Detailed accounts of other people's home renovations are much like updates on a newborn baby's development. Fascinating to those relating the story, and snore inducing to those on the receiving end. This is true no matter how eloquent the story teller. Hilarious accounts of birds nesting in guttering and threatening to occupy the house, are not actually hilarious. In fact, home renovation threatens to turn the wittiest columnist into a crashing bore.

With that in mind, I should warn that this post is about renovating our home. Once this is out of my system, I will endeavour to only post something on the topic if it is pertinent to world peace talks or solutions to the cryptic.

We moved into our 1920s bungalow a few years ago, champing at the bit to complete a home renovation that the previous owners had begun. But we ended up doing nothing - due to a new baby, then another baby, mixed in with a dollop of idleness. But doing nothing is starting to get painful. Our kitchen needs to be scrapped. It has accumulated years of grime and is some home handy man disaster from god knows when - several different decades I suspect. The oven is full of carbonised food leftovers that didn't budge when they had their final eviction notice served by a crack oven cleaning professional last year. The fridge covers holes in the floor that are the right size for rats, big, grey, twitching and hungry. The pantry shelves camber towards the floor, so food must be placed as deep into the cupboard as possible, lest we get taken out by a falling can.

It got too much even for these lazy bones. I contacted an architecture practice. So far, after one meeting with two people, we have gone from plans to replace and relocate the kitchen, to plans to knock out the large extension and garaging; extend the house back; create a new room; move the laundry; replace a bedroom with part of a new garage; and create some kind of outdoors dining oasis. Not forgetting, of course, the new kitchen. Oh fuck.

I am particularly enthused about the potential to go carbon neutral. We can allow for solar panels, but won't install them until a cheaper product that is made more efficiently is available here. Our architects feed back to the grid from their own home - that would be brilliant. Grey water - rainwater collection for laundry and toilets - is also on the 'nice to have' list.

An exellent book on the topic is Sustainable Home, written by a green architect from Sydney, Michael Mobbs. In the late nineties he converted his Victorian terrace house in Chippendale into an eco-idyll. He not only feeds back to the grid and collects rainwater, but also treats sewage on site. This sounds disgusting, but read the book and you will be turned on to the idea. I am a little curious about doing the same here, but the architects tell us that the Auckland City Council is not interested - yet. Mobbs says that testing has proved the treated waste water to be potable. I am sure this is true, but I doubt I would be offering it as an aperitif at my house - "sparkling shit water, anyone?".

It is astounding to think Mobbs manages all this in a dwelling that is not stand-alone. From what I can tell on his website, all is going well over a decade on.

Now I have dreams swimming through my head of a vegie patch and greenhouse, fertilised by our worm farm and a bokashi. The rats could feast like kings and not even have to come into the house.

The hippie home renovation spiel has been brought up and I am feeling much better now, thank you very much.