New dish

Jean said she was over the plum pudding so this was dinner a couple of nights ago. Aimsley Harriets Saffron Risotto (done in the oven - so easy) with asparagus, tomato and chili)- very yummy - photo doesn't do it justice.

Tonight is Mexican Green Rice.

Plum bread and butter pudding...

without butter....

Made this tonight from my Marie Claire Low Fat Recipe book..... it's really yummy and only 3.5g fat per serving.


Dante having a snooze last night on the new sofa. He matches!

A few more piccies

You can see the heatpump for the underfloor heating in this photo - hopefully we will get it going before summer!! The grass is growing slowly but surely.

This isn't a good photo but it's the view from our bedroom over the pile of topsoil we have left. Amazing hey.

This is our funky new clock!

The dining room and the horses in the background....

Garbo is so clever. He has figured out we live here now and here he was just standing there looking at me trying to convince me to come out with carrots.

The mirrors are in the bathrooms now...

More of the gorgeous view - well it was such a gorgeous day!!



I am enjoying all these things so much now (in comparison the barn)...

• having space to prepare food and cook
• having a hob to cook on
• having an oven
• having clean dishes again (dishwasher does a fab job!)
• not having concrete dust everywhere
• not having to wear 4 layers of clothes at night
• not having a cold pillow everytime I turn it over
• not having to have really long hot showers to warm up
• having to open the door and say "is it raining??"
• having so much daylight and sunlight
• waking up to see the sky orange just before the sun rises while still in bed
  
• having a laundry/kitchen/bathroom uncombined
• having carpet and tiles instead of concrete floors
• having a proper wardrobe
• talking to George and he can't hear me because he's too far away
• looking through all my cookbooks that have been in storage for 14 months and deciding what to buy so I can cook the yummy things

It's not a complete list - but you get the idea.

Sun - yay

Well we still have no underfloor heating - the guy that owns the company is a major TWIT. But luckily it's been sunny and warm and more to come - no frosts even - it only got down to 8 last night (not 4).

We are really enjoying the sun, the light, the warmth and the space. It's fantatstic - so it's one week today we moved in. It's gone really fast!

Working from home with a view

Finally I am working from home again - I am so much more productive here. I reckon I have got more work done here this week as well as unpacking than I normally do at Kumeu.

This is the office George and I share - I have my proper office at the other end of the house but we have not moved that in yet (from Kumeu) - that's Tuesday's job.

Side note - the electrician just replaced the faulty towel rail and then had a dump in our loo!!! The port-a-loo is still on the property - HALLO!!! Gross.

So this is my view - and it's a lovely day. Cool huh.

I took some more photos inside during the daylight - oh my goodness it's so warm in this house. I have no heating on yet the family/kitchen area has to be 22 degrees.

The old table and chairs really don't go so they are currently for sale on Trade Me.


And a daylight view of the Entertainment Wall Extraordinaire..

Entertainment wall

Here is George's labour of love - the built in TV and entertainment wall... pretty cool huh - sorry about Peter Sharples!!

Just the bottom bit to go....

Sofas arrived

Our two new sofas arrived yesterday and I had not had a chance to blog any photos yet. Nice hey. They are so compfy and for those of you that have been following the blog, you will know this is our coffee spot. It is so sunny and warm and we don't even have the under floor heating on yet! We think we will get a light coloured (cream) rug to go here.

First night in our new home

Well we had envisaged a perfect nights sleep with our new bed and lovely quiet house but the cats were really unsettled and Dante miowed ALL night -so we both had to have a nana nap today - but both still feel shattered. Hopefully they will be ok tonight - they seem happier already - Dante and Cino spent all day asleep in the walk in wardrobe, and now Dante in sleeping on my printer - his old bed!

So we moved most of the stuff yesterday from the barn, bar the table, and some clothes etc, and spent today unpacking and finiding a place for everything. I have finished the kitchen and still have three empty drawers so that's good.

I still have to fold up all my clothes and put them in the wardrobe but apart from that (and my office and the spare room and linen cupboard - everything is all done). We have not got the wardrobe hardware for the linen cupboard or the spare rooms or office yet so can't really put anything away there.

Our last night in the barn

It's kind of strange sitting in the barn (and it's raining - how cruel is that), thinking this is our last night in here. It's been good to us - but it will be great to use it for it's proper use. The cleaners came today and the house is all clean. Well not our 'clean' but pretty good.

We also had more gravel put in on the drive and had it shaped so the water drains away a bit better now. They arrived at 7am after telling me yesterday that they would be coming on Saturday! Anyway it's great to have it all done especially for moving all our stuff over.

The nice people that own Extract cafe in Kumeu have lent us their trolley- how nice is that?

We managed to move the fridge, the dryer, the couch, the lazyboy and a few boxes before the rain started again.

We may not have internet for a couple of days as we swap it over, George has to get up on the barn roof and take the satellite down and then get up on the house roof and install it up there. Not in the rain!

Boy I am going to sleep well tomorrow night!!

We have water and power....

So I took some photos of all our lights tonight. We have been doing some stuff over there in the dark - because we can!

We also had our coffee over there on the floor in the lounge after dark. Yay.

The Walk in Wardrobe is half finished, he's back tomorrow along with the cleaners. It's great having the drawers in here as well.

The hot water cylinder is in... and full I think. Not quite sure why we have so many pipes?

The main bathroom shower is all done.

George even had a shower in the ensuite - I said "but there are no towels". Thank god they changed the heated towel rails to these ladder ones. They were S ones before that.

George tried out the loo too. Works ok he reckons.

The hallway all lit up...
The dining room light... really pleased with this...when we chose it from a tiny photo in a book we thought it was smaller so it's perfect this size.

This is the light I had to run out and buy last week as we had forgotten about it - in the west wing.
The smarty light and the dining room scribbly light. lol



Cleaners arrive tomorrow, Swales are coming with some gravel for the driveway on Saturday and then they are coming back to shape on Monday with the bobcat. Heatpump/Underfloor heating guy has been useless - saying he now can't get the heatpump we need/ordered, and he has only just figured that out. So we may not have heating till next week...at best.

But -we are moving in on Saturday - got the OK from Harmony - yay. Hopefully it won't rain too much.

Lovely afternoon

The rain and fog and mist disappeared and we had this amazing afternoon with wonderful light. If you look really hard you can see our ducks - a pair of Paradise Ducks. And the grass growing!

George the builder

This was taken today while George was working on the TV Unit wall.... I said I hope he remembers to take the chair out. lol.

One more photo

I like this shot. The new family room, with it's light, and the view to the barn and countryside and forest - and all the sun - bliss!!

Lights - just no power just yet

All of the lights are now in and the power is on, but the electricians have to test it tomorrow before it goes live. This picture above is the kitchen island light and the family room light.

The cool entry light that I found online....

The ensuite now has all the fittings and a loo....water is not connected yet though.

The main bathroom has the shower walls and door installed now too, and a loo.

The carpet guy came back tonight and his girlfriend cleaned up all the scraps while he finished in the west-wing. Yes - the sun came out in the afternoon!

Wardrobe in the WIR gets installed at 9.30am tomorrow and the washing machine arrives too. Since we think it will be fine tomorrow (mostly) we may go and hire a trolley and move the fridge too (and maybe the dryer).