We own a piece of New Zealand - the big move

Well, here I am, sitting on OUR couch in OUR house in Wellington New Zealand. Wow, it does feel pretty nice to own a house but even after 4 weeks I still don't think it has fully set in.

We got the house on July 2nd and our stuff was scheduled to arrive on the 3rd, so we camped out in the empty house the night of the 2nd.



We woke the next morning to a gorgeous sunny day, which is rare in Wellington winters, usually it is raining and cold. The movers arrived late, but to our relief did eventually show up. The road our house is on is so narrow they blocked the whole street with their truck. Not the best way to make friends with your neighboors but it turned out none of them needed to get out anyway so it was ok.



They gave Ted a clip board so that he could keep track of everything coming off the truck, so he stayed out in the driveway while I helped carry things inside. It was rather impressive, how they were able to pack everything in so tightly and kind of scary watching them try to take it off the truck without a ladder, they didn't drop anything though.



Unpacking all of our boxes was like a really big Christmas. Everything had been packed up for almost 5 months so we had forgotten about a lot of things.

We took two weeks off work in order to unpack and organize the house. We had figured we would be mostly finished with the house after the first week and spend the second week relaxing and exploring our neighborhood... right! We spent most of the first week just unpacking and beginning to organize and the second week building shelves and hanging pictures. We were pretty well set-up by the end of our vacation though.

During those 2 weeks we got to know the local hardware store quite well, buying shelving and other things needed to get ourselves organized. The chain is called Mitre 10. They have both small local stores and then a few large stores they call Mitre 10 Mega. The Mitre 10 Mega is similar to a home depot.

Ted, who is very excited to have his own garage, decided that said garage needed some good shelving. We found what he wanted at... Mitre 10 Mega.

Here is Ted before the assembly started, looking excited to build his first garage shelf, note the vacation beard.



Here he is reading the directions.



Once the directions were understood it was time for assembly.



Then a decision was made that the shelf was going to be too high, so modifications were required. Unlike in our old apartment at least these modifications didn't have to take place in the kitchen, it is nice to have a garage.



Then, with a bit more assembly, the shelf was ready to hold stuff.



It was really good to have two full weeks off and we actually had some really good weather. By the end of the vacation we had the main living area, our bedroom, and of course the garage, fully "sorted". I will post some photos of the house with all our stuff in it soon.

Hope you are all doing well.
Meg and Ted