These houses were designed to look good from the street, regardless of what the orientation was for the Sun. Everything depends on your budget and how far your prepared to go. A friend's house in Queenstown faced the street, the toilet and bathroom had the best view of the lake and the Sun. They got a house removal Coy in, jacked it up put it on the truck drove out and turned it around and reconnected all the services. It then faced the North and West great views and warmth, doubled its value in 3 days!. I replaced my storage water cylinder with a outside gas one, picked up enormous space in our laundry. Another tip is to draw up your "dream" plan, then overlay it over the existing and see what you can really do, your then not influenced by what is already there, and often get a much better insight and removed from the existing. Good luck, its very rewarding and make it fun!

Thanks Mel. We'll see what we can do to make the rumpus enclosed - it's probably more of a "man cave" at the moment :) Grandad had a dining table in his current place (which is bigger) and got rid of it because he never used it. He also wants more bench space than he currently has. So, this was a deliberate choice rather than a compromise due to lack of space. You've reminded me now that someone did warn us earlier in the design process about the back and forth between wardrobe and bathroom becoming annoying over time. We don't currently have an en suite so it feels wonderfully convenient for us by comparison. However, that feeling will change if we realise it could have been even better. We did have the en suite off the wardrobe in some designs but have been warned this can lead to dampness in your clothes no matter how well ventilated the bathroom is (especially in Auckland's humidity). Would love to hear people's experiences of this configuration - good and bad. On top of that, there are lovely private bush views to the south so we've tried to make the most of those.

This photo reminded me of my childhood. When I was younger, my dad had a big farm. He used to take me with him to show me his work and teach me elementary things. He wanted me to become a farmer. I was fond of tractors. I used to know every piece of machinery my dad owned, and he was proud of me. I grew up, and my dad got me my first compact tractor from https://www.machinerydealer.co.uk/. I was so happy to have it because I could help my father achieve his dream. I am his partner now, and we work together on expanding our farm.

I suspect I've driven every South Island road over the years haha -- once I worked out to look for the Port Hills I worked out the one way street system in Chch haha , then half it fell over and they put cones everywhere . I've been out to Oxford and Hororata and Twizel and Otematata more times than I could count , same with Gore and Haast and Reefton . One of our Motorsport customers lives on the edge of Keri Keri -- he has 4 or 5 race cars and maybe 30 classic cars , so often its me that drives up and collects or swaps a car with him -- he spends $200k a year on motorsport , a fair amount of that with us , so I do Whangarei and Kerikeri several times a year too .