A bit of decor-um please?

I'm getting VERY excited about our slab pour (in 21 days time but who's counting?)and really don't have any interest in anything other than that beautiful home which has been such a wonderful distraction obsession.

So this is where I'm heading (for today at least) in the decor department...

Although we don't have any wall niches to fill with plantation shutters, we'll be using them on all front facing windows (thanks for the discussion Deb & Tonia)with roller blinds similar to the master bedroom image on all other windows. We'll take Deb's advice and leave the corner stacker doors to the alfresco bare (and hope like anything that we don't have a 2 storey directly behind us).

I know... too much time on my hands. But there's only so many times you can make a 1.5hr round trip to see that nothing has changed on your block. Speaking of which, check out this post from one of our bloggy friends in NSW, Tonia. I'm still laughing about it, but she's one seriously committed builder. HILARIOUS!

Fixed site costs = WINNER!!!

It was virtually a flip of the coin type decision to fix our site costs some months ago. We'd already had soil tests through Porter Davis which came back as M class, we had minimal fall (which is,as Janine says, "bugger all")so when Carlisle quoted us 10K for site costs, we were REALLY tempted to run the risk and not fix.

What we didn't know was there was an overlay on our land which I've posted about before, and we also didn't know that our slab would require some additional foundations in the form of 16 piers (which I now know are holes drilled down into stable ground and then filled with concrete for the slab to rest upon).  And, thanks to fixed site costs, we don't have to pay extra for the permits and additional requirements the overlay has brought with it OR the piers.  WINNER!!

I'm completely fascinated by this process.  Hope I can be there on slab pour day... January 20... 23 more sleeps!!!!!

On the street (near) where we live

I took a few (iphone) snapshots of some local gardens on our evening walk with the furkids tonight...

I love the deck that stretches all the way to the footpath, and the way they've created levels through the use of rock, on what is a pretty much flat block.

They've only used ground covers in front of the rocks, and small shrubs behind, which also look cool against the stacked stone and beige rendered walls.

They've used river pebbles in places too - it all blends in beautifully - LOVE it.

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The pics don't do this one justice.  Their driveway is plain, charcoal concrete, but they've edged it with random slate.  The right hand image is a touch too jungle-like for me, but through the trees you can just get a glimpse of a custom rust-finish gate.  I'll try to zoom in on it...

I don't know if it would keep our crazy hounds enclosed, but I might just have to look into getting something similar.  Dare we break the horizontal merbau side gate trend???

I felt like such a stalker snapping away through the streets.  Would you be flattered or sus of a random taking pics of YOUR house??????

Merry Christmas...

...from Reinsey & Loz. Wishing you and yours a safe and festive holiday season.

xxx

Just scraped in...

... before Christmas shutdown.

That's the garage right in front, porch to the left and alfresco aaaaalllllll the way back there near the fence.  It's soooo much bigger than we imagined now that we can see it's footprint on the block.

We had a lovely few hours yesterday in Kylie's gorgeous home with fellow neighbors Janine, David & Megs.  Lots of food, even more chatter.  The Avenue is going to be such a wonderful place to live.

Can't wait!

Unbelievable!!!!!

This is 3 day old news now, but I've been operating under a head-in-the-sand mentality and quite frankly, I just don't want to deal with it.

Loz recently started a new job - 6 weeks ago to be exact - and everything appeared on the surface to be going well...

The monthly pay was due to hit our account on the 14th (you can see where this is going, can't you...) and here we are on the 19th and N O T H I N G. Excuses have been made about company restructures, funds being deposited into wrong accounts, Singapore investors, blah blah blah.

Tomorrow, the business will be placed under the hands of an administrator. It's a start-up company with no assets to be sold, and the chances of December's wage coming through are pretty slim. And with little chance of trading through until their concept is actually income producing, Loz is more than likely unemployed.
I know people say building is stressful, but some of the speed bumps we've faced are just unbelievable, and have me questioning whether this move is meant to be???

I'm trying to look for positives... we have each other (awwwwwwww), which means more than a house ever will, and our kids are all happy and healthy :) Loz WILL find work, but it's a crappy time of year to be looking.

Soooooo if anyone out there in blog land knows of a company (of stable trading history!!!) who is looking for a very competent governance/compliance/risk manager (and a REALLY nice guy), could they PLEASE let us know???

Ahhh... you've gotta laugh :)

What would the "karma fairy" think?

True to their word, today Carlisle delivered us final plans and a final version of our colour selections to sign off prior to construction.  But... I noticed a little something that shouldn't still be in the colour selections as we had to remove it (over-spend) from the tender.  I'm talking about my beautiful soft close pot drawers that were deleted begrudgingly, and now here they are, appearing on that selection.

So... to make sure I stay sweet with the "karma fairy" do I bring this up now, or sign and forever enjoy FREE soft closing drawers???

What would you do??

Toodle Loo

Last week I thought I would surely die from excitement when we made the "tap discovery".  But to come around that sweeping bend on Mountainview Boulevard and think there may be a little something extra on our block... but maybe it's on next door's block... no... wait... L  OOO  ZZZZ  , we've got a dunny!!!!!
(How this man puts up with me I have no idea)
We've done a bit of builders dunny analysis and have detected some patterns (LOL)
Porter Davis use AIM branded dunnies, Carlisle use Eagle.  So based on this logic our back neighbor is building with PD.  But... scandal... someone else on our road has broken the PD condition too coz their dunny is not AIM.  Interesting name for a bathroom appliance used by males who are usually of dubious aim!

Activity central on Fieldstone today.  Slabs, fences, girlfriends delivering pizza to the workers (?) too exciting!!!!!!!

The big tick

It's been a HUGE week in the L&R household.

1.  Finance approval has finally been signed off.  We had to re-mortgage our current house to clear some equity, but still got slugged with a little mortgage insurance. (won't bore you with the details)

2.  Land loan repayment was deducted from a random account the bank set up.  The letter advising us of the repayment amount, frequency and payment method arrived this week.  As did a default fine due to insufficient funds in the random account.  Hmmm.... we'll fight this one!  Hard to transfer money when you don't know when its due, or how much to pay, or which account to transfer it into.  Ya gotta love banks!  What I don't love though is getting an account balance.  All those savings...gone...just like that!

3.  We're still coming down from our tap high.  Totally didn't expect that!

4.  Developer approval is through with those few minor changes to the garage included.

5.  Town planning permit has been applied for.  And this is all we're waiting on now for a site start.

6.  Final final plans are being prepared as I write, and we should have these early next week for sign off.

7.  We've been working like Trojans on our current house coz "Cat" is coming to view it on Sunday. New front door is being installed tomorrow.  Just have to work out how to get Loz's old 1.8m long fish tank OUT of the house by Sunday.  Without using a saw or match :)

This is all pretty intense, at a busy time of year, when work is also full on.  It would be nice to have just one element settled... house sold, permit granted, new house started.  I'd prefer the first option, but any of the 3 would do!!!

Take care,

Branching out

I have some strange ideas sometimes (mostly coz I spend more time than I actually have daydreaming about our house-to-be).  My latest whim is for potted bare branches in the entry hallway niche.

Here's the niche...

And here's what I'm thinking...

The idea being to change the decorations on the tree depending on what's going on.

Christmas;

Easter;

Spring;

Winter;

Autumn;

Special occasion;
(like a wedding - hint hint Loz)

Hands up everyone who thinks I need to get a life...???

This week's grateful... generations!

 Four generations of crazy!

 I reckon I'm incredibly lucky... I've still got my Mum AND my Nan.  And that girl of mine, I could write 28 posts just on her alone.  She's now the age I was when I had her, and the age Mum was when she had me, so in some ways, this photo is a 21 year forecast of our lives.  

And as I'm getting older, I can see more and more of my Mum in myself, both in appearance, mannerisms, likes and dislikes.  Mum has built 2 houses, including their current home about 24 years ago, which she physically built from the ground up.  I'm completely in awe of this amazing woman - probably don't tell her that often enough though!

My Nan, who has recently had her 85th birthday, is still a ripper.  She lives independently, still gets out in her garden, goes to aqua exercise classes every few days, and still is mad for her beloved Collingwood.  She would have loved to have built a house, but never had the opportunity, so this one's for you Nan!

So... to the women responsible for making me the determined, resourceful individual that I am, I will forever be grateful.

This post is part of maxabella's "blog hop", and I quite enjoy reading about what others are grateful for.  Puts a :) on my dial it does!

Thanks for reading,

I'd TAP that!!!!

Yes my friends, we are the proud owners of 2 beautiful taps... 1 normal & 1 recycled. (thanks for posing Loz!)

You can also see a couple of stage 11 site starts in the background.

Anyway - back to the taps... Does this mean that we've got council approval, that Carlisle have scheduled us into their work-flows, or does it just mean that some random came and put 2 taps on our block???

Can't believe how excited I was (and still am a few hours later) OVER TAPS.

Extreme tap close up - ha ha

Drain-oh!

 

We've just found out (courtesy of dreamer_kerry via the Home One Forum - thank you Kerry) that we have a planning overlay on our land.  On the map above, taken from the planning department website there's a thick blue line running along the top of the estate and then diagonally through the eastern end.  I'm pretty sure this was originally a narrow agricultural run-off, as we had a slight ditch running through our land on this same angle.

Kerry is building with PD, and they have informed her that a special town planning permit must be applied for which will take around 3 months to come through.  We've checked with our builder, Carlisle, and they don't believe it's going to be a hold up, but they'll get back to us later today or tomorrow with more info.

So basically, my reason for this post is to see if anyone else on the estate has been affected and to alert those who may be affected of the possibility of more delays.  If anyone has encountered a similar issue and would like to share the results, I'm sure there'd be a few of us anxious to hear about it.

Take care,

Cure for Monday-itis

Our office air-conditioning is about as effective as the Myki ticketing system today.  It's really hot in here, it's Monday, and I'm not a happy camper!  So I found this....  A foolproof method of finding your ultimate career.  Click here to solve that unanswerable question "what will I be when I grow up"?

It's okay - you can thank me later.  Right now I'm off to find an office with aircon that works!!!!!

Bittersweet Symphony

It's funny the way things work.  Friday evening I caught up with some friends from my past workplace - I don't miss the job, but I sure do miss my old "team".  One of the girls that I employed there (she and I go waaaay back, and I actually coached her in Under 12's more than 10 years ago) is looking to buy a house in our area.  We've sent her through a few pics and they are really keen to come and have a good look.
This is where the bittersweet thing comes in.  I REALLY love my house.  It's Loz's and my first house together and we've built a life together here.  Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited about the life we're leaving here for (and the wonderful people we've met in the process) but there's just a hint of sadness today as I begin to mentally separate from our "home".

Ironically, the butterfly on the wall was a gift from my old work people, lovingly selected by "Cat" our potential home buyer.  I would love to see this place go to someone who I know would love it right back.  So Cat, if you do end up buying our little house, I hope you'll be as happy in it as we have been over the past few years. xx

Lucky me

One of the non-building blogs I make time for belongs to the delightful Maxabella.  She's a little bit quirky, creative and upbeat.  But the nicest thing about it is the regular Saturday post, "this week I'm grateful for...".  I can raise my hand as guilty when it comes to rushing through life and not celebrating little successes and not always acknowledging those day to day things that make my life pretty darned comfortable, if not deliriously joyful.
So this Saturday I'm going to share three things I'm grateful for...
1 :: the internet.  For all the obvious reasons, but mostly for providing a means of connecting with fellow Avenuers and the community that's being built as a result.
2 :: the man.  For his left-of-centre sense of humour, cheeky smiling, eagles t-shirt wearing, duck face when he's typing, decor-shopping, colour co-ordinating, non-drawer closing, significant other supporting,  personality.
3 :: the furkids.  And their verging on hysterical greeting when we get home.  Their face licks to wake us up and remind us it's time for their breakfast - at 6am.  Their goofyness, predictability and unconditional worship.

What's made you grateful this past week?

300 days

It took exactly 300 days from initial purchase, but we are now officially LAND OWNERS!!!!!

Come on in

...and make yourself at home.

Today I thought I'd take you on a little tour of our display home.

 The entry.  Our spunky hall table will sit beautifully right about here.

From the dining room looking toward the entry.  Kitchen on the left, library on the right.

Library through to kitchen, then to alfresco via the bi-folds (we've got sliding stackers instead)

And back the other way.  Library = left, family room = right

Taking in the dining room as well

 

And from the family room, through dining to alfresco

Yummy yummy kitchen!!!!!

I was already sold before the kitchen revealed itself - and then I was completely blown away.

What was the room or the moment that made you sure your house was THE ONE?