We moved into 51 Wood Street in Manly 6 days ago! This house is beautiful, and ultra modern: stainless steel countertops, automatic everything, and top-of-the line appliances that are lost on us. The house itself is over 100 years old, but the interior is brand new.This house is way too grown up and nice for us, but somehow we convinced them to let us live here, and with a dog! Perhaps they have questionable intelligence.
Our airfreight arrived the afternoon we moved in and was to graduate us from living out of suitcases, which we’ve been doing since Dec 20th, to camping, or Bedouin living. Our airfreight consisted of kitchen items, minus large bowls, knives, and casserole dishes – I’m guessing those are still crossing the Pacific - work clothes for Mark, a few toys and books, the double BOB stroller, the boys’ bikes, and aerobeds.
Mark and I have been looking forward to our aerobed since sleeping on an uncomfortable, lumpy mattress at the temp apartment left us tossing and turning all night. Mark bought a special adapter and converter to use on our US items that needed electricity; namely the aerobeds. He didn’t voice it at the time, but it turns out Mark was a bit nervous about using the converter on the aerobed. I was thinking, “No worries, it’ll just blow up, it just needs air, how hard can that be?” Well after the plug sparked and the lights on the aerobed went dead, it did in fact BLOW up, and not the way we wanted it to. It was 7pm and we knew we were in for more Bedouin living than was comfortable. Yes, we had to sleep on the floor. Even while travelling through Europe in the sketchiest of hostels I never had to sleep on the floor, it was more like sharing a mattress on the floor. Nope, it was floor sleeping for us. Now the challenge would be where to get an aerobed the next day since it was also Mark’s first day of work, and yours truly was still not ready to drive. I’m a kept woman because I can’t drive my boys and self! My fears about driving run beyond turning the windshield wipers on instead of the turn signals, I’m pretty sure I’m going to sideswipe a car. That’ll be another post…
The yard at 51 Wood is lush, manicured, full of plants and flowers that I have no idea about, and most importantly, well maintained. When we found out the gardening and yard maintenance was included in our rent I’m pretty sure I saw Mark do the happy dance in his head. Another thing that is maintained is the built in gas BBQ and the pool. Happy dance again! The pool has an automatic cover that rolls out and in by the turn of a knob. The boys fight over opening and closing the pool, luckily, there are 2 functions: opening and closing, and 2 boys; I knew we didn’t have more kids for a reason. Really, this house has so many buttons one can push the boys are going ballistic. All of the blinds in the bedrooms roll up and down by the push of a button, and those buttons happen to be on remotes! Imagine the utter elation of my boys, “Remotes in EACH room that make something work automatically?!” It’s almost too much for them to handle, as they end up fighting over who can push the button. There is also a garage, with a garage opener, again more fighting about who gets to open the garage. Mark and I have never lived in a house together that has a garage; AGAIN, this house is too grown up for us. There is also a storage space, which is where I saw my first scary spider so it is now called the spider room.
The appliances in our house are Miele. There is a binder the owner compiled with the owner’s manuals for each appliance and we’ve been glued to each manual because the appliances are way smarter than us. The manual we’ve been wedded to is the stove manual, or excuse me, the induction hob manual. It’s a ceramic cooktop, which I wasn’t thrilled about because I prefer gas, and I couldn’t even turn it on, hence being wedded to the manual. It turns out - after finding out the hard way - that you need special pans for this “hob.” Scene, it’s 6pm and the boys are melting, needing to eat and sleep. I throw some water in one of my pots that has journeyed long and hard from CA, put it on the hob and try to turn on the stove only to find out all pots and pans have to be magnetic in order to work on this stove. That night the boys ate avocado, garlic bread, hard-boiled eggs, and carrots with hummus. Turns out, the owner provided some pots and pans that work on this stove but were tucked away in a drawer. Guess I’ll put my pots and pans in the spider room.
As I mentioned, our yard is lush with tall trees in ours and the neighboring yards. Living in those trees are some crazy ass birds that make all kinds of noise. We were awoken at 5:30am on our first morning - confused and pissed after having slept on the floor - by a kookaburra laughing his ass off, “Hey mofo’s welcome to Australia suckas!” If you’ve never heard what a kookaburra sounds like, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0ZbykXlg6Q
In addition to kookaburras laughing freely in our trees, there are white cockatoos flying around aimlessly screeching. These are birds that are kept in cages as pets in the US, here they sit on a tree branch or fence post - I feel as if I’m living in the rain forest!
After having an informative walk-through with the owner, we found out the amazing history of this house. The house was built around the turn of the century for the Mayor of Manly. It changed hands many times over since then, but the woman who owns it now, our landlord Sharyn, bought it 12 years ago and turned it into a backpackers hostel. There were 18 backpacker rooms throughout the house. She didn’t go into too much detail, but rolled her eyes and said it had to be gutted after that and there was a major asbestos problem that needed to be addressed. I didn’t inquire further although I wanted to. It took her 3 years to renovate this house due to battles with the Manly city council and permit issues; she said she was either stupid, or the most persistent person ever. She walked me through the house and told me what was original and what had been restored. The glass windows around the front door are original and the window directly above the door reads Ashbourne, which was the name of the house.
There are 3 other doors in the house with similar glass windows that she had commissioned to look just like the originals and said there is only one man in all of Australia who does that kind of work. Again, I’m thinking, “And you’re letting US live here?!” I just smiled and showed my deep appreciation for the beautiful craftsmanship, as I set my cup down on the box we are using for our dining room table.
When Mark and I first looked at this house we had seen so many crappy houses that we were blown away by the cleanliness, modern features, location, and yard that we didn’t look at the fine details of the house. Now that we’re living here we realize it’s far more amazing than we first saw. Hopefully we can fill it with some furniture soon, as the Bedouin lifestyle is not for me. Sometimes I think about our "stuff," in a container, on a ship, crossing the Pacific. What stories our "stuff" will be able to tell about its journey! Just like I wonder what stories this house has to tell about its journey of housing different decades of people. Hmmmm...
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