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We spent a great weekend with friends in Mahakirau and enjoyed lots of delicious food, good wine and games. The weather wasn't particularly superb but we managed to avoid the rain at the beach, watch a fake whale being saved, play lots of petanque (girls rule!) and visit the animal park where we tested our courage by trying to feed an ostrich. All in all a very memorable weekend!

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We made two trips to our little house on the hill in May...one early and one at the end of May when we spent a weekend with Julia, Eric, Noah and Keziah. We lucked out with gorgeous weather for the whole weekend and took advantage of it by hiking both days. On the first day we hiked Castle Rock which was a steep but short climb with rewarding views from the top. On the second day we hiked the Kauri Block trail and then took off onto another trail called the Harray Trail which was the better of the two. The Harray Trail would through bush, swamp, and ended at a beautiful river. All in all a really great weekend with friends. :)

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We managed to make it to Mahakirau once in March and it turned out to be a rainy, foggy weekend which made for a really bad painting day. But that didn't stop me from trying (because I'm a Taurus clearly). So I asked Seb to remove the windows so I could paint and I did but it just didn't dry. It was definitely a disaster. After learning my lesson I moved inside to repaint the kitchen cabinets. Because I am insane. Maybe I've just been sniffing far to much paint in the last few years.

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Happy New Year!!! We had the pleasure of sharing our new year with Delphine, Lionel, and Livana for a long weekend at Mahakirau. The weather was perfect, hot, sunny, dry days and cool, breezy nights. On our first day we went to the beach for a few hours and narrowly escaped getting scorched by the sun. In the evening we celebrated the new year with fois gras, parmesan biscuits that I made, and some smoked salmon...all of it delicious. Afterward we had a big dinner of bbq chicken and grilled eggplant salad. We managed to barely stay awake until midnight playing scrabble...Lionel and Delphine crushed us. And then we had our glass of champagne and went to bed. The following day we had a good hike down to our river and then spent the rest of the day relaxing. Perfect holiday with excellent friends. :-)

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With the stairs finished we started the painting. We loved it in natural wood but there were so many different kinds of wood used that we decided painting was the best way to make it look more consistent. We chose white to help it blend in with the wall. The handrails were painted a light blue but it's too Holly Hobby so we're going to re-do them in dark blue. We don't seem to be all that good with choosing colours!

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In December we need to have the major items in the house finished in order to get the sign-off on our house from the council so we set to work installing the installation and finishing the stairs. The insulation went pretty well...much easier than in Auckland since we had so much more headroom and the joists were evenly spaced. For the stairs Seb needed to create a handrail and he spent the remainder of the weekend working tirelessly on it. I started to paint the windows outside and I can confidently say that I hate the green we've chosen...which means I'll have to do it all over again in another colour. Arghhhhh!

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We are nearly finished with the house, or at least the things that need to be done in order to get our sign off on our building permit. We have to be done by December which should give us enough time. Here's some of the latest photos of the inside of the house and of Seb building a retaining wall.

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We finally made it back to Mahakirau once this month to plant our beautiful Liquidambar (like a maple) tree. We're hoping it will do well despite the clay soil and torrential downpours the area receives especially in winter. We had a lovely weekend with beautiful weather and we felt quite lucky!

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In March we visited Mahakirau twice, once to check up on the place and the second to spend a long weekend with Lionel, Delpine and little Livana. We had a lovely time relaxing, doing puzzles, playing petanque, and eating yummy food. We even made it to the beach for what was surely the last swim of the season for Seb. I was too chicken (or too smart). :-)

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January was an excellent month to share our little house on the hill with friends. Eric, Julia, and Noah stayed for a weekend while visiting from France. We managed to have half a day of sunshine but after that it was all wet which was a bit unfortunate but c'est la vie. Diane, Tristram, Thomas, and Lucas joined us all in Coromandel and we all ended up having a great time. We were very happy to see that the house can handle so many people at one time!

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After new years we headed off to Coromandel for a music festival! Etienne, Aurelia, little Jules, Helene (Aurelia's mom) and Sarah (Aurelia's lil sister) all came up to the house to spend a few days with us and join us at the festival. We had perfect weather, Batucada Sound Machine practically to ourselves, and lots of dancing and oysters. Perfect all the way around.

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Fantastic. We couldn't have had better weather. It was absolutely gorgeous for Christmas and Boxing Day and the few days after. Seb's dad, Daniel and Jennifer arrived from France on the 21st and we took to them to Mahakirau on Xmas Day. The first time Daniel saw Mahakirau was two years ago when it was an overgrown piece of land. Needless to say he was really impressed with how far we've managed to get in those two years and he and Jennifer loved the place. We spent four days lounging around (not working!!!), visiting one of the most beautiful beaches, New Chums, riding the Driving Creek Train, and just being on holiday. It was bliss.

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The mad rush before Seb's dad and Jennifer arrived. It was a highly productive weekend. We finally received the bench top after having to place our order twice because they didn't have our first pattern choice. The second pattern wasn't really what we expected. It's really hard to imaging what a bench top will look like when your looking at a piece of Formica the size of a cracker. Anyway, it's here and it will do. Seb installed it without a big hassle which was pretty awesome. I spent the weekend sanding (my fav) and painting the cabinets. I chose to go multi-coloured to bring some more fun into the place...also because we had a bunch of test pots that miraculously were in the same colour theme as our wacky wallpaper. Now our kitchen looks slightly circus-like but at least it doesn't look Ponsonby-like. ;-) Seb managed to get out for a 5 hour hike to go to the ancient Kauri grove and he was really impressed with the size of the trees and I can't wait to go see them once my back is in order again. AND with Kevin's help WE NOW HAVE ELECTRICITY!!! AND we even got sign-off from the inspector! Sweet! Oh yes...and we saw the Pohutukawa's blooming so summer is officially here. Thank goodness!

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The wallpaper finally arrived so we spent the day installing it. It was far easier than we thought it would be and wow...it's a statement for sure. Our lovely neighbor Barbara thinks it's strange but we think it lends a fun bit of craziness to the place.

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We were delighted to have our friends Aurelia, Etienne and their new baby Jules join us in Mahakirau, not only because it meant we would take a break from work but also because we love spending time with our friends. That's the whole reason for Mahakirau! We had a fantastic time showing them around, enjoying a magnificent lunch on the deck, and going for a walk around the estate.

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What a weekend! It was the first weekend we had a gorgeous sunny day on the land in months. Be gone winter! AND WE HAVE RUNNING WATER!!! I'll spare you the photos of Seb in the tub...they were a bit NSFW but suffice it say that we were thrilled with our friend and plumber Lizzy's work and were totally surprised to have running water by the end of the day. We took a hot bath to celebrate and it was absolutely perfect.

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This weekend was pretty much a fine detail weekend. Seb started installing the trim around the windows and I continued painting things that needed painting. The beautiful butler sink was cut into our old nappy cabinets too and it made it all look even better. :-)

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It was a weekend full of paint and electricity. Scary combination. I painted two bedrooms and the rest of the bathroom while Seb worked with our friend Kevin to get the wiring closer to completion. The main bedroom has been painted white with an accent wall of green...sort of like the bathtub but a bit lighter and the other room has been painted white with an accent wall of burnt orange...or 70's shag carpet orange. Whichever you prefer. It wasn't meant to be that way but the way it combines with the wood ceiling is oh so 70s. Peace love and happiness.

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We finally started painting AND we had sunny weather! Well, sort of. It was a very cold weekend but sun did peak through the clouds. Despite the colour in the photo, the bathtub has been painted a lovely green apple and the walls of the bathroom are a light tan on the wood paneling and a cream colour on the walls. It looks quite yummy. Oh...and Seb has started a dead rat collection. I think we've caught about 6 rats now and these are some big suckers. If they hadn't started eating Seb's soap they probably would have lasted a lot longer.

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Cool! Seb found a frog on our property! He was tiny and he played dead but we discovered later he was very much alive. Sly little froggie. David came with us this weekend and he and Seb worked on putting the wood paneling up in the bathroom. Seb did some gorgeous wood work on the edge. It looks all fancy like a professional did it. We're so proud of him!

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What a crappy rainy and cold weekend! Thankfully we spent the weekend indoors finishing up the bathroom gib board. Now we can start to paint soon! The rest of the weekend we did various odd jobs around the house...like putting beeswax on all of the interior doors...not as easy as it sounds but at least it doesn't smell bad. :-)

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With the help of our builder we started to install the gib board. What a job. We're so happy we had Peter help us because without his instruction and knowledge we surely would have broken more boards than we did. The first day Seb and Peter installed most of one bedroom. I couldn't believe it actually took that long for one room but the ceilings are so tall! The next day Seb did another room with my help and surprisingly we're still on speaking terms. The last day we almost finished the bathroom but it took both of us in contortionist positions to get as far as we did and it was too tiring to complete. So for the weekend we totaled only one broken gib board. Not bad for a couple of noobs.

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Phew! I installed all of the insulation over the weekend and both of us worked on the railing which is finally finished! Seb put a beautiful wood hand rail on it and now it looks gorgeous. For the rest of the weekend I refinished and sealed the front door and Seb did yet more work in his sexy blue overalls on the electrical wiring. Next up is our inspection!

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We have been very busy working on the house as usual. Seb put the electrical wiring throughout the house and it was a huge job. I'm not sure he'd be keen to do it again. We had the main line run from the power box to the house but now we need to get sign-off from the council before we can start hooking things up...plus we need still need to get the gyp board on the walls...and then the plugs...and then we might need to buy some lights. :)

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Three days is always better than two. From now on we're going to attempt to spend three day weekends at the house so that we can progress faster and relax longer. We took David with us again and he and Seb went to work putting up the doors inside. It required a hell of a lot of work since they were creating the framing as well but they managed to finish it in two days. They also installed the water pump. We are so much closer to having running water! For my part I painted the bathroom floor, scraped the stairs, and oiled 3/4 of the loft floor. It was a great weekend and I even managed to get some cello practice in.

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Happy Easter Easter Bunny! Bok Bok! We spent the long four day weekend on the land working our fingers to the bone. The balustrade was installed on the deck and we cried a little until we realized the paint was going to make everything better (i.e. make the balustrade disappear). Seb worked furiously on the wiring for the electricity with Kevin's guidance and I sealed the decks all around the house. On Sunday we had surprise visitors! Clement, Charlotte, and their friend Simon dropped by for the night and they were so kind to help us the following day by putting another coat of paint on the balustrade. Without them it would have taken me two days but with four of us it took three hours. I can't say thank you enough!

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Holy cow. Somewhere in March we didn't have any photos to upload! Seb's brother Julien came to visit us so I think that had a lot to do with it. Anyway, the house is coming along really well! Kristel and Lizzie came up to the land to help us for the weekend. Kristel and I painted the first coat of paint on the balustrades for a day and half while Lizzie and Seb worked on the plumbing. Seems it will be about another month before we have running water but it's getting there. We're so looking forward to having a hot bath in our new bathtub! We started our beautiful new wood stove (merci beaucoup Daniel !) and it was really lovely. We thoroughly enjoyed the heat on a cold night.

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Oops! I just found a whole bunch of photos from the weekend of March 7 when David came up to the land to help us out. Here you can see the wood stove and the stairs. Our builder, Peter, gave us the stairs and they worked out perfectly! You can also see our kitchen cabinets...fancy, huh?

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After a well-deserved week-end off of working on the house we returned to finish the wood flooring. The weather was very wet and we arrived late in the evening to find that there was water all over our new wood stove and the floor. After a brief freak-out we cleaned up and called the plumber to come and fix it the next day. We actually managed to finish the flooring over the weekend and we're terribly proud of ourselves. After 5 days of working on it we think we're pretty much experts though I don't think we're ready to be hired out just yet. We need another holiday first. We love our new floor! It's gorgeous and rough and exactly what we wanted. Oh! And the verandah is finished now too except for the handrail. YAY!

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On the long Waitangi Day weekend we put in our wood flooring. We didn't get nearly as far as we thought we would. As our builder said..."it's a big job". And he wasn't kidding. We starting video taping the process but after the swearing started we thought better of it. We managed to get nearly all of the living room/kitchen area done. The bedrooms and bathroom are left so we're guessing that will take us another 3 days. Phew!

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WOW! What a difference a little bit of stain makes! We had no idea how gorgeous our little cottage would look after Peter put the stain on and we were thrilled with the results. To celebrate we spent the weekend indoors putting linseed oil on the ceiling. Joy! Thankfully our neighbors had a BBQ so it was an excellent excuse to put our arms down and rest for a few hours.

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OMG we have a house! It has doors and windows that open AND close! It has four walls. And it even had visitors! We ditched the foam mattress we'd been using in the tipi and hauled our old mattress into the loft where we will stay until the house is ready. We're getting excited/scared about working on the inside now.

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Happy New Year! We were very excited to get back to our little cottage in the bush after three weeks in the US. It was exciting to see that some of the windows had been put in and the cladding was going up. We even got to spend our first night in the house!

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Before we left for our trip to the US we spent a gloriously sunny weekend on the land. Our ceiling was almost finished and we spent the weekend unsuccessfully trying to clean up the bricks on the hearth. We also popped into Coromandel Town just in time for the annual Xmas parade!

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Happy New Year! We've just returned from a 3 week visit to Atlanta to see my family and Seb's mom who flew over from France for a week. It was a great time but too damn cold! We're so happy to be back in summer again. We've been really slack on updating this blog so here are the latest photos taken by our dear neighbors Bruno and Barbara while were gone. We're almost there!!!

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Just a quick update on the work that was done on George of the Jungle and our beautiful front door! What work!

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In the spirit of DIY we decided to build our own hearth for our new wood stove out of bricks. We sourced bricks from some people in the neighborhood who had a large stash, I cleaned and scraped the bricks, and Seb built the frame for the bricks to sit it. It was all going so well until we started the concrete part of the job. What we didn't know at the time was that there's some special ingredient that makes the concrete smooth. We found out too late so our hearth is "very colonial". It's a bit rough...but it's homemade. :-)

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November 8. Obama has been elected as President and the world breathed a sigh of relief. The weather has been uncooperative this winter to say the least. Going into spring it hasn't been much better. Our builder has had to contend with many days of rain. In addition to the rain he's had to put up with stupid requirements by the building codes. The number of piles he had to put in for our veranda are outrageous. We have more piles for the veranda than we do the house. In any case he managed to get them all in and next week he should be starting the roof! YAY!!!

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We have a very old tree trunk...we have many. But this one sits next to the drive way and Seb decided he'd make a seat out of it. This is a little photo diary of his handi-work. The colour of the wood was amazingly red!

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Well we have framing...that's the same, no? On October 24 we discovered our builder kicks ass. We knew he was pretty awesome but we were blown away by how fast he got the framing up. It's very pink but it goes great with the backdrop of green forest, don't you think?

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We have a very wonderful and helpful friend, David, who came to stay with us for the weekend. He was our first official guest of honor and we treated him well by keeping him busy and well fed. While he was there for the weekend we walked half the length of our stream and discovered we have a few waterfalls and even better...little swimming holes! Fantastic!!! It was a glorious weekend.

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On October 4 we were thrilled to discover we had a new dance floor. The dance floor became our picnic area, running and jumping area, and viewing platform. We could see the sea (when it wasn't raining) and we were thrilled. As usual we spent more time working on the windows. :-)

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Oh happy day!!! The builder finally broke ground and the weather was on his side. He was able to get the ground ready and then concrete in the piles. We were very excited! We spent a lovely sunny (thankfully) weekend on the land doing various jobs and I took my cello to serenade (torture) Seb. :)

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With our new builder things have really started to move. We had the water tank and the clear water sewage system installed in the ground. We had no idea how enormous these monsters were going to be but James Drainage did a great job of squeezing them in between the big trees. They dug the water tank low into the ground so it doesn't look nearly as ominous.

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During August and September we had some pretty horrible weather. It seemed our days of lovely sunny weekends caught up on us and now we were being punished with torrential and unending rain storms. It was miserable. There was mud everywhere, on and in everything. The large tree that loomed over our tipi and shed had to be cut down because unfortunately the roots had been damaged. It was a real heart breaker but it came down to the tree or us...and well we just couldn't take that chance.

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It's been 3 weeks since we last visited our land. We were afraid to find the tipi down from all that wind the week before. What a joy to come up the driveway and discover it up and standing! A good start to the 3 day week-end were we did the shed flooring and many other small improvements...

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While we are waiting for our new house to be built we needed a place to stay. We thought about a caravan but then we thought it would be great to have a tipi! What should have taken a couple of hours (so the manual says) took us five and we finished just as the sun was setting. I don't think we'll be taking it down any time soon.

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These are the house plans drawn by our drafter Trevor. This was the point where we got extremely excited about our vision. It was really starting to come together and now it had substance!

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Who doesn't need a shed or a man cave? Naively we thought we would build our little shed in three days. Four days later we still have at least one more days of work ahead of us. It's taking far longer than we had imagined but it's really cool to see our progress.

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After the earth movers and numerous weekends of downpours the driveway was off limits to everything...even 4 wheel drives. The guys that were going to put gravel on the driveway were waiting for the rain to let up and finally we had a couple of days where it was mostly dry. They got up there quickly and put down load after load of gravel. It still needs more but the cool thing was that with all of the rain we were able to find kiwi tracks on our property. We were thrilled! We have a kiwi!!!

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After Seb's dad returned to France we had a couple of weekends of rain which kept us home in the city. Finally a clear weekend appeared and we so we went back to Mahakirau to do more work. Seb dug a trench for the power cable for the shed and I did my best for moral support in between dragging large pieces of wood over to the wood pile.

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After a few weekends in a row at Mahakirau we decided to spend some time at home in the city. Ziza, the cat, was thrilled to have some company. We spent the weekend working on the windows and doors.

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When the earth movers came we were so excited. I took an enormous amount of photos of the digger coming down the street. I'll try not to bore you too much with them. It was a great day though. They dug a meter deep trench in the driveway for the power and phone cables and cleared a whole bunch of the land before the day was done. We also met our architect, Trevor for the first time and went over our ideas with him.

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In April, Seb's dad, Daniel, came to visit us from France. Seb immediately put him to work but for the most part he seemed to enjoy it and certainly enjoyed his time on the property. Seb's enthusiasm spread like a virus. In these photos we spent the weekend on the land doing more clearing work before the earth movers arrived. There's also photos of the kauri forest that is on the way to our place.

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Negotiations with the previous owners of the land seemed to drag on for ages but finally after about six weeks of back and forth we came to an agreement. And then there was the issue of the missing power transformer...but that's another story. We celebrated with the most delicious champagne and silly grins. In this series you will also see Seb's plans for the house. I think he could have been an architect if he really wanted to.

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In our fury to buy the windows we found at the demolition yard we made the mistake of not carefully checking out every single detail of the wood. We knew there would be work but once Seb started getting into it he realized there was going to be a lot more than he anticipated. He spent hours stripping, sanding, re-puttying, and painting the windows...not to mention replacing broken glass.

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We toyed with the idea of getting a kitset mainly because they are affordable. We also thought maybe we could buy a old villa and have it transported but that idea died a quick death when we saw the driveway at Mahakirau. There was no way in hell a huge truck with a house on it was going to get down that drive so while we were in Wellington for Webstock we went to visit a kitset place. While we didn't go with the kitset in the end, we did take inspiration from their design and another house we saw in the same area.

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To be honest by this point I think we were pretty much set on Mahakirau. This photo set shows our second trip there. We stopped off at a local demolition yard to look at windows. We ended up buying a whole bunch of them. No house, no plans, but we had the windows and the French doors. I took photos of the trip there for no other reason than it's really a nice drive and we weren't tired of it yet. When we got to the land we cleared a whole lot of the 150 meter driveway...which is crazy since we didn't own the place yet, but what the hell. In the process I cut my leg with the trimmer. I recommend against doing that as it's fucking painful.

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We first visited Mahakirau Estate in February '08 and were incredibly impressed with the place and its aura. Honestly I (Karen) wanted to be near the sea. Seb was enthralled with the mystery of Mahakirau and from the moment he first visited it, it haunted him. The final decision was really made when he thought about how horrible he would feel if someone else bought the property. It was then that he knew. By that time I had fallen in love with the land too and we were finally on the same page.

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