We went to an interesting place today: a huge yard with second-hand houses. They buy old houses, transport them to their yard then on-sell them to house-hunters like us. I’ve found a gorgeous old house that I want to buy. We just need a block of land to plonk it on. Here it is – http://www.cwbr.co.nz/buildings-for-sale/63-vintage-glamor-property-no-11036.html It’s recycling on a different scale.
Earlier this week we had a family outing to MOTAT (MOTAT = Museum of Transport and Trade). We saw a motorcycle that was once owned by Helen Clark (former Prime Minister of New Zealand):
A tram that once belonged to the city of Melbourne:
Elizabeth had fun in a vintage pedal car:
There was also a mirror maze, some heritage homes, lots of trains and vintage cars and an interactive discovery room for children. The discovery room included an earthquake simulator which I decided to discourage Daniel from trying. However while we were there a group of school children came in and immediately jumped on the earthquake simulator as though it was a ride and there was much hysterical laughing. Daniel was quite entertained by this which was nice as it provided a new angle on earthquakes for him and a more light-hearted one at that.
rachel.blog 
Lovely photos of the children, Rachel. Elizabeth looks to be a fearless driver in the making.Concerning houses, perhaps you could embrace "The Tiny House Movement" à la G.B.Shaw's writing house or Walden Cottage? Some nice examples on these sites, http://www.innermosthouse.com and http://www.mekaworld.com. The latter ship anywhere in the world but you'll just have to hope the U.S. dollar declines a bit further compared with your dollar.Books on the subject include, Sarah Susanka's "Not So Big House" and "Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways" by Debra Prinzing.
I'm all for tiny houses. They're certainly much easier to heat and require less vacuuming.
Perhaps one could be used as a study in the garden, say cleverhomes.net or loftcube.net, just to add a few more to the collection of little prefabs which can be shipped to your door.
That's a really cute house! Have you done any research to find out how well these second-hand houses 'transplant' onto new blocks and what the costs are? Looks as though you had a lovely day with the kids. Elizabeth looks pretty determined about something in that car. Is she trying to stop Daniel from getting in? B
A little research. We've been told to expect to pay another $20,000 on top of the cost of the house and land to connect all the utilities. We're not pursuing this option with too much enthusiasm but it is another option if we can't find anything. The biggest problem is finding available land that's suitable. It needs to be fairly flat and have road frontage. We're looking at rentals as well.