Darroch Cottage ( The Past)

I should point out that the noise in the background of the video is not a chainsaw as someone thought, it's actually the cicadas! Noisy wee things, aren't they. I LOVE the noise, it's the sound of summer to  me.

Anyway,  Darroch Cottage is our wee home. It's teeny tiny, with just one bedroom, a kitchen dining room and a living room. That's it! But it's perfect for two people and three dogs. We really don't need any more space.

The cottage started life as a railway cottage down in Whangarei, but around 15 years ago it was re-sited up here. It looks like it's been here forever, though.

Since we moved in there's been quite a lot of changes. We added the verandah and the decks, put in three lots of french doors and added a window. Put in a new kitchen, new bathroom, a larder room, knocked the 2 small bedrooms into one big one  and various other bits and bobs.

But, when we moved in it looked like this!

It doesn't anymore!

 Our deck, we eat out here for about two thirds of the year.

 this is the front deck

And the side deck where we lounge around and make pizzas!

 This is where we eat the rest of the time.

The Kitchen used to be cream ...

Now it's blue!

Our wood burning range is amazing during the winter.

And the living area, when we have a rest, we have it here.

our lovely bedroom - it used to be pale blue, but it's white now!!

 my pride and joy at the moment, new laundry . And Larder behind - you can just see it if you peek through the window.

There's about 5 acres of actual garden, this includes a large veggie garden, a citrus orchard and a second orchard with apples, plums and peaches. Roaming chickens and ducks.  We have a banana grove and fig trees as well as the most gigantic oak tree ever! Our cottage is named after it.

The  farm is another 18 acres or so. This is where the cows, highland cows and donkeys live. We also have The Acorn, a gorgeous even more tiny cottage that we made. My mum lives in it when she comes over to visit.

So welcome to Darroch Cottage.
Lloyd took these when he flew over the house in a friends wee plane.
This is from the side ~ woolshed on left, house in middle, orchards to the bottom and veggie garden to the right. The Pip is right at the bottom centre.  If you look very closely you can see me on the deck, I was waving.

This is sort of from the front, but you can only see the side of the house. Lloyd took these in the winter, as you can tell cos the trees are totally bare! If you peer really closely you can see the donkeys in the back field.

And finally this one shows the front of Darroch Cottage with The Acorn behind it. None of these photos show much of the farm - Lloyd will just have to go up again!

We love this house, it's our home.








And then there was the woolshed!

It used to look like this

then after a long time of waiting - it now looks like this!

It has a whole post all of its own
Here, where you can see the whole project and the finished article!