Work Continues

 

But it’s important to take a break and get out of the house, especially when the sun is shining! This is Breaker Bay in Wellington. 

We (by we I mean mostly Eric) has been working hard. 

The plumber was scheduled to come decommission the 27yr old water cylinder in our upstairs linen closet and install the new one in our basement room. 

This gave us(Eric) about 10 days at most to get the safe step to the room (shared in the last blog) finished and build a new platform for the cylinder and the washer and dryer to sit on. Needed to be 500mm/half a meter off the ground for draining. 

All was completed and installed successfully. We also removed the old toilet and painted the wall behind it, as we got a new toilet too!

There is still more painting and work to do in that bathroom but it is coming along. We were not big fans of the polka dot bathroom. 😁

The electrician followed and got it all working along with a few additional improvements to existing switches and outlets. He will be back again soon to install an extraction/vent fan in the upstairs bathroom. 

What else? We managed to unpack and inspect all the hanging artwork. Only one damaged frame- not too bad but disappointing non the less. We will get it fixed/replaced when we can. 

But getting rid of all those boxes was very helpful. Freed up more space. 

Current project is the linen closet. With the water cylinder gone we have more space to use. Yay!

Carpet for the rest of the floor- where we had originally hoped to restore the wood, has now been selected and ordered. And we hope to have it all installed in the next 3-4 weeks🤞🏻

It will be great to finally have all the flooring done and not have to keep shifting the remaining boxes around. 

Work is going well. Each week I’m getting a little busier. Still meeting new people, and learning more. 

Hard to believe that May is here. Time is moving at a very rapid pace. We have now been in NZ a bit over 7 months. It still feels like we just got here. And we are planning our first visit back to the states at the end of June. It will be a quick trip. Hoping to squeeze in seeing as many friends and family as possible. As well as some In-n-Out burgers and Mexican food!

And The Fun Continues…

So we scheduled the carpet to be installed in the still mostly empty house on the 25th of March with an extra day the 26th just in case they needed more time. 

Our furniture and boxes were scheduled for delivery the 27th and 28th. And the plan was to have the long Easter weekend 4 days to unpack and settle in. 

The carpet installed on the 26th ended up being flawed. There was a missing line/row of yarn through the whole batch! (See photo below- that was not a seam) And it was not “noticed” until the install was completed. So we had to have our stuff delivered onto the carpet knowing it would all have to be moved to remove the bad carpet and then re-installed. 

We hoped that the company would get this fixed quickly but nope- 

Going through all the proper procedures and claim forms took time plus the Easter holiday …the soonest they could possibly get new carpet to us was the 9th 😜

So with the help of generous friends we spent part of our weekend moving stuff around to clear as much of the carpet area as we could. 

A royal pain in the ….

but then on the 9th they were delivered the wrong carpet and then need to reschedule again!

We were beside ourselves with frustration. And we have the plumber scheduled for the week of the 15th. 

After much pushing and some juggling, they managed to arrange for the new new carpet to be installed on the 10th. They were unable to finish it, but enough that we can start to put things where they go. Hoping to have it finished next week. 

And after several appraisals and quotes, we have determined the amount of work and money necessary to keep/restore/redo the wood flooring in the hall and dining room is too much. So we will be ordering carpet for those locations. 

That is likely another 4-6 weeks away. But that is fine, we have plenty of other stuff to focus on. 

As for our belongings…

Everything arrived and is accounted for. Yay! It is still too soon to know if there are any damages. But so far the big items, the items we were most concerned about are all fine. Especially the big screen tv! There are a few other minor breaks, but nothing we can’t fix or live without. 

A huge shout out to folks that packed everything up in Seattle and to the Wellington Allied Moving crew. You were rockstars. I wish I could say the same for NZ MAF- they opened up about 20 boxes to “inspect” and did a terrible job of packing them back up? Check out the gold and black box above.

We did enjoy a fun Easter Sunday with friends. We drove out to Kaitoke Regional Park - where Rivendell is from Lord of the Rings films. Good food, fun games, and the weather even held out for us. 

Eric has been super busy. Working on house stuff and trying to keep me sane.

The space behind the oven now has a wall.

We had been planning to remove the very old gas hot water cylinder from the upstairs linen closet and wanted to go with water on demand (called infinity water here) but along the way the plumber found that we had a gas leak. Not in the house itself, but somewhere between the outside meter and the house. There is a driveway there and we would need to cut through the asphalt to run new line. And to complicate matters that part of the driveway is not actually our property. It is the cities and is shared with our neighbor. So we took the easy way out. We will be shutting off the gas. The water heater was the only use. And installing a new electric cylinder in the basement. Easier and cheaper in the end. 

Eric has now made the steps to the basement room safe and will start building the platform for the new water cylinder and our washer and dryer. 

Original unsafe entry

It has been stressful, but is getting better. Our friends have been an enormous help. Not only with moving furniture and boxes back and forth multiple times but in keeping us smiling and semi-sane. Thank you!

Not our house- A friend is fixing his roof and exterior paint. 

We did get our bedroom set up! So great to finally spend our first night in our bed!❤️ We have not slept in this bed since Aug 27th, 2023! We will be getting new blinds and curtains in the not to distant future.

Really looking forward to making more progress soon. 

And just because…a shout out to my sister who continues to follow her dreams. Congratulations! She was the announcer at Oracle Stadium for the San Francisco Giants opening weekend! We really wish we could have been there. 🎉

We also celebrated Sue’s 81st birthday🎂!

ps- Some friends have been leaving nice comments, please know that they are appearing as anonymous. So please add your name in your comment if you want us to know who you are😁. 

First Week!

 

Wow!,  hard to believe we have been in the house for a bit over a week now. It has been an exciting whirlwind of activity. 

Kitchen cleaned, two cabinets removed to make room for the new refrigerator, carpet removed, lounge ceiling painted. There has been a parade of contractors coming through- electrician, plasterer, the plumber called to postpone due to Covid, 3 to quote restoring the wood floors, washer and dryer delivered but fridge was damaged and had to be reordered and delivered two days later. 

There have been a few fun surprises. 

As to be expected… exposed insulation/unfinished wall behind the oven. A broken step on the staircase, and a small gas leak somewhere between the meter and the house. To name a few. -Oh joy!

But we love the house and are excited to be getting our stuff delivered next week. 

We had hoped to get a bit more painting completed before the delivery of our stuff, but it will have to wait. 

We did manage to squeeze in a fun show at the St James Theater Belle: A performance of Air -Visually beautiful show with light, smoke, mirrors and dance. 

And I started work. It was great to be back and the first week was relatively easy with setting up my desk and computer and lots of introductions. 

Here are some fun house photos 😁

The next chapter begins!

It has certainly been a chaotic three weeks… 

We loved seeing Dune part two,(How do they get off the worms?) and enjoyed seeing Rocketeer on the big screen after so many years. The Rocketeer included a fun themed dessert and beverage too. (lol the rocket was very phallic shaped)

The Dr. Who event was about what I expected. Had fun and enjoyed it, but it could have been better. The moderated questions fell short and the attempt at selling merchandise was very weak. The event was already pricey and then they wanted more $ for autographs and photos. Which we knew as that was how it was advertised, but it still felt like more could have been offered. But still glad I went, am really looking forward to the exhibition opening in June. 

I also got the chance to see Meow Meow’s Panemonium. NZ Art Festival is going on and Cassie was offered 2 tickets last minute, so we went having no clue what to expect. The seats were great and we were thoroughly entertained. Meow Meow is a singer performer and comedian and the show was definitely laughing out loud funny. 

Works has not started for me yet, but I went into the office for an induction/on-boarding session and am really looking forward to the new role. Eric is enjoying a few freelance days, before the house projects start. 😁

AND…We made it! 

This is our last night as nomads. 6 months almost to the day of selling our home in Seattle, we are moving into our new home in Wellington NZ. We are very excited and looking forward to spending the next several months, and/or years making it into “our” home. 

It has been a great adventure. And we couldn’t have done it without all the encouragement, love, and support from our family and friends both here and back in the States. 

Thank you all !!!!!

We have shared much of the journey along the way on this blog. And while it was genuinely a great adventure, it was not without a few bumps. 

We had some challenges navigating the banking/loan options and job opportunities and offers have been a little delayed. 

But the biggest bump came 3 weeks ago when we gave notice to the woman with whom we had been flatting…

Suffice it to say. Mistakes were made, lessons learned. 

“The short version”

The woman has mental health challenges. (the kindest words we can use)

She believed we were trying to short her one weeks rent. And when we tried to show her the bank statements and a calendar, all hell broke loose. We were verbally abused and threatened. In the end it was easier to pay the “extra” week than to fight a losing battle -there is no reasoning with crazy. 

(A report will be filed, but we needed to be out and away from her first)

But at the end of it all, what is the old adage?…. we refuse to let one “bad apple” spoil the lot ?

Again we were reminded of how wonderful and caring our NZ family is. Everyone offered us help, support, extra hands and vehicles and places to temporarily stay. A special thank you to Chris & Cassie, Etainia & James, Paul & Claire, Andrew & Lauren, Daniel & Catherine, Lance, Henri and Kim & Warren and everyone else. Again “thank you”!!!!❤️

To add insult to injury, our car was sideswiped/damaged while parked on the street the other night. Roads here are quite narrow, but there is enough room to get by if you are paying attention. Unfortunately not everyone does. Also auto insurance is not required here so many folks do not bother to have any. Certainly those who are already struggling to keep up with the raising cost of living. I find it genuinely ironic that in a country where I continue to tout the kindness and politeness of the community, there are still those that will not stop to leave a note on a car if they have damaged it. It is frustrating. The damage is minimal. Just cosmetic. But just like in the states, you do not want to make a claim. Between the deductible and the threat of rate increases…

We will likely get it fixed at some point, but trying to focus our current expenses on moving into the house! 

We apparently maxed out the number of items a customer can have in a single transaction at the local hardware store- lol!

And now we move in…and our belongings get delivered in 2 weeks

Stay tuned for house renovation photos- coming soon! 😁