Community/family vibe home for 1 person

One of our dinner parties

Oakfield Road Housing coop is looking for a new member!

A space is becoming available in our friendly, relaxing and nourishing intentional community in North London. We enjoy sharing yummy vegetarian food, supporting each other with personal/spiritual development, and working together on the garden and community projects.

We are offering a spacious double room with en-suite shower/toilet on the basement level.

Our lovely quiet household is in a ground floor/basement flat located within a 15 min walk of both Finsbury Park and Crouch End. The nearest station is Harringay train station (1 stop north of Finsbury Park). Central London is a 30 min cycle away.

The Community:

We’re like a family where we share our food and take on minor responsibilities such as cleaning and maintenance of communal areas. The space is often thought of as a healing space by members, who take time here to go through transformations in their lives. Although there is no formal structure to this, all the members are interested in personal development of different kinds and we often support each other with our healing process. We take time during our regular meetings to ‘check in’ and members meditate together on a semi regular basis. We also believe fun is important, and enjoy playing board games, doing music jams, and other silly activities that Equador (the house jester) brings us.

We all chip into a food kitty and buy healthy veggie food. We've recently saved a lot of money and waste through 'dumpster diving' - going out a few times a week to the local vegetable shops to see what treasures we can find round up. But this is always open to change, depending on what our members are comfortable with. People take it in turns to cook meals in the evening, which are often eaten for lunch the next day. There is no rota, it seems to work organically, with some people cooking more some weeks and some other weeks. The community is very much built on shared contribution, trust and a healthy 'give and take' of our skills and capacities.

We try and address any conflicts that come up in a healthy way, through open discussion and reflection. Two members trained in something called the 'Five Fields Framework’ for restoring connection and addressing conflict, but we are still in the process of fully integrating it into community life. We all have ups and downs, but the atmosphere is peaceful and we look after each other.

We try to have house meetings every 2 weeks which switch between social and business. We do our best to make these meetings a priority to attend.

We also have a house WhatsApp group which we use a lot.

The vibe in the house is quiet, friendly, family-like, healing energy. We are a social house, but definitely not a big party house.

Whilst the current cohort have occasionally let tidiness and even cleanliness occasionally slip because of work commitments, some creative flurry or indeed tiredness or lack of motivation its probably fair to say that some flexibility on your tidiness and cleanliness standards will be necessary in order to successfully live here be that slightly greater or lesser than current standards.

Current members:

Michael 61, our resident Irish Buddhist plumber, very handy! He’s the eldest member of the community both in age and time with us. ex-professional chef and the glue that holds the community together. Loves tea and cake, cinema and theatre and discussing current affairs.

Equador, 39 is a full-time entertainer of magic and bubbles. Into astral projection, creativity and finding the next best cure-all supplement or healing technology. Is often creating a crazy prop for an upcoming show and testing bubble liquids up the street. Loves going to the theatre and hosting home cinema nights.

Barnaby, 32 renewable energy engineer, director/founder of Dream Renewables charity that provides renewable energy education to residents of Ghana. He enjoys fixing bikes, cycling everywhere, prides himself on never buying new clothes, and can also be found juggling, tending to seedlings or running after balls.

Freya, 31 works at the Centre for Alternative Technology. She loves being outdoors, clumsily making things, growing and eating vegetables - is one of the house’s bin-diving front runners, and eats lettuces like they’re apples. She works with the Buddhafield team most years.

Freya and Barnaby fell in love at Oakfield and can sometimes be known as Frarnaby.

Please mention bumblebees in the first few lines of your message if you get in touch with us, this way we know you actually read the ad.

The space:

We have a lovely long garden which always needs green helping-hands. Shaded by beautiful mature trees, it struggles to get enough sunlight to grow veg, so we’ve gone for a ‘rewilding approach’. Green fingers are welcome. We have a balcony overlooking the garden, which catches the morning sun and where we often come together for weekly 'tea time' or general chats.

There are often people using the living room as a communal work space. Smoking is not allowed inside the house.

Our kitchen is filled with all the spices and teas in the universe, plus mod cons including Vitamix, water filter tap, washing machine and tumble dryer. Our living room is mostly plants and we have a 3-metre-wide projector for cosy film nights (we don't have a TV or a TV licence.)

Friends are welcome for dinner and to stay over in peoples rooms. Our community is open to the wider one we live in - we occasionally donate food to a local coop, we've built a mini book library at the front, members were part of XR for a few years together and we exchange tools, food, seeds, etc with our neighbours - in the summer we have hosted street parties and our house has been a key support for our local tree protection campaign.

Practicalities:

The room is available from 26th June 2024.
The rent is £585 PCM, bills are an additional £100 which includes water, gas, electric, wifi and cleaning equipment. The communal food kitty is £70 per month which may have to increase if we stop doing the bin diving. Deposit is 1 months rent.

If we invite you to move in, there is a 3 month period to see if we are a good fit for each other. After which you will be given a rolling contract which requires you to give 2 months notice.

It's a beautiful old Victorian house, which has its charms, but also its downsides. Noise from other rooms will transmit through the house. For example, your room is below Equador’s room and you will hear him moving about as floorboards creak. We are respectful to people's schedules and keep the noise down accordingly. It can also be chilly - the current cohort is mostly aligned by low impact values - from minimising food waste to forgoing central heating unless very cold. We appreciate however that new members might bring new values or strike a different balance between these values and comfort levels.

Get In Touch:

If you are interested in living with us, please get in touch and tell us a bit about yourself, what has drawn you to join our community - what are you looking for? what experience do you have of communal living? how will we fit together and what can you bring?

We are looking for someone willing to actively participate in community life - consensus decision making, supporting existing processes, turning up to meetings as well as taking initiative to improve the community. Knowing your way around an Excel spreadsheet would also be awesome.

Please bear in mind that we always get lots of responses and take new members joining us seriously. So please read the whole of this advert and respond accordingly.

Please note fees per month.
Deposit £585
Rent £585
Bills approximately £100 (this may increase a little, currently in review)
Community shared food £70