Power Is The Ultimate Aphrodisiac.

Well it is to me, once the electricity people have just installed the power cable from the road down to the building site, but I don't think that is what Henry Kissinger's quote above was referring to.

We had a nice surprise at the block this weekend. The building company has laid the power cable! The power box is also set up to provide the builders with power... Exciting!  This means if the builders now have the power, the start of the build shouldn't me too far away! Hallelujah! Very Exciting!

Our Babies.... Beautiful Vegetable Seedlings

Springs is here, and we've been super busy preparing our vegetable garden.  

Well technically we don't actually have the actual vegetable garden ready yet, we haven't got that far, but we've been sowing seeds like crazy... and most of what we have sown in the tray's in our city flat are germinating really well... and very quickly!

It's super exciting to plant a seed and then to watch it grow. I've been watering them twice a day, and I put the tray's outside if the weather is good. Bringing them back inside at night to keep my babies warm.

We didn't know what we wanted to grow, so we have set 3 criteria in deciding what to grow:

1. We have to be able to eat it,
2. The plant is a companion plant to another plant we intend to eat,
3. The plant is a native.

So as long as the plant comes under one of the above criteria, we will give it a go to see if we can grow the plant successfully.

I started out ordering some seed catalogues as we needed some ideas of what we can grow, and what should grow in our area:

    www.kingsseeds.co.nz
    www.egmontseeds.co.nz

There are so many plants to choose from!

It can be a little pricey starting out, so here are a couple of tips to keep costs down:

TIP 1:  Compare the pricing between the above companies along with seeds at The Warehouse. Keep in mind the special discounts when making a big purchase. The Warehouse was very cheap with your more standard varieties so I purchased the more common seeds from The Warehouse.

TIP 2:  Keep in mind seeds expire.  Some of the seed packets come with far too many seeds, and for us we will never use them all before they expire. So keep that in mind when purchasing. It might seem good value to purchase the packet with 200 seeds, but when you will like only use 50 of the seeds before the expiry date, just go with the cheaper smaller packet.

TIP 3:  Ask your friends if they have any seeds they are not going to use!

In the future I intend to hopefully try to gather my own seeds from the plants successfully grown.  I'm not sure how to do that yet, but I will give it a go.

Below are some of our babies:

There are 11 different Tomato varities, 2 different Lettuce, Pak Choy, Peppers, Crenshaw Melons, Kiwanos, Sugar Baby Water Melons, Peas, Green Cucumbers, White Cucumbers, Broccolis, Cauliflower, Marigolds.

At a rough tally we have just over 200 seedlings that have sprouted so far. 

We have a lot more seeds to sow, but we are a bit limited on space in our flat.

Sadly the Passionfruit hasn't been successful.   

So we must get a move on, and prepare the actual garden bed. So far this is as far all we have done on that part:

We need to finish the fence, make some garden beds, prepare the soil, sort out the irrigation, so much to do! But if the weather is good over the next couple of weekends I'm sure we can make some good progress. I will let you know how we get on.

Well... a quick update, we managed to do some of the above over the weekend:

We still need to build a gate... plenty still to do.
 

A Long Overdue Update On The Build!

We've been waiting for the building company to finish the plans/council consents etc.  It has been so quiet on that front for a long time but I guess a lot has been underway in the background.  It would be nice to receive regular updates from the building company.  However there finally there seems to be some life emerging on that front! YAY! 

Last week while up at the block I ran into the site manager by accident. He was spray painting some marks on the ground and putting up the building company sign.

Ok so not a lot of progress, but hey... it's a start!

But I managed to get an update on the progress of the build, and it seems we might have a foundations, walls, floor and roof all done come Christmas!  The plans are still with the council, but they have the builder already to go once the consents are sorted, also a digger/electrician is suppose to be arranged within the next couple of weeks to lay the power cables.

The latest new addition to our block, the builders sign...

 

  

Water Tank Has Arrived!

It was like Christmas but in Spring, but last weekend we took delivery of our 30,000LTR water tank!  

Crazy... I'm all excited over a water tank!

The building company had quoted for a 25,000LTR water tank but I decided to do this part myself.  I spent some time hunting around getting an idea of tanks, sizes and prices.  I decided to go for the biggest tank I can get, as I know I'm a little wasteful when it comes to water use.

So for a little more than what I was going to pay for the 25,000LTR tank, I got an amazing deal for the 30,000LTR tank from Promax!

                                www.promaxplastics.co.nz

I searched trademe, various websites and signed up to a couple of mailing lists, and one day at work I received an email with a deal that I couldn't refuse so I was straight on the phone to the company. I paid straight away and arranged delivery for a month later. We don't actually need the tank yet, but it's arrived!

Below is not the final resting place, it was a bit too wet for the delivery truck to deliver the tank to it's final resting place, and the Commodore wouldn't have been able to pull it out if the truck got stuck, I've already got the Commodore stuck once, so for now, it is tied up to the fence, just so it doesn't blow away.
 

So one day, we will need some extra hands to move the tank into place. The delivery guy said 6 people can tip it on it's side and roll it to where it needs to go. So we need 4 more people! HELP!!!

Our New Garden Shed - DIY Style

So you want to build a new garden shed?  

It's actually been much more challenging and exhausting than what I thought, I mean, how hard is it to buy a bit of timber & purchase a few nails, surely the two of us can whip up a shed in a weekend?  

In reality for the last two weekends we've been hammering away and we still need to add the roof and doors.

Of course Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was our shed!

We have never built anything like this before! So don't laugh at our shoddy workmanship below. It's our first attempt!

The garden shed has become a bit of a need, as we're paying for the storage for paint cans, garden tools and planter pots, just junk really, but things I don't want to toss away.. but yet I'm tossing away money in storage fees.

Initially I was going to pick up one of those cheap tin sheds you see advertised on Trademe and at the hardware stores, but they looked cheap and flimsy... and easy to break into.  I wanted something a bit more solid and usable.


We've picked the perfect location for the shed, close to the drive, not too far from the house, and close to where the first garden will go.

I've then drawn up some plans... based on an online shed, and modified the plans to our requirements.  The below website is what I started with and amended a little to our needs.

http://www.nzwood.co.nz/images/uploads/file/How%20To%20Guides/NZW13606%20H2-GardenShed.pdf


Our shed is basically 3m width x 3m length x 2m height, lifted off the ground, built like a jail house so it doesn't fly away.  I've also added a double door in the front, to allow for a ride on lawnmower in the future, should we purchase one. 

Oh to avoid having to get a building consent we have had to keep our Shed under 10 square metres.  Most important!

We've been building the shed with hand tools, so a lot of hammering and sawing. My suggestion.. if you have power to your site... use Power Tools! My wrist is sore from all the hammering!

Oh and my second tip... if you are building miles away from your nearest hardware store... buy more timber and nails than you need! Otherwise it is a long drive back to get more should you run short!


Below is where we are up too... I will add some finished pics later.

PS... My plan is to stain the shed with a dark stain then grow climber plants half way up each of the 3 sides.  Much more natural looking than a tin shed :)

A New Driveway

I got the call to say the drive was done! YAY! 

It was like Christmas morning as a kid, I was so excited, I couldn't wait to go up to Kaiwaka and play with my new toys! Well in this case... go and drive on my new drive.

This has to have been one of the more exciting moments so far! A new driveway!  

It's awesome to see some progress... albeit just a driveway... but progress!

Up until now, our land has just been a bare paddock. We did not even have a gate to enter the property! We've had to negotiate a poorly built fence to climb over to get onto our land.

We had a couple of local contractor's price the job. We didn't have much of a budget for the drive.. I allowed $2000, but both quotes came in around $5000.  

So we've managed to negotiate a price of $3500 for a smaller and simpler drive.  The drive is about 40 meters long and we required a turning area at the end. The top soil had to be scrapped off, and a good base of crushed limestone was to go down, along with a small culvert installed at the top of the drive. I also asked the contractors to give a "light" scrap over the building site and to level a small area for where the water tank is to sit.

Although to save some cost... I have to deal with the top soil they scrapped off.  For now the soil is left in about 6 very large heaps.  See the pic's below.  But I have some ideas on how to use this soil.... we just need to move it! Anyone want to lend a hand??

I'm very happy with the job done.

TIP: When dealing with contractors, get at least 2 quotes as a bare minimum, get the quotes in writing, and have the contractors explain in full detail as to exactly what the quote includes. Make sure both you and your contractor fully understand what is being provided, so there are no miss-understandings at the end of the job.

After the house has been built and the contractors/builders trucks have finished onsite, and once the new limestone has compacted down, we will have to do some more work to the driveway, but we will work that in with the landscaping.

 But for now... I have drive... and I can now drive onto our land! AWESOME!!!!!

UPDATE: Just like magic we have delt to the dirt, by hand....

Big Dreams On A Low Budget!

 From the start we didn’t want to build our dream lifestyle to end up massively in debt to the bank.

I couldn’t think of anything worse than giving up something we have invested so much of ourselves in and then not to be able to enjoy it whilst we are “Working For The Man” for the rest of our lives to pay for our dream.

Life is of course to be enjoyed... today and for every day forward.

            “Every Man Dies. Not Every Man Lives”. By William Ross Wallace

So we have set ourselves a goal, we are not to get in over our heads and to come in on budget!

Including buying the land and completing the build, we have set ourselves a tight budget of $300,000 NZD, which is basically a split of 60% for the build and 40% for the land. This is going to be a challenge considering the average house price in Auckland is around $630,000 NZD. Ok so we are 1 hour north of Auckland, not exactly in Auckland, but still the $300,000 NZD budget is a challenge, especially as my list of things that I want for the house is growing!

We are just like everyone else… we like the nice things in life.  So we want the best we can get, for the least amount of money. Doesn’t everyone?

I will return to this subject once the house is built and I will let you all know whether we achieved our build on budget or not :)

Some Tips When Shopping:

1). Research, Research, Research, find what it is that you like and what you want and need.  Discuss the product with the shop assistants, your builder, compare models, search product reviews, www.consumer.org.nz 

Once you've decided on what you want... get to know the product's price, and then sit patiently for a sale.

For example, I fell in love with this Bosch Oven, the price varied between $2200-$2500 NZD, but I wanted it!  You couldn't sell me on any other oven!  Then one day I was in www.harveynorman.co.nz and I purchased my dream oven for $1800 NZD! A Bargain! 

2).  Also keep a shopping list of what you want & need on you at all times along with your building plans.  This way when you are out and about, you are prepared for any sales that you might come across.

Gary wanted to go to Rebel Sport last weekend, and next door to Rebel Sport we come across a bathroom sale.  We ended up purchasing our new bathroom & toilet vanities! Below is the vanity for the toilet.

3). Ask the hardware stores if they have discount cards etc. www.mitre10.co.nz Both Henderson & Glenfield branches have offered us a loyalty card of 5% discount, plus I still get Flybuy's points. Every little saving helps.

If I come across any more tips on saving money, I will add them to the above list.

Building Contract Finally Signed!

Well it’s taken sometime, but we have finally signed the building contact with our chosen building company.  www.homeworld.co.nz

Another step forward! YAY!

The final plans are being drawn up by Homeworld’s draftsman and then the final plans will be submitted along with the building application to the Kaipara District Council to get the building consent underway… so it will be about a 6-8 week process before Homeworld can actually start the build.  This is really the boring part of the entire process. Waiting!   

We’re still hoping to be in our new house by Christmas… but that deadline is looking a little unlikely now.

We’ve decided not to go for standard off the shelf building plans.  We wanted something a little more tailored to our desires, needs and wants.  So we started off by taking all the things that we have liked about our previous homes that we have lived in, from layouts, to room sizes, finishes and furnishing that we wanted. We’re not building a big house, but it is big enough for 2 people.  Technically… it is actually rather small, only 87sqm with 2 bedrooms and an office/3^rd bedroom. But we’ve managed to add in a storage room, separate bath & toilet, and a good sized open kitchen/dining & living room area. All very functional, and all the main living rooms are all north to north east facing to get the sun and the rural valley views. In time we will add extensive decking to enjoy summer barbeques outside.

With our sketches we approached 3 different building companies to get their ideas and more importantly the quote for the build.  The first company we approached was a local building company, and in the end their quote was some $15K more than the other building companies.  The second building company was very competitive but only competitive in that they were building the home on a concrete slab which tends to be a cheaper build and I personally don’t like. I want our house built on piles, above the ground.  To me it seems more natural to be above the ground.  The other requirement that we were looking for, was that we wanted the building company to be a little more flexible with us doing our own thing. Kiwibank requires the build to be a complete build contract, but we wanted the building company to be a little flexible so we can paint the interior/exterior ourselves to save a little money.

Homeworld the 3^rd building company has allowed us to do just that, they will give us a credit back for any work we do, or if we want to purchase something for the house, then they will give us a credit back on that, which will come off the total build cost.  This is awesome! This has given us a lot of flexibility to arrange our own kitchen, carpets and vinyl’s, water tank, vanities in bathroom & toilet, fireplace, oven, etc.  For example the vinyl we will get a credit of $1200 from Homeworld.  So we contacted a flooring retailer that we’ve used in the past, they will do us a deal for about half that allowance! So our build is now $600 less already!  YAY... I have more money to spend on something else! haha

Ohh… and some not so exciting but important factors in choosing Homeworld… they have been around for 30 years, offer the Master Builders Guarantee, are Licensed Building Practitioners and have building insurance cover.

The Prelude

In 2009 I was fortunate enough to go through a cancer scare and yes I do mean fortunate… I can say that now as I kicked its arse!  But the experience has given me a new outlook on life, a new lease on life and I feel as if I’m a new positive person going forward.

It is so easy to get caught up in the daily grind of a working life, commuting an hour to work every day, working an 8 hour day before the 1 hour commute back home, you get yourself into a routine, a pattern and soon 1 year turns into 5 years, your twenties are over and you are now in your early thirties and it’s not long before your knocking on the door of your forties, and you start to wonder, what have I been doing with myself? Where did that time go?  The cancer scare was a kink in the chain that stopped me in my tracks in my early thirties. I was forced to re-evaluate my life.

My type of cancer had a very good success rate, but you can’t help to think, what if I am in that 5% that doesn’t make it… what if this is my time. During the chemo, this is all that I could think about even for the year or so after the treatment when  I was in the clear, those thoughts still came rushing back when ever I had a checkup or had a similar pain to what I had experienced in the past.

Having come through all of that, I felt that I had been given a second chance, and I said to myself looking ahead I’m going to do things differently.  Now I’m 100% healthy… so don’t get my wrong… but I asked myself, if I only have 10 years to live how do I want to spend that time. 10 years really isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things. So this new mind set has kind of taken me and my partner down a new path of living life for the now with the one I love.

It was time for me to get out of the rat race, and really start enjoying life.

I grew up in the country as a kid, and I really miss that rural lifestyle, smaller communities and living off the land. Gary on the other hand is more of a city boy, from Malaysia Borneo, but he has always been drawn to the city. So I’m kind of dragging him along on this new adventure, but he is fully on board with me. Thank you dear for our patience and understanding.

I love Auckland, the multicultural city it is, and I’ve been lucky to travel overseas with work, but I always love coming back home to Auckland.  However living in Auckland does through up some challengers, transport is a nightmare, and even on two incomes, getting ahead in life is very difficult in Auckland.  The housing market is ridiculously expensive and the average salary is only enough to get by. 

I truly believe there are no hand outs in today’s society and if you want to get ahead in life, good old hard work is the way to do it.

Although we didn’t intend on it, it just kind of happened, but we brought and sold our way up the property ladder. We started with a 2 bedroom unit on the North Shore. We used the government Welcome Home Loan scheme to get into our first home.  http://www.welcomehomeloan.co.nz The low deposit facility setup helped us into our first mortgage with Kiwibank. www.kiwibank.co.nz 

P.S.  This blog isn’t meant to be an advertisement, but I’m just sharing our experiences, and will pop in the links that you might find useful.

We’ve always found the Kiwibank fees & rates favourable but they are very picky on the small details. So keep this in mind should you ever have to deal with them.

I think we only had a $2000 deposit at the time, but that was all we needed to get into our own home a 2 bedroom unit.  The property was rather run down, so we redecorated the unit ourselves over the next couple of years, new paint, new carpet and a little landscaping. We couldn’t afford contractors, so it was all a bit of trial and error, with a bit of “google”, harassing the hardware store attendants and a lot of blood, sweat and tears during our weekends.

I must say I hate painting. OMG it is so boring!   

TIP: to end up with a good looking result at the end, preparation is the key... spend something like 75% of your time preparing, and only 25% of your time painting.

We soon outgrew the small unit and we got a little annoyed at how close our neighbours were to us, so we decided to sell and upgrade to a 3 bedroom house out West Auckland.  We secured a very good price for the freshly redecorated unit and by looking for a property further away from the expensive North Shore we could purchase another rundown property, but a much larger 3 bedroom house with a section out West Auckland.  So you guessed it, out with the paint brushes once again.

It was this climbing the property ladder and the booming Auckland property market that has allowed us to get ahead and purchase our block of land.  We could have never saved the money to do what we are about to do, living a lifestyle dream.

After our third property we decided to sell up and rent a small flat and we stored the majority of our belongings.  Like anything to do with property in Auckland, renting storage space in Auckland is expensive!  After some hunting around we ended up with www.kiwiselfstorage.co.nz they offered us a good deal and the location of their facility to the motorway on the North Shore would be very handy in the future.

It wasn’t long after the move into our small rented basement flat, that the hunt was on for our block of land.

When selecting our block, it mainly came down to the price and a useable space. At that point we still had no idea as to what we will do with the land, but we wanted to build our own home, and have options for the future for large gardens, perhaps an orchard.  

We spent a lot of our weekends driving around looking and comparing various blocks both north and south of Auckland.

When we finally discovered our block on Wattle Lane, it was perfect, with a small stream at the boundary, north/north east facing rural views, it was a good size and it was pretty much all in grass with a small stand of pine trees. So a blank canvas with plenty of opportunities to work our magic on.  I must admit it wasn't our first choice, but it ended up being the best choice, as we got a great deal on the land and we've both now fallen in love with our little piece of Aoteroa.

Kaiwaka, is situated on State Highway 1, located about 1 hour drive north of Auckland, and about 40 minutes south of Whangerai, or more importantly we are about 10 minutes from the beautiful Mangawhai beaches!  The location for us is fantastic, as it is an easy commute back to Auckland, so we can stay in touch with friends or enjoy a night out at the movies with dinner.  We didn't want to feel cut off completely from the outside world, so we are still just within an arms reach of the Auckland city.

Kaiwaka is a small rural community servicing the local farmers and passing motorists.  We've heard that the village comes to life at night with the various light displays throughout the village.  We've yet to be witness these displays as we haven't been around at night to see them, but I will post some photos when we do see the lights.

It wasn't until our offer was accepted before we decided to take a good hike around the block.  But there were some cows were grazing on the property so we needed to pick up some gumboots, as I wasn't going to get cow poo on my good sneakers.  

Now I don't want to look like one of those "try hard townies" trying to fit into the country.  I wanted to look like I was from the country, so there was going to be no colourful "Designer" gumboots. It was to be pure black gumboots, no exceptions! I remember something as a kid about red band gumboots, a true NZ gumboot that has been around for a long time. I remember dad had a pair, but when I discovered they were priced at $80 plus for a pair, I wasn't going to be spending that amount on a pair of gumboots! However on a visit to The Warehouse... I did find a pair of the New Zealand made Skellerup Gumboots for about $40. Black boots with good tread and high sides. Perfect!  Armed with our new gumboots we spent an afternoon exploring our block.  The cows were fenced off at one end of the block by an electric fence.  They seemed to be excited to see us, as we were of them. Although they were not our cows, and we still had to find out who they belonged too.  It felt good to be back in the country walking in our own paddock! 

After saying hello to the bovines, I tried in an unsuccessful attempt to go under the electric fence that fenced them in.  While trying to perform this awkward maneuver in gumboots, without getting an electric shock, I fell flat on my face into the mud! Gary thought this was rather funny, considering I was the country boy. He made it under without any issues. I'm sure the cows where laughing at me, and when I was trying so hard not to not looking like a townie! I have yet to work out how to get past an electric fence without getting a shock. I think the cows are trying to work out the same thing too.  The next visit to the block the cows had gone, so I wondered if the cows were owned by a neighbour and they witnessed me plunging into the mud!

So that is how we ended up with the block Down Wattle Lane.  

I promise our future updates will be brief compared to the above and Gary has promised to put together some pictures that we will add to the blog soon.

Welcome

Welcome… My First Post! YAY! 

I’ve finally got myself organised and setup this blog! I've been meaning to get around to it to keep friends and family in the loop of our little adventure.

I’m a newbie at this, so bare with me while I find my way around and try to work out what I’m doing… but as with everything I’m not afraid of a little DIY. It’s all part of the life’s adventure that I find exciting. 

My next post will be a catch up on the last couple of months. Sorry... I've been really slack... but as they say "Good Things Take Time".

Regards Rik.