Another option is to move slightly up the coast but not all the way up to Kapiti ... we're right near Pauatahanui, on the eastern end of the Pauatahanui Inlet:
http://www.wises.co.nz/l/Porirua+City/Pauatahanui/ and the eastern end of Whitby is really lovely to live in and often has nice rentals.
It takes 15 mins to drive to Porirua station (more trains and a cheaper fare zone than the slightly closer Paremata station) and the express trains take, according to the train timetable anyway (!) 17 minutes. The great thing about where we are is that we're practically smack-bang in the middle, geographically-speaking, of the Wellington area, equidistant to most places, plus Transmission Gully is apparently going to intersect with the Pauatahanui roundabout, just down the road. SH58 takes you to the Hutt Valley and there's a choice of SH1 or the old SH1 - Paekakariki Hill Road - to take you up the coast.
The weather here is more in tune with Paraparaumu weather as we're sheltered from those nasty southerlies by Wellington.