The Transformation of Foxglove Cottage

 

We took possession of our cottage on my birthday, March 9, 2012 and went down there the following weekend to start work.  All we planned to do was strip out the gear left behind and get rid of the kitchen that the previous owner had started installing - as it was not up to much...

 

 

Having hired a van we visited Bunnings in Dunedin and spent up large on tools, ladder, bits and pieces of necessities and a couple of items of furniture from Trade Me.  We found a dining table and a bookcase and coffee table that eventually transpired to be much too big... be had it cut down so that it ended up just perfect!

 

Very fortuitously, the real estate agents husband was a cabinet maker and furniture maker... meaning he possessed a lot of building and handyman skills too... we set about involving him in our wee project.. 

 

 Which was just as well, as there was more to do than first it seemed... like rip out the kitchen floor and the rotten joists below and do a bit of work to replace the lot with concrete....

 In the bathroom we also had to remove the awful shower fittings and seratone wet area that was so not sealed properly...  In May we came down again, with an even bigger van and more second hand furniture fetched from Dunedin.  Meanwhile back in Auckland we were also filling David's garage with a few bits of furniture and a heck of a lot of kitchen gear, decor items, paintings etc which we decided to ship down once we had got it all together and once the floor coverings were down....  It was just as well that the wee wood burner was functional because it was rather cold...

 

 We also visited Harvey Norman and picked up our kitchen appliances - fridge, ceramic hob, range hood, under bench oven and front loading washer.  We swung by and picked up a nice leather sofa we had bought on Trade Me.. oh, and 4 rather lovely dining chairs upholstered in Cath Kidston oil cloth, and a few other bits of furniture...

lucky it was a BIG van.  We used every inch of space.... really!

 

In June the vinyl in the bathroom and kitchen went down... that was very exciting!  And even more exciting - our bathroom package arrived from Auckland and the plumbers installed our bathroom - yay!  We had a tap at last inside - and we no longer needed to get water from the standpipe in the garden for a cuppa.  We loved the bathroom.....  although we had only seen it in photos until we visited in July...

The flooring throughout the rest of the house was stabilised with an overlay of ply in August and then the carpet went down too.... The gas fitters installed our LPG station for the hot water heating and we had the bottles delivered... and we ate lots of fish and chips in front of the fire!
 

 

 

In September we were down again for another visit and we saw our carpet for the first time... and the kitchen was beginning to take shape, which was Beyond Exciting...  and we were able to assemble our bed.  There was time to try out the sofa and relax, even!  We popped up to Alexandra and collected our new bikes...

 

And there was still time for

Fish and Chips...

Come November and were back again - eagerly anticipating the delivery of our shipment of goods from Auckland this time.... A very special visit as we were no longer staying in the Jafas Motel... we were sleeping under our very own roof! The kitchen was finished, our mattress had been delivered... oh so exciting to make the bed for the first time!  The garden was an absolute picture with the lilac flowering profusely as well as all the roses.

The big event of course was the arrival (a day late!) of our gear from up north... unpacking was just like Christmas... only better.

 

We unpacked all the little touches like rugs, throws and books... and set about decorating.... well, I did.  David chopped some wood...

 

We even had time to hang our curtains!

 

The sparky had been busy and had put in loads of power points, and sorted out some dodgy wiring, fitting new circuit breakers to the fuse board, and installed an extractor fan, heated towel rail and fan heater in the bathroom... and were able to take our first shower... bliss... and the joy of discovering we had amazing water  pressure.... fantastic!

 

We simply hated having to leave... 

 

 

In December we were back for our first holiday - 10 days!  We had time to finish decorating, as well as enjoy New Years Eve celebrations with our new friends, Graham and Jill, Jennie and others at Anthem House even though we were still feeling the cold, despite it now being summer.  We tore ourselves away for a couple of days touring the Catlins, an area of outstanding natural beauty and prolific wildlife.  We saw seals, hectors dolphins, yellow eyed penguins and a few angry sea lions!

 

 

We stayed at Porpoise Bay right on the waterfront and were treated to a rather worrying sea lion attack on some surfers....

 

and a splendid display in the early morning by the amazing Hector's Dolphins as the surfed the breakers for over an hour... magic.  We had a great dinner out at the Niagra Falls Cafe, and saw some beautiful sights - the Nuggets, the Purakaunui and McLean waterfalls, the lighthouses at Nugget Point, Waipapa Point and at Bluff - we hated Bluff by the way!  "What's the best thing about Bluff?  Seeing it in the rear

view mirror..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We carried on to Invercargill and visited a few shops, buying a barbecue and some outdoor furniture... before heading "home" to Foxglove.  For an overnight trip we packed a lot in... 

Back in Lawrence we spent an enjoyable time foraying into Central Otago to Roxburgh to buy cherries, apricots and raspberries, we rode our bikes and went for walks.  The evenings are superbly long in the   south, it doesn't get dark till nearly 11pm in summer.  We certainly made the most of it.  We loved reading by the fire (yep, even in summer!) and drinking wine in the garden by the lilac tree...

 

 

 

We are very social when we are down at the cottage, being right in the village we can see the world go by and have met lots of people including the descendant of the original owner, a meeting I will blog about another time.  Lots of people drop in and we get lots of invites to dinner and drinks, in fact we soon realised we were to need more dining chairs - we kept having to get the directors chairs from the outdoor set round the dining table...

 

 

Not long after we had to leave in the second week of January, Malcolm and family came to put up the garden shed we ordered... somewhere to store our firewood, garden tools and the bikes.  She's a whopper of a shed at 3 metres by 3 metres.  Around the same time, the talented Graham was busy designing and handcrafting the french doors from cedar that replaced the ugly aluminium ones so we had an eventful trip back down again in February when we were able to see both new additions and very promptly filled the shed with the stack of wood that had been delivered a few days beforehand...

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sparky had been in our absence again and fitted the chandelier pendant above the table and installed the reading lights over the bed..

 

 

 

 

  

 Also my Valentines Day

 gift to David had arrived...
 

                           ...River's Reach by Diana Adams

   

Gradually we got it all sorted and by the end of our visit the following February - a year later... it was pretty much finished. 

We still have to paint the outside, we've experimented with test pots and chosen our colours...

We bought two more dining chairs....

Sent to England to have a plaque made for the front...

and bought a really cool old garden seat at a local garage sale for the front porch...

We've seen all the seasons, seen snow falling, watched spring burst... something we don't experience in the North...

And now its just about a few little jobs each visit and a whole lot of relaxing!

We still have the odd feed of fish and chips...

... but we much prefer to put a leg of merino lamb in our oven to slow roast.

 Here's to the good life!