Do you like this house?

About five years ago we bought this house, In Glenbrook (a village near to where we live now).

It had six bedrooms, a large kitchen, a tandem double garage and a swimming pool.  However its main virtues were the fact that it stood on a 1000 square metre flat block of land, 50m from Glenbrook shops and restaurants, across from a public park and only 2-300m from the train station.

I trust you noticed the tense of those last few verbs, and I hope you didn’t like the house, because this is what it looks like today:
This is the start of a year-long process of rebuilding the house to our own liking.  It will be a four-bedroom, sandstone house with solar panels built into the roof tiles, water-conservation plans, double-glazing throughout, thermal efficiency, top-class insulation all round.  In many ways I accept that it is an incredible indulgence, but it should set us up well for our declining-mobility years!

I will provide instalments here as we go through the process.