The beginning

I have no idea what I am doing blogging.  It is probably because life is busy, and in case it all passes in a complete blur, I feel a need to document what we are doing because I'll forget otherwise!  And what we are doing is extending our 1920s wooden bungalow from 140m2 to 200m2, adding in two extra bedrooms, a study, and an open plan kitchen, living and dining area. 

We also have 3 children - 3 year old twin girls, and an 18 month old - and we plan to live here through the process, so it's going to be interesting to say the least!! 

The stage we are at today:  we have council approval!  The builder is chosen (well, 90% there).  The plans are pretty much in the right place.  So we can probably start............in the next month.  Now is the exciting time; time to imagine, dream and do things like look at NZD $21,000 lights (more on that later).

We didn't get an architect.  Instead, we spent a year planning the project, starting with valuable input from our family over Christmas 2011 and a 2012 tweaking the plans.  We hired a fantastic draftsman, who was patient with our 70 million changes and got us the council consent we needed.

So the plans in the beginning looked like this:

The existing house is on the left and the new bit contains kitchen, living and dining. 

Now, they look like this:

So a little more detailed, but not that dissimilar to what we started with after going through about 20 iterations.  Original house in green, extension in black.

Back to that $21k light.  Here it is (http://www.dezeen.com/tag/bocci/):

Hmmm, so back to the drawing board.  I LOVE this and it would look perfect above our kitchen island.  However, we need to have a floor in the house.

We are planning on matching our kauri floors (which are a yellowy brown) in the new bit too.  That is going to be the link from the old to the new.  After much (MUCH) deliberation, I think we will go with a very white kitchen.  That is, white cabinets, white benchtop and white walls.... too much?  This is the look I am thinking of:

I like the simplicity, and the warmth of the wood with the coolness of the white.  My husband is worried that it'll look clinical, but I think you can add colour with lights, flowers, soft furnishings etc. 

On another note, and probably a topic for another day - doors.  We are going to have 6 metre stacker doors on the back of our house, which open all the way up, like a pavillion.  These are what I am most excited about.  In Auckland, it rains a lot (not at the moment, but I digress) but is mostly warm (depth of winter aside) so I want to have the doors open even when it's raining.  Especially with the children around.

Like this (from www.jonesarchitect.co.nz):

I just remembered, I need to do the before pics.  Here are some of our house when we first bought it, 5 years ago:

I forgot to say that while I have been writing this, the twins have alternately drawn on their arms with highlighter and climbed up onto the bathroom cabinet to fill their water bottles up.  So writing has been interspersed with time out in their room.  Fortunately their little brother has been asleep and as I'm looking after my 2 year old nephew as well, that is a life saver!

And with that, I shall sign off, from my first blog entry.

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