New House

It's now been one week since we've moved into our fantastic new home, and I like it more and more each day. Let me give you a few details:

We previously lived in a busy residential street which had 24-hour traffic noises and a streetlamp directly outside my bedroom window. Our new place is in a much quieter street, and, morever, it's on a battle-axe block--meaning we're about 15 metres back from the street--so traffic noises are gone, as is annoying light from streetlamps.

Another reason the house is so quiet is that it backs directly onto a reserve. We don't even have a back fence. Our back garden is the reserve, which is green and filled with trees. I love opening my drapes in the morning and looking out into greenspace. There's a footpath that runs through the reserve, so occasionally people walk by with dogs or children in tow, but that's the kind of traffic I don't mind.

This footpath leads directly to the neighbourhood shops. I can walk out our backdoor, and, in four minutes, without ever setting foot on a street, access an IGA, a bakery, a butcher, a chemist, a video hire shop, a newsagency, and a takeaway.

In addition to its excellent location, the house has a great design. The front (north) of the house is all open plan, with the kitchen, dining/rec room, and lounge room all a single space only partially separated by brick walls. This area is lighted with massive skylights during the day and also includes a funky circular fireplace for heating and ambience. Enormous floor-to-ceiling windows on this side of the house allow the winter sun to pour in whilst large eaves shade it from the summer sun.

In fact, the house is very 'green' that way. We were still using our central heat in the old house every day last week, and I was using the gas log in the lounge room during the day as well, but we haven't turned on any heat in this house yet, and I don't know that we will have to until next winter. The walls and ceiling are both insulated--a rarity in Australia!--and we even have a solar water heater. The tiled floor and interior brick walls in the front of the house have been designed to absorb solar heat during winter days and release them during the night. The bedrooms are all on the south side of the house--looking into the reserve--and consequently should be cool and shady even in January.

I'll try to take some nice photos and post them soon for visual effect.