Our Project |
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In August 2006 we completed our
building project, and
moved into our new home. We can describe in one sentence what it took us 4 years and plenty of blood, sweat and tears to complete. In a nutshell, we moved the existing house back into a corner of the section, split up the land, and built on the new section. Easy eh! Or not… To see more pictures of what we did, hold your mouse over the photos that have a border. |
Earlier Project |
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We’d
done it before, you see. In
another suburb and without kids, in 1992/3. Bit of a hobby you say?
Sure, why not. Loads of fun and a way to keep you off the streets
(except when you have nowhere to live because your house is on the back
of a truck). |
Outline |
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Back in 2000 we purchased a house
on a large
section in a nice street next to a pretty reserve in West Auckland, New
Zealand. The section was big enough to subdivide, but according to the
Council it was in the middle of a once-in-100-year flood path (more
about that later!), and the existing house was right in the middle of
it, making it necessary to move the house prior to subdivision. We had the intention of completing this (or at least starting it) within 12 months of moving in, but of course we didn’t. A month after moving in we had our second child, then not quite two years after that we had twins, thereby doubling the family. We squashed them all into one bedroom (after sharing our bedroom space with the cots for a while). The house was a typical kiwi 3 bedroom box, and the other bedroom was taken up with a computer, filing cabinet, bookcase and piano. |
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We survived until we had another surprise arrival not
quite two
years later. Leigh was born in January 2004 and made our family nicely
complete, (now we had 3 boys and 2 girls,) but the house
was at the point of bursting at the seams. Takes a lot to motivate some
people. We decided it was time to start the subdivision process, and in
October 2003 we filed our first application with the local Council. It took them around 10 months to process and approve everything, and in November 2004 we moved all our tribe out to some slightly insane but incredibly kind friends’ house where we stayed for a month while our house was re-sited on the section. We have now been in our new home for almost 2 years, and I’m incredibly thankful the saga is over. Would I build again? Yes – our builder was fantastic. Would I subdivide again? Not by choice, and not in our local Council area. |
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