New House

In November we bought our first kiwi house... Well actually we agreed to buy it in June/ July but after a house inspection revealed that the piles were rotten and one good earthquake could send it down the hill we requested the vendor pay for the re-piling as a quote came in at about $27k. The first picture is the house as we saw it in the local paper. We knew pretty much straight away that we would end up buying it as it was the first house we'd seen in almost 2 years with a double garage and a flat drive - essential for Steve!!After the re-piling had started we kept popping round to the house to see how it was progressing. All in it took nearly 3 months for the work to be finished so we could move in. Usually in NZ house purchase takes about 4 weeks so for ours to take nearly 5 months was a little bit frustrating!

They literally knocked out the ring foundation jacked the house up and put it on stilts while they removed the old concrete piles and fitted the new wooden ones.

The base of the house was then clad in weatherboard to keep it dry...

This picture is after we bought the house and had spent hours putting 3 coats of paint on the weatherboard. There is lots and lots of work to be done, including removing an interior supporting wall, new kitchen, new bathroom, new paint throughout and new carpet... and that's just the interior.................