The House Plan for my Section

While I've been living at my mother's place, I've been in talks with G J Gardners in Marlborough over my house plan.

Originally I had hoped to have a particular plan called the Dryden as I loved the angles and way the house was laid out. However, it wasn't quite right for the section due to north facing aspect, and we needed the sun to warm up the place during winter. It's colder down south being closer to the South Pole!

Marlborough happens to be the sunniest place in New Zealand which is fantastic, but we needed to catch that sun.

G J Gardner came up with this plan, and I've only had to make a couple of tweaks to it, but overall I'm really happy with it..


Click on the house plan to enlarge it to see everything clearly.

The changes I made were to the lounge. Originally the door was a double door that opened up into the family room. I moved it to the corner to keep the flow, and to give me maxiumum wall space in the lounge. I'm still trying to decide whether to make that corner door a double door, or just a single.

The only other change I've made is to the main bedroom. I moved the outside wall a bit further out and made a sliding door from my room out to the the 'going to be' patio. I also added a walk in wardrobe next to the ensuite.

So that's it in a nutshell. Feel free to tell me what you think of the plan - it's 180sqm which was part of the covenant of the subdivision.

Where Am I?

I've fallen off the internet! Let me tell you the whole story.

It's quite simple - I sold my house. It was a lovely house and I miss it heaps - very sunny and warm, central to most places in Auckland. So central I used to have people popping into see me all the time. I miss that.

My Old House

However, Auckland is expensive and I needed to bring my mortgage down so I can afford to do other things, so the only way to do that was to sell and move out of Auckland. Whilst I will miss my house, I will not miss Auckland's traffic, rush hours, fumes, and crowds.

I have bought a section in Renwick, Blenheim, and am in the process of building a house on it. The section lies alongside a vineyard, so my outlook is a field of grapes, then it looks down the valley towards the Richmond Ranges (mountain range), so it's very beautiful and peaceful.

Here's a pic of my outlook...



The photo was taken in winter, hence the grapevines were brown, but come spring that will all be green and lush.

The subdivision I've bought into is River Terrace, and there has been extensive work on it to make it look really nice. You can see what I mean in the following pic, where you can see the light almost looks like a gaslight..



I'm right next to the vineyard so my view cannot be built out by ay other houses. I'm also close to 6 very good vineyards (2km walking distance), so if you come and stay we can do walking wine tours!

I'm really looking forward to this next stage, although I'm going to miss all my family and friends when I do move down.

I won't be moving for at least another 4 months. I've spent the last 4 weeks at my mother's place, and today I moved out to housesit in Devonport for 2 weeks to mind two cats while the owners are holidaying in Italy.

On the 12th September, I go to St Heliers to housesit another house while the owner is in Britain until 24 October. I then head to Birkenhead to housesit another 2 cats until 20 November. Then I'm homeless!! Actually I may be going out to Pukekohe for a mmonth or two, and my plan is to move to Blenheim February sometime.

In the meantime my beautiful burmese cat is being looked after by my mother at her home, but she's talking about putting her house on the market so that's in the air at this stage!

So - that's where I am and what I'm doing - unfortunately internet access is very patchy so I'll update this blog when I can :)