in there: one when all furniture is in place and one when some sort of landscaping transforms the outside moonscape.

Till then, thanks for sharing the journey! It's been a blast and, hell, I'd do it all again someday (with someone else's money)...