Who would have thought

We went to see the house 2 days ago and the pavers where still sitting there doing nothing :( But then i realised i can't see in my windows!! All the window treatments were hung and all of carpets had been put down, i though for sure everyone would have knocked off for Christmas already.

So you can imagine i was surprised even further when we went up today and all the paving had been done the gutters and down pipes were painted already and the painters were there doing all the external render painting. So impressed. Did i mention i was impressed

All that's left is the shower screens and mirrors to be fitted and our PC inspection is being booked for the first week of January.

So much for the house not being done til mid Feb !!

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone.

Getting there

Well i have no picture cause i can't get in and keep missing the tradies out there but i can peer in through the windows. The pavers have been delivered for the driveway and alfresco area. All of the internal tiling has been finished the electrician has been and finished his work, the oven and cook top are fitted, the hot water system is in and all gas work is connected, the doors have been routed and the kitchen and bathroom sinks are in and so is the toilet. Well that's a really long sentence.

So all that is left to do is: external painting, floor coverings, window furnishings, door handles, shower screens, bathroom mirrors and a final clean up before practical completion inspection, but as its the week before Christmas i don't expect to see much change until after new years.

Almost there almost there :)

I can't get in :(

Well i went to the house to see how the plastering was going today, and found i couldn't get in. Doors and windows had appeared from nowhere. The plastering was finished the internal doors were hung shelves and rails were in, the cabinets, toilets, fixtures, bathtubs and bench tops had all been delivered. A nice ceiling man showed up as i was about to leave and let me inside to look. I even had towel rails and toilet roll holders that had been mounted to the walls !!!! So small yet so exciting. The ceiling man said they were coming tomorrow to fix a couple of small things, then sand and paint the ceilings and cornices. All this means only 1 thing ................................................ they will want more money soon.

Cement and plaster

Well the walls are all cemented and plastered up. The front of the house has also been rendered. Next Week will see the doors and windows go on and lock up by Wednesday. Then cabinets and fixtures will go and by then end of the week. Almost there !!!! Well sort of. At least it looks like a house now :)

On to the next bit

Well the cement rendering on the internal walls is all done, although they did cement straight over a couple of my power points, but not hard to fix, just scrape out the cement. So it will be ceiling and windows this week and add a door then we're all locked up.

Come on built faster we want to move in already :)

Roof is on

The roof and gutters and downpipes and flumes and whirly birds are on. Well they were actually on a week ago i/ve just not gotten around to updating the blog. The walls are going to be cement rendered this week then windows ceiling plastering and wall plastering to follow alltopped off with a front door, then we are at lock up. YAY!!!

Wire me up

Well not much exciting, the electrical prewiring is done, not going to post pics cause we all know that that looks like. The coloubond should go on next week and the windows, yay.

the roof ther roof

well after a weeks delay for what ever reason (i'm sure they have a good reason) they worked today like little speedy gonzalis and started this is what we have so far.

Quickie

Just a quick update. The brick work was completed on the 10th and the roof guys are starting on Friday (which would be tomorrow), and the bank has respectfully requested their $44, 000 worth of brick money. I was hoping that they were going to forget about it. Oh well. More pics when the roof is on.

nearly there

Just a few photos of the bricks going up there is only the side of the garage walls, the theatre walls and the front walls to go. I love my WIR. Told they will be all done by the end of the week. Hope there are a few spare bricks for the letterbox :)

Let the rain stop

Well we have done nothing but wish that the rain would stop for the last 3 weeks (bad i know we need the rain) and finally it has, well not completely stopped but enough for the nice brickies to turn up and start doing some work yay!!!

this is what they build houses with

With all the stuff with the power going on we didn't get a chance to go and look at our bricks until yesterday so here they are. How excited am i all we need is for the rain to go away so those marvelous and messy brickies can do some work :)

Uh Oh

Got a call from our construction manager today - it turns out that western power hasn't finished connection in the area we are building and won't until late August . AAAARRRRGH. Meaning we now have to pay for a generator fro the brickies to have access to power and possibly the roof carpenters as well. They are putting it in as a provisional cost of $2000 but say they only end up normally costing $500-600. Payable at the end of construction but we may have earthworks money left to cover it. Not happy :(

Concrete Me

Went up for a visit today and amazingly the slab was laid on time. Exactly when they said it would be. I'm surprised to date that things are happening on time at the moment since i keep hearing some peoples horror stories. I know it early but still nothing has gone wrong to date. As you can see below this is our house, 4th in the street to have the slab down!!!

More work on Friday to have some drains, power, water etc connected, excess sand and a clean up on Tuesday and brick are meant to be delivered next Thursday so well see how we go.

Apologies for the not so good quality of the photos only had the mobile phone camera with us. I forgot the digital (who does that when they are building a house???)

This is me and my partner. You have already met the dog :) thats all for now

Ready set go !!!

Well sine the last post the have started the earthworks, given us some pipes and plastic as well as some footings and the slab goes down on Monday if all goes according to plan. Well that all for now . . . . . so excited to see where our money is actually going.

Oh and we are very excited that we have gotten our water rates bill when the house doesn't even have water :)

It's starting

Got a phone call at 8.30am this morning. Bit early but was happy to get it. It was our Building Liason Officer. It all starts on Thursday.

I'm so excited. So was the other half. . . . . . . . when he woke up a few hours later (night shift). . . . . . until then he was more interested in sleeping. No if the rain would just stop for a few days.

Three little words . . .

Land has settled

It settled on time and we even got some money back at settlement. How good is that!

Stuff and settlement

Well pre start interview is done and dusted, i feel so much better knowing that that it it, i can sleep now and not dream about things i want/might want to change anymore. ITS TO LATE NOW!

Settlement for the land is booked for the 15th June and we just found out that we get a voucher for $500 to buy a bicycle with from the estate we are building - all part of the healthy lifestyle of the village. I think the other half will get more use out of it that me so he can have 2 bicycles.

We have done up our design for our back yard that we have decided to do ourselves and just pricing up how much we need to save for it now. Not as bad as we thought it would be $$$ wise so far.

This is the colour of the splashback that we are going to put in in the kitchen not our kitchen but you get the idea. Well that all for now until settlement and building permits decide to come through.

Money, Paper and other things

Formal approval on paper is finally in our hands, not that it wasn't going to be but its much nicer knowing all of the things you have been picking you can now actually have. We got the right land layout with our house on it to add to the building plans. We we want the tiles to be in the bathroom exactly has now been sorted and thats about it for now.

Final prestart interview to sign last of the papers has been pushed back to next thursday due to a sad event.

thats all for now.

Hiccup number 1 (only a little one though)

Well this is the first thing that has gone wrong but im not even sure if you can call it wrong. Got the final building plans etc etc today except i wasn't aware that we were building in a suburb 30km from where we bought our block of land, or on a smaller block than ours or on a corner for that matter. It was news to my other half as well. But if that is the worst thing that goes wrong during this building process is that i get someone elses soil testings and house layout i will be one happy woman. :)

Tiles, tiles, more tiles, oh and some taps

Well the first tile place was a quick visit. Not much there that we liked and that was included as standard. The second was great, we picked the tiles and then i had a dilema because i thought something was not going to match so after torchering my partner for 45 minutes in the shop i decided i needed to sleep on it and we would go back the next day. Well he went to work that morning and i though i'll just go and look at the tiles at the 3rd tile shop. Bad idea, really bad idea. By the time i had left i had changed my mind on the colour of the tiles for the bathrooms . . . . again. So down we went in the afternoon when he came home and finally came up with these.

Top tile above vanity and in the shoer will run vertical as a feature strip instead of horizontal around the top. These for the floor, they look more black in the photo, but they are a charcoal colour with a matt finish not shiny, i have mentioned that me photography skills are not the best :) And of course everone knows what a white tile looks like, they will be in the shower recess. The charcoal tiles will also run up the bath sides and around the top instead of the plain white tiles, and be used in the laundry and the W/C.

Bath Taps

Shower Heads

Shower Mixers

Toilet Roll Holder

Towel Rack

Spare Toilet Roll Holder

So wednesday we are off to do our Pre start and sign the last, well almost the last piece of paper we should have to sign, then just wait for council approvals, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later, taking about 5 - 7 weeks in the shire we are building in at the moment. Finger crossed everything goes ok.

A little bit for this and a little bit for that

Well we picked up our home file to start selecting items that had to be done before our pre start meeting and to look at other things and options that we want to upgrade.

These are the colours for the kitchen *Ash Dust for the bench tops and Expresso for the cupboards, both from Laminex. The splash back will be the Cosmic Dust (from Formica) from bench to where the overhead cupboards start. The handles are chrome.

The bathroom and ensuite will have the same colours just in slightly different layouts. The benches are Ebony Marble and the cupboards are Polar white which has a slight pearl to it, looks so nice when the light hits it. (both from Laminex again). Handles will be the same as the kitchen ones, will post picture when i have them. Tiles are still in the final throws of being picked, whe have the colours just need to find those allusive perfect feature tiles. So will update you when we find them.

My appologies for the poor photograpy skills some of the colours look a bit darker than they are.

Off to the carpet man tomorrow to pick the floorboards and the carpet!!! Yay

Were getting the money

Well heard back from the money man Arin. And we have been given our pre approval !!
Yay. I never thought that i would be so happy about embedding myself into such a large amount of debt. But we just keep remingding ourselves of all the usual things that people say to make themselves feel better. You know:

Its better than rent,
It will be fun,
Its and investment,
I could have spent more,
It's not that much,
REALLY IT"S NOT!

So Saturday it off to sort out the contacts and get our building file. Arguments over tiles and colours not far away :)

Did i mention i'm excited!

This is the house with a few small tweeks !

Well this is the house plan that we have decided on. Its just the right size for us and just the right price for what we are willing to sign our lives away to :)

We got a garage instead of the carport, the shower to the ensuite is a double and the vanity will be extended from wall to wall with double basins - apparently i take up most of the room so this was the other halfs idea, the theatre we have had bricked off with a double door, more cupboards to the kitchen (cause you can never have enough! And a few other small tweeks. So thats what we want changed and the costing done. Now we go and give all our paperwork to the nice man at the credit union. Fingers crossed

It was thought out !

Well it may not have been the most thought out plan but i was a plan off sorts. We were looking a building and then just found ourselves sitting in the builders office and before we knew it we had made another appointment to come back when we had pick the plan we wanted to work with.

Oh did i mention that we decided on a block of land that day and went the next to put the deposit on it. We did eventually look at it right before we went and paid the deposit :)

Its only 547m2 but since this will be our first house we are happy with that. After all its only the 2 of us and Bronson