The beginning....

So, I'm going to take you waaaay back here and I'm going to start with some history and context. As that might give you some insight into why we made the decisions we have and how it all came about.

Buckle up because it's a long one!

Way back in the mid 2000's a property came up for sale. And it was a decent price for a decent sized block of land, so it seemed like a no-brainer to convince Dwayne and his Dad John, to purchase it and get in before a developer turned it into 20 townhouses - and you may think that's funny, but given they've just added 60 townhouses to a site just up the road, I'm really not wrong on this one!

There was also starting to be signs that the inner city, where we were renting, was starting to see the not so slow creep of large buildings being demolished, or converted into apartments. And we couldn't afford to buy in town as prices had already gotten higher than we could comfortably afford without huge risk. This one was decent, no awkward interior beams, well priced, didn't need too much and looked to be self sufficient. Which all turned out to be correct. We stayed where we were in the city, rented half of the site to a great tenant, we used the other half as extra storage and an indoor skatepark (you know, as you do!) and we carried on business as usual.

Some years passed, and the city was changing. Life was changing. We were expecting our first baby, so we moved from the Cuba Quarter, into the 507 building. We needed the space, and the quiet as town was so hectic. It was a refreshing change in lifestyle moving to the valley. It was so much quieter and while the living space was a bit average (or worse) it was slightly bigger, had a hidden area out the back and was close to good schools and a lovely community.

We also had our town landlord keep trying to increase the rent on us, so when our tenant approached us about getting out of his lease early to expand his business, John made the call to give notice on the site we had operated out of for 15 years, and move everything - lock stock and barrel into the now vacant 509 premises.

It was actually a fantastic move. As while there was a lot of nervousness, it worked perfectly. And even John was swiftly convinced he had made the right decision when he realised he had pretty much 24/7 access to his grandson! He and Rogue were peas on a pod, and best of mates. Wherever Grandad went, so did Rogue. And most weekends, he went home with Grandad, as well as more nights of the week than made Mum happy about... sometimes I would have to book in time to hang with my baby! He taught him to operate trucks, drive cars, get down and dirty, play with mechanics and tools. And there was a whole lot of laughter every day.

Then eventually, with John's help (we couldn't have done it without him!) we began to renovate, with a new bathroom and kitchen first off. Then when our second baby was imminent we also added another bedroom and ensuite. It is still a very cosy space though. Small and we live on top of each other. Not that we would have had it any other way as it's just what we have been so used to for so long!

You don't know what you could have, when you feel like you have everything you need. And our family unit is so tight knit, it felt perfect. Grandad's morning routine became coming in to see 'his' boys every morning at breakfast, and his day never ever ended until he had been up to say his goodbyes.

Then in 2015 our world was rocked by John's cancer diagnosis. The world turned topsy turvy and a little over a year later, he was declared cancer free. For a very short 2 months. Then they discovered new tumors, fast growing and in multiple places. Which was absolutely devastating to all of us. We had thought he was in the clear. We had thought we could keep him. But that wasn't to be, because there were other plans for him. So after binning the awful chemo drugs, we only got 5 more months with him. Those 5 months though, he worked almost every day, 7am-7pm and he was always spending time with his grandbabies. He took them out on the boat, he would play with them, cuddle them and love on them daily. Every spare second he was with them. Then in the space of 6 days in February, he went from working the weekend, to not coming into work on Monday. Tuesday he was bedridden. Wednesday we knew he wasn't staying long. Thursday afternoon I made his favourite cakes specially for him, he ate one and that was the last time he ate. The family rallied that week, with my Mum and Dad coming, Dwayne's family arriving and John's house filled with love. But by Saturday late afternoon, he was sleeping, that heartwrenching deep, uneven sleep of those who are ready to go. I could see the signs and I did what I could to soften the blow for Dwayne, as we were all so worried about how he would cope.

John passed away at about 3am Sunday morning and frustratingly, I had taken the boys home to sleep, hoping like anything we would get to say goodbye in the morning. That he would hang on a little longer. So when the phone rang, I knew instantly. I got to it first, and kept it short and sweet. Then bundled everyone into the car. It was a quiet and still drive back to John's house. Where we all paused there for a while, before deciding that home for a little more sleep was best for everyone. We couldn't do anything more there. Not at 4am. The worst hit about 9am when we woke up for the second time. The world spun backwards and the tornado hit. It finally abated some and we moved through the motions of a new life, funerals had, farewells said, endings closed and new beginnings awaiting us.

He was the centre of our world, so losing him was the worst thing we could imagine, but we survived it as a team, as a family and as a couple. It was a hard path but it absolutely proved to both of us that if we could survive losing John, we could survive anything!

Which leads me into this new adventure we undertook. It began with an updated council notice, that the building we were working from was not up to current earthquake code - even though it had withstood two major quakes (Seddon and Kaikoura) which had cause horrendous damage to the city. With the added extra that our timeframe had been shortened to 10 years to strengthen.

It was only months after John's loss, so we had to gather our thoughts, start researching and figure out what our plan was to be.

First up, we knew the building needed assessing. At this stage, we had absolutely zero plans to do anything more however. We just set to trying to find an engineer willing to do a seismic assessment and help us repair the building.

A few strings pulled and we had to call in the big guns because with the earthquake status and deadlines looming, it was nearly impossible to get anyone to even call us back much less take on the job. But we finally got BECA to come in and talk to us. They completed the seismic risk assessments on both buildings and thankfully 507 was deemed within code limits, but as suspected 509 was not. It was only at approximately 15% of code. So it needed serious help!

We put our trust and finances in the hands of BECA, the structural engineers and we had them begin the plans to strengthen the building. Not so tricky you might say... and you might have been right if it hadn't been for a minor leak in the roof of 509 and Dwayne climbing up onto said roof to do those repairs. He sat up there for some time, enjoying the late sunshine (which was completely gone from our yard) and pondering life. And this led him down a rabbit hole of what if we could take advantage of this......

Next thing I know, he's got me designing a whole new plan. We worked through an online CAD program and we designed what we felt was our dream house, if we could choose pretty much anything we wanted and needed.

For me it was open plan living, with a good kitchen and entertaining space. A spare room. For him, it was indoor/outdoor flow, a movie theatre, sunshine and storage space.

Between us, we worked it out so that we loved what we saw. Lucky for us we have similar tastes, and the taste we don't share, we can negotiate on!

We handed out design to BECA, who then helped us hand on that design to the architects who helped us get to where we are now.

There are so many people along our journey to thank but I'll go through them slowly as we start to dig into the process - which was a 3 year journey to get to the point of breaking ground.

Stay tuned, now you have the background, we can move onto the gritty bits!