Decisions, decisions

Desperately trying not to count my chickens before they are hatched, but we are seconds away from taking possession of our own pile of WA sand and our own double-brick 'n' tile, alu window, 3x1 with auto retic, side access, evap aircon, solar HW, powered shed and alfresco.  Like how I've mastered the local lingo?

Basically that means we have bought a cheap, tired little puppy of a house in the city that a few years back was deemed to have some of the least affordable housing in the world.  Our new house is certainly no mid-century modernist dream-home; soon after starting the househunt here I realised that that simply wasn't going to happen in Mandurah.  So we have formulated a new plan: we have bought a house that is well located (walking distance to school, beaches, shops etc), ripe for a style makeover (it has every shade of brown decor you could ever hope for) but structurally sound.  However the main attraction of the house is that it is also an ideal candidate for a sustainability makeover as it has a good basic layout - and that took some finding.

My job over the next few months will be completing the first phase of turning this sow's ear of a house into a silk purse - and with the sort of budget that some folks round here use to cover the carseats in their his 'n' hers Hummers.

I've already been weighing up the priorities and making lots of decisions:  water-saving toilet vs a few more metres of marmoleum, Bosch Activewater dishwasher vs Cloth fabric curtains, roof space ventilation vs Featherston chair, induction cooktop vs custom-built hoop pine ply bookshelves, PV solar panels vs Trippen shoes from Ricarda (OK, that last one is a fib but I'm still allowed my dreams).  Then the big decision will choosing an architect to help us achieve the next phase of the plan (recommendations gratefully accepted).

But there is one decision we are all happy not to have to make.  When the four of us head to Perth for a grand day out and get peckish, two people inevitably suggest "sushi!" and the other two suggest "dim sum!"  Thankfully we don't need to arm wrestle over it as we have found a place that serves both.  On a conveyor belt.  Yes, robo sushi on the high road and robo dim sum on the low road, trundling past with no tricky decisions required.  Edo Shiki, we love you. 

If only all my decisions were that easy.

Home sweet home hunting

I've been house hunting with a view to us buying a house and moving out of the rental home we currently live in.

(If any architecture students would like to see a classic example of what style of house doesn't work in this climate then they are welcome to come and have a cup of tea at my rented hotbox during a 30+ day, of which we had 60 during summer and another 16 so far this autumn.  Depressingly this house, like so many new homes built here, is just a series of design faults with a roof; I dream of taking a concrete-cutter to it to shift some windows around but I won't because I guess then I wouldn't get my bond back.)

My house hunt has not been successful so far.  See if you can work out why.  The picture above and in the mosaics below are of houses in Mandurah and that are currently listed for sale on Domain where I swiped these pictures from.
WARNING: some of you should go and get a bucket before looking any further.

Not all of the houses in Mandurah are pink with orange rooves, but in one Disneyland-like suburb most are. And apparently they aren't allowed to have solar panels on the roof because they are aesthetically displeasing.  The world has officially gone mad.

Truth be told I actually can't afford any of those houses.  Here are a couple I can afford.

Oh groan.  Sorry to inflict that on you but I felt like I needed to provide evidence to those of you who just think I'm being overly picky. Plenty of people here obviously love that sort of house or there wouldn't be so many of them.  I do not love that sort of house.  Of course there are various other housing options in Mandurah and by looking at 793 Open Homes and interloaning every architecture book from the State Library I have identified exactly what option I hope to find a great example of and make our own.

While most of the thousands of new project homes being built here make we want to weep, I love some project homes that were built here in the 1970s.  The houses I love are either examples of some that were designed by a WA architect who teamed up with a local project home building firm, or rather dishy ripoffs of their work. These homes are modest and simple but clever and stylish and thankfully are pretty unpopular given the reaction I get from real estate agents when I describe what I'm looking for. I have found a few examples locally but none were ideal as they were either wedged up against a new main road, in suburbs where the deli (don't get excited, that's just a dairy) is covered with razor wire, simply far too small (boarding school maybe? bunch of caravans in the carport?) or had been hideously molested by unsympathetic "renovators". The one I'm most excited about seeing inside is on my street, a bit neglected, not for sale and currently inhabited by some interesting folk who the police visit regularly.

If you are feeling sullied by the pictures above, do what I do to wash the nastiness away: visit the Modernist Australia blog,

type "Robin Boyd" into Mr Google and roll around in the images,

(I think that pic came from the Boyd Homes group)

get hold of a copy of Green magazine,

or of Sanctuary magazine.

Sigh.

Better still go to a real life exhibition of the work of pioneering local architect Raymond Jones,

who  "isn't impressed by a lot of modern architecture in Perth, saying he's depressed by the proliferation of ugliness" .

He is not alone.

A great day in Realestateland

Great news today from the real estate agent.  Finally success on the new home front.  We move to our new rental home next week.  There it is above.

Ok, just kidding.  Here it is.

Yeah, that's a porky too.  Here we go.

OK.  Fib.

Sorry.  Pork pie.  This time.

Yup, another porky.

Fib.

Pork pie.

Lie.

Untruth.

Oh my aching enormous nose.

Eeeek!  Porky.

Make it stop!

Aaaahhh! 

Oh, that one doesn't look too bad. 

(See what I did?  I learnt that softening-up strategy from NZ's current government...)

Yes, that house above really is where we'll be moving to next week and staying for at least the next six months.  A normal house on a normal street in a normal suburb with a normal garden and normal decor and four bedrooms and two living rooms and plenty of space for houseguests and with a normal shopping centre in easy walking distance. (Just a slight snag with my plan for furnishing all those rooms.  I'm still stuck on the depression stage of the grieving process over that particular situation. When I reach the acceptance stage I'll fill you in.)

But the best bit about our new home is the view from the letterbox.

That glorious view is of my children's new school.  I can't wait until I can stand at my front door in my jimbojams and say "Go to school!".  Then I'll go get ready for the day, try to resist volunteering for the local version of the PTA for at least a couple of weeks while I head out to hunt myself an O-job, some favourite haunts, some friends and some new hobbies.  Given the state of my shabby-shite photos I think I'll start with reading my camera manual.

Finally a house we love

Finally we have found a house the whole family loves.  No, that isn't it above.  That is the cute wee "holiday home" I am currently "holidaying" in with my partner and the "Home Unschooled" children while I hunt down our longer term accommodation.

This hunt has been unexpectedly time-consuming and, if I'm honest, also quite depressing.  I thought I had the situation sorted and was already mentally arranging the furniture in our Brady Bunch-style rental home and looking forward to depositing the children at the local school. Then the home's owners announced that their renovations won't be finished for another couple of months. Noooooooo! So I've started the whole soul-destroying process all over again.

In my home quest I've seen plenty of outrageously expensive "luxury" homes full of numerous features that I neither need or want.  These houses usually have unopenable windows and require so much energy to keep them cool in summer and warm in winter that their power bills would bankrupt us.  Sometimes they actually look OK but more often they have multiple pink bathrooms and at least one other pink room. They have lawns and gardens which are watered regularly by timed systems using large amounts of water, as most of Mandurah is built on pure sand.

I've also seen plenty of brand new suburban homes described as "What more could you want!" that are really just budget homes for people who aspire to live in one of the luxury homes.  These homes get no sun in winter, too much sun in summer and require so much energy to keep them comfortable that if these are the homes of the future then we had better hurry up and find a few spare planets. They are built so close together that if you wanted to borrow a cup of sugar from the neighbour you could reach in from your own kitchen and help yourself.  They all have a "home theatre room" which is actually just a gloomy room housing a row of unbelievably ugly big black chairs (and which of course doesn't impress this family as we want people to go out to the real theatre). These homes also have lawns and gardens watered regularly by timed systems using large amounts of water.

(No, that isn't another one of them pictured above. That cutie is from a dishy blog called Perth's Best Architecture which I sometimes read to torture myself. I have photographed some horrifically-fascinating local homes but I'm convinced that as soon as I publish the photos my children will befriend the children who live there and I'll then live in fear that their mothers will discover what I've said about their homes...)

Lastly I've seen numerous 1970s houses that are described as "Fantastic location - walk to everything!"  That is true, and these homes would have been the height of cool when they were built.  Sadly though for the past forty years the inhabitants have systematically painted or tiled every interior surface pink.  Every single window has been given the "Why have windows? window treatment" which is a 5 step combo of floral curtains, lace curtains, vertical blinds, prison-like security screens and outdoor fabric awnings (most often seen collapsed flush against the house) designed to block out every scrap of daylight.  Retro-fitted to every northern, eastern, western (and sometimes also southern) side of these houses are huge carport-like structures.  The resulting interior resembles what Barbara Cartland would have come up with if she'd taken up decorating caves.  And yes, these homes also have lawns and gardens - quite large in many cases - watered regularly by timed systems using large amounts of water.

I've convinced myself I can cope with any of this crazy carry-on for a few months in a rental home.  But given that a) we are also looking around with a view to buying a house here further down the track, and b) I couldn't (soberly) live long-term in any of these homes, and c) I am a person who needs a lot of information before I make a big decision, I headed to the library. There I borrowed "Warm house, cool house: inspirational designs for low energy housing", "Making your home sustainable: a guide to retrofitting" and various books on contemporary Australian architecture and design. Nice.

And then we finally found a house that the whole family loved from the second we walked in the door.  This wonderfully-designed, five-year-old house stays between 18 and 28 degrees inside all year round without any powered heating or cooling system even though the outside temperatures here range from 2 to 40 degrees. This home is spacious, light, modern and comfortable and packed with clever features.  A knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide explained the home's features to us; it heats its own hot water, makes its own electricity, is warmed by winter sun, cooled by summer breezes, collects its own water and has a beautiful garden that requires very little maintenance or watering. Sadly for us this home isn't for sale but we can go and visit it and learn from it as many times as we like.  Yes that is it pictured above: it is The Sustainable Mandurah Home.

So as I start again in the hunt for our short-term rental home, we are also researching and formulating longer term plans: Option A is to buy our own piece of sand and build a sustainable home; Option B is to refit an existing home.  I'm currently most interested in option B as I'd love to buy a 1970s gem in a great location, peel away the carports and the Nana decor and re-cool it as well as sustainably refit it.  I'll spend my days singing "Here's the story, Of a lovely lady..." as I plant local native plants (yes, I am a soooo predictable), slap bucket loads of paint on the interior walls and dance around a "window treatments" bonfire.  While I do this a succession of trades-blokes will retro-fit solar louvres (perfectly angled to let in low winter sun yet block higher summer sun),

insulation, solar-powered devices, water-saving devices and breeze-catching windows.

Now there is a housing option I can get excited about...

Celebrating the holiday houses of Mandurah

First thing on Monday morning my partner went off to his new job.  Meanwhile the children and I have been working to collect and piece together all the various nuts and bolts that a family of four require in the modern world.  So we have been locating shops and food, visiting schools, opening a bank account, investigating GPs and exploring various suburbs.

Top of the list though is finding our longer term accommodation. Between us we have quite an extensive wishlist.  The children want a home a) near the beach or estuary, b) that will allow them to get a tiny dog and c) with their own living room for their private Legoland. I want a house with a sewing/making room as going cold-turkey on making things is doing my head in.  My partner and I both want a house that is a) big enough to host the hoards of house-guests we hope to have trailing through soon, b)  is close enough to schools, shops, work and facilities so that at least one of us can walk or bike there and c) feels like "us".

This last point is proving to be the sticking point.  When my partner and I viewed the various housing options online we both screamed so loudly in horror that the children came running from the other room to see what terrible thing had happened.  It would be fair to say that we have not yet tuned-in to the predominant style of modern housing on offer in Mandurah.  It would also be fair to say that no architects have been harmed - or even consulted - in the creation of Mandurah's modern housing stocks.  My PollyAnna pledge prevents me from saying much more...

However there is one style of housing here that I love.  As I cruise the various older areas of Mandurah the children have to cry "Eyes on the road!" as I find these houses so attractive and distracting.  The houses I love are known as the "holiday houses" of Mandurah and are what NZers would call baches or cribs.  Sadly they are an endangered species as every one that comes on the market is described as a "development opportunity".  Many have already been bowled and unfortunately many more are bound to follow.  If I ever turn into an eccentric old billionairess, I'll buy a huge block of land, set it up as a heritage park and rescue and rehome as many of these gorgeous homes as I can get my hands on.

I'm not the only person in town who appreciates these gems.  A few years ago the Friends of the Mandurah Community Museum photographed many examples of these homes, held an exhibition of the images and have reproduced some them on a lovely set of postcards.  The postcards are available from the Mandurah Visitor Centre, and at 50c each are a jolly bargain.  I have the whole set but I love them too much to post to anyone. The images below are some of their excellent work.

So how is our accommodation quest going?  Well yesterday the children and I viewed this home. 

It is fabulously mental, would suit our retro furniture collection perfectly and the view from the front lawn is of this.

Yes it is directly on the estuary.  My partner could kayak to work in about five minutes or hop there in ten.  The real estate agent gleefully told us that it is on death row.  When I said I'd love to get my hands on it - meaning I'd quickly restore and revive it it be the coolest house in Mandurah - she said "me too" meaning with a wrecking ball.  Hmmm.

Sadly that house isn't going to be the one for us so the quest continues....

So if you do come to stay with us and are shocked to find us living in this

please believe me when I say I tried, I really tried!