Once we'd decided Picton may be worth a try, we set to viewing some houses. There's quite a variety in the town, from 1860s weatherboard places with lots of charm, central, even cheap, but not really what we are looking for in a family home.
There's empty blocks to build on, which is a very strong possibility, but we're yet to find the right block - most new land releases are too far from town, and the ones that are close enough to walk are unfortunately not served by footpaths - just busy roads designed for nothing but cars. Even cycling would be dangerous in the 60-80-100km/h zones.
One thing we did want to be able to (before we'd even decided to move out of Sydney) was to be able to walk to some decent shops. Penshurst is reasonable, but a good town centre is important, and it needs to be walking or cycling distance to reduce our car dependence, especially since we're so far away from the city.
The place we're in for now is called Jarvisfield Estate. Don't worry, the word estate has negative connotations for me too, but this is nothing like what I had expected. It's an established little suburb 20 minutes walk to the north of town, 8 minutes ride to the station, no through traffic, and all one acre blocks (there's a neighbouring estate - the Botanical Gardens Estate - which is all quarter acre blocks). There's a really nice walking path around the river that borders the area, forming a natural barrier to further development along with the hills we have a great view of from our front door:
The house itself is absolutely amazing. Built by the people who now live next door (they used to own both blocks but sold one off) who are in Real Estate, we're yet to find a short-cut taken. There's four bedrooms, four bathrooms (that's just stupid!), a huge kitchen, dining room, family room, and the "big" room which is the massive octagonal living room you really can't describe in words that I'm currently sitting in. Outside on the basically flat acre, there's beautifully landscaped gardens, a four-car remote garage, a huge pergola for outdoor living, a tennis court with lighting, full irrigation, water tanks (smaller than we'd like though), and a biocycle, which breaks down all the wastewater from the house into watering for the extensive gardens automatically.
In short, it's a house way more than or anyone really needs, but within our price range, both for renting which we are doing now, and possible purchase if the Picton Experiment turns out to be a winner. We intend to keep looking around probably after Christmas at other places here, but this is going to be hard to move away from now.
Rental Chaos
First, the bad news. The house we have been renting for a year in Picton has been sold underneath us. Although they had brought people occasionally through it, it was never actually on the market. We were given 14 days notice to be out. In that time, w
Weblog: REverberations Tracked: Nov 20, 18:48
House Design Progress
The lack of blog updates on the house hasn't meant that we have been idle - on the contrary. It's just that we've been doing a lot of things behind the scenes, forking over sums of money for this and that to approach a set of plans we can submit to counci
Mate, if you ask me you are making the right move. We have been looking around a bit ourselves, trying to find some space. But moving away from Canberra could be hard, it is so convenient. But the carrot of some acreage is a little hard to forgo. Enjoy the experience and the lifestyle change. Say hi to Liz, and Happy Birthday Phoebe.
we will be up at christmas for several days. this time I will make sure I have time for the mates. I told amy the other day that its going to be about us this time. we were thinking of a day at wotamolla (however you spell it) probably after the christmas rush and before new years, if there was any interest in a bbq swim type thing. plus its this side of Sydney.
First, the bad news. The house we have been renting for a year in Picton has been sold underneath us. Although they had brought people occasionally through it, it was never actually on the market. We were given 14 days notice to be out. In that time, w
Tracked: Nov 20, 18:48
The lack of blog updates on the house hasn't meant that we have been idle - on the contrary. It's just that we've been doing a lot of things behind the scenes, forking over sums of money for this and that to approach a set of plans we can submit to counci
Tracked: Nov 03, 20:13