The prelims  

Posted by Sam Woollard

We bought our house 12 years ago from a family friend who had lived alone for over 20 years and who had slowly realised that it was getting too big for her. We made some rapid changes in the first few weeks of moving in just to make it suitable for a couple and to suit our tastes. We swapped the layout of the kitchen/diner so that the sink was under the window, we ripped out the old wash basins in all the bedrooms so that we could change them around and we drastically changed the one and only bathroom in the house. The bath was old and tired so we had it re-enamelled (it is cast iron, very deep and very long), we moved it from under the window to along a wall and added a shower over it then tiled it. It has served us well. But over the years we have discovered that having only one bathroom was a distinct disadvantage - especially when all four bedrooms are full - and the high old fashioned bath tub was a mite too high for our ageing kness and hips!

Some three years ago we realised that changes were needed if we hoped to continue living in our house as we progressed into old age and our first thought was to rip out our big old bath and replace it with a modern walk in shower unit with a very low step and wet and dry areas. We hummed and harred and discussed (we are a couple that loves to discuss things eg it took us three years of drawing, modelling and changing before we committed ourselves to a deck at the front of the house), and finally we decided that the long night time trek to the bathroom was a) getting more frequent and b) seeming longer and more desperate each time we did it. So en-suite it was!

We made a model of the house and added an extension to our bedroom and examined it from all angles - it looked like a public lavatory stuck on the side. We added another en-suite to the bedroom next door - same result. Then we thought "What if we go up as well as out?" and BINGO, that will work. Of course the cost had gone from a few hundred pounds for a shower tray to several tens of thousands for an extension with two en-suites downstairs and a family bathroom upstairs, but we had a plan. An architect was engaged and within reason we agreed with most of his suggestions, planning approval was obtained and the job went out to tender. Mostly the prices were in agreement but we went with a builder doing some work next door, he knew the area, the problems with the soil and the construction of the original buildings around here (built in 1932) and we felt comfortable with him. We decided to delay the start of work until he was available and on May 8 2007 the digger arrived and work started - in the pouring rain! April 2007 has of course been the warmest and driest for hundreds of years but as the first bucket full of soil and shillet was dug out of the ground so the heavens opened. Let's hope that this is not a portent of what is to come.

This entry was posted on Wednesday 9 May 2007 at 08:50 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

1 comments

I just looked at your island style window. It's amazing. I love the turtle, of course. It's my aumakua. And the humuhumunukunukuapua`a and two moorish idols are just the right touch. It's magnificent. Thank you for sharing. I hope to see you next time you're back on Kauai. I'd like to go with you to Ke`e Beach and photograph those turtles.

17 September 2007 at 23:08

Post a Comment