The Plan

Nearly everyone’s been asking, “When are we moving? What’s our plan?”

Ah, grasshopper, this is the million dollar question and we’ve been asking ourselves the very same. Phase I of the ‘radical life change’ plan is over – finding the land; now it’s time for Phase II – implementation. How do we go from big ideas to big reality?

The Plan warrants its own blog post – a thing to look back upon some time down the road to see if we’ve been able to implement accordingly.

Of course The Plan will evolve with time as we observe, gather information, do an emotional and financial check-in and see how we feel at the time. But, as of today, October 14, 2007, The Plan is as follows:

Short version: Do nothing drastic! What’s the hurry? Observe. Chill out. Enjoy. Baby steps.

A better articulated version:

There is no plan to move anywhere at this time. The Christchurch house will remain our primary residence and the Wainui property will be our ‘getaway’ retreat for the foreseeable future. We are quite entrenched and happy in Christchurch and it’d be crazy to uproot ourselves right now – we’re not emotionally or physically ready for that big of a shift.

And so we shall be in another ‘transitionary’ life phase for the next year or so. We have a vision to completely renovate the Christchurch property and subdivide it into two units, developing two eco-friendly, sustainable town houses – one of which we’d rent out (ideally to students attending University, conveniently located across the street) and the other which would become the city ‘getaway’ pad, becoming the secondary home to the primary country home. We’ll start talking with architects this month and start gathering information to see if our vision is feasible – both from a design sense and a financial sense. If all goes according to plan, then by this time next year we’ll move out of the Christchurch house, put half our stuff into storage, and move to Wainui full time.

We also have ideas brewing for the country place — the existing housing is not currently ideal for our needs – we need a lot more living space.  We want to build an eco-friendly dwelling on this property also which would become our ‘home’ and the existing farmhouse would become the guest quarters – for visitors, woofers, and/or paying guests. We want to create a sanctuary, a retreat, a place for people to come and spend time, away from daily urban life, a place to stimulate one’s creative juices, to live relatively simply, to co-create with the natural environment.

We have a lot of research to do regarding development options on the country property. We can’t rush into it, we need to be on the property for a little while to observe and to listen, to see where it makes sense to build. We need time to get to know the local community; to pass through the seasons; to see if we even like it. We’re hoping the upcoming year ahead, as we spend time there, will provide clarity and more knowledge.

In the end, a lot of this comes down to finances – can we afford to keep and develop both properties? We’re hoping we can; we’re planning for a revenue stream to generate from the Christchurch property and a small amount of income to come from various projects on the Wainui property.

Big ideas, big visions. That’s The Plan.

For those of you who like visuals, here’s my plan diagram:

Get it? It’s a spiral, constantly in motion. You start somewhere and move forward. Baby steps. We don’t know how long it will take. But at the center is your heart — and if your heart is beating with bliss or joy or contentment, then you’re ‘on’ plan – you’re doing the right thing for yourself, right now.