We're staying FOREVER Part 2 (December 2008, written June 2010)

Of course we didn’t get the ugly brown brick house. So like a lover on the rebound we decide we’re staying in Oswin St, FOREVER.

We head back down the architect route. This time it costs us real money. And you may be surprised to read that we decided to work closely with the mainstream architect. “Let’s work with him to expand the knowledge and skill base in this important profession,“ we nobly thought to ourselves.

Well, guess what? It didn’t work.

So the principle of collaboration and shared learning – out the window. He didn’t give us what we briefed and totally ignored our budget (surely that’s never happened to anyone else).

Where to now? A period of nothingness.

We started putting some insulation in our roof, we got some new water tanks and connected them to the toilet and washing machine, we watched our newish native garden wither in the drought.

And although we were staying in Oswin St FOREVER, one of the two of us couldn’t help checking out houses for sale around the area.

We're staying FOREVER (July 2008, written May 2010)

Turns out it wasn’t such a straightforward decision.

We had no less than three architects known for their sustainable designs and one self proclaimed but not really sustainable architect (and there are certainly growing numbers of these around) traipse through our place. They gave their views on how we could improve our living and bedroom space and make the house more sustainable.

We’re all for mainstream architects proclaiming their interest and skill in sustainable housing. But did we want our place to be their practice ground?

The challenge was that for an 80 year old bungalow, the retrofit was incredibly fiddly and we know what that means – $$$$. Added to this was the revamped and slightly (only slightly) extended living and bedroom space – the costs were getting up to half a million dollars – without actually adding an extra room.

So principle no 2 of the three R‘s (reuse) goes out the window. Off we go to bid on a nearby house, a fantastically ugly brown brick place from untouched from the 1970s. Perfectly liveable for a number of years until we can afford to rebuild.

Should we stay or should we go?

January 2008 (written May 2010)

This was the big question that occupied our minds.

This photo is our house. Cute isn’t it? We worked hard for five years to renovate every single bit of this home. We’ve been very happy here for 13 years. But along the way we “discovered” sustainability and it’s ruined our lives. Really, it has.

Because now we question everything. How can the house be orientated better, how could the breeze stop coming in through the closed windows. What would make it more liveable? How much longer can we live without airconditioning?

To help answer these questions, we organised an energy audit and got lots of recommendations about how to make improvements.

The problem was, we couldn’t find anyone who was interested in helping us to retrofit the house. And we are not so handy ourselves.

Added to this was the fact that after we renovated, we had three children and this meant that the fantastic space we created in our home for two didn’t meet the needs of a household of five.

What should we do - stay in the house and work with what we have or move on? Stay tuned for the next instalment.