Winter has come (inside)

Cold weather has come to Perth. Well, cold weather by Perth standards, anyway. The days cap at around 20C and the nights have gotten as low as 7C, though they are closer to 12C on average. What this really means is the house has become cold.

It started a few weeks ago. One Friday, we experienced a big rainstorm, the first in months of drought and it felt like a blessing. We awoke the next morning to cold. We were so cold in the house that we all dressed up in our thermals and we were still cold. Markus dug one of the space heaters out of the garage and set it up next to the kitchen table, but with expansive marble floors radiating cold in all directions, we didn't feel the heater at all unless we sat on it (which was attempted). He finally decided to take the girls out, given that it is often warmer outside in Perth winters because of the sun. He chased them around for a while before giving up, returning to the kitchen where I was tidying up from breakfast and was amazed to find it WARM. "What happened in here?" he demanded to know.

I had turned on the central heat.

In our two winters in an old Perth house, we had forgotten about this radical new technology of central heat. What a concept!

And oh, what instant warmth!

Still, we are left with the huge house dilemma of not wanting to pay to heat the entire place. The system here allows us to select six different areas to heat/cool or not. We are all fine with cold bedrooms (such great sleep!). Thus far, we only heat the kitchen/dining/playroom. The living room remains tricky, as it is open to the huge two-story entryway. Unless we heat the entire house, any heat in the living room goes immediately out and up into the void, leaving us to shiver our way through our nightly wind-down on the couch.

Last night, Markus came up with this particularly elegant solution:

And yes, he was indeed nice and toasty.