The Garden Gnomes have been working hard

Our home has been finished for a few months now and we have loved every bit of the moving process and making this house or home. What lacked was looking outside the windows or when rolling up to the house. The outside looked like a mudpile. Can't think of anything worse when in a brand new home having to trample through ankle deep mud after a down pour of rain!

So with our frustrations growing by day, especially with the amount of rain we have had in previous months, we pushed our garden gnomes (the landscapers) to get our mudpit to turn into a luscious green scape that both looks good from most windows and give the street appeal we were after. I think they succeeded.

We now have a backyard with growing screen across the back and a nice big, flat area for our little puppy to run circles on, as well as a nice area to overlook while alfrescoing. Connecting this down the side of the house is the extension of the charcoal coloured concrete driveway. Either side of the driveway has a gardenbed full of Cordalines and hedge plants. The gardenbed infront of the house is raised on a curving retaining wall lined with charcoal masonry bricks. Our nice green shademaster buffalo grass covers the rest of the areas that were once brown sludge commonly known as dirt.

Rolling home from work now is quite the pleasure, seeing new shoots of growth on the hedge plants, seeing the grass grow just slightly more than the day before. The knowledge that the following weekend, an hour or two will need to be spend in carefully maintaining the area to look crisp and pristine then enjoying a beer after it while giving it a good water (not that it needs to happen often with this rain).

Welcome! Let me show you around!

Fancy having you knock on our door on this fine sunny afternoon! Well, why don't I show you around while your here hey?

To your immediate left is our main bedroom (With walkin and ensuite)....

Back out to the hall way and up a bit on your left, our theatre room...

Coming out of the theatre room is the kitchen / living / dining open plan room....

Don't mind our puppy, she's just enjoying her bone in one of her favourite places.

Now down into the hallway to the remaining bedrooms and to you left, our 2nd bedroom...

Leaving that, heading up the hallway and on your right, the main bathroom...

Backing out of there and back up the hallway and to your left, the study (complete with the man running the show)...

And finally back out of that man cave and into the last bedroom at the end of the hall (still a work in progress)...

And that my friend is about the extent of it. Landscaping is currently in progress and will be shown here once completed and we still need to install some light about the place, downlights in the living area and in the entry, exterior lights, and some feature lights in a couple of the rooms.

I hope you all had a great christmas...

And have a fantastic new year! I'll be sure to have a nice cold beer here waiting for you next time you come!

Thanks for comin!

Open says me!

WELL, what a day, what a week! It was certainly a push to get to this point, but lets start at the beginning shall we? Start of the week consisted of getting the builder to actually confirm a walkthrough date and time so we could get time off work from our bosses. A struggle in itself of course. This wasn't set in stone until wednesday afternoon. In the mean time, bugging the builder for the final progress payment invoice to be able to give to the bank to get them moving. Again, this didn't get to me until wednesday, after many emails and phone calls requesting it and sorting out loose ends with the builder. Then dealing with the bank to sort out all the paperwork that they needed, going through all the checklists for them to be able to release the funds. Told that this probably wont happen until early next week.

BUT of course this didn't fly with me. With walkthrough on Friday (today), I was determined to also settle on the same day, so I got to work. Talking with the builder to make sure all was good on the house on walk through day to have it to a standard that would allow us to handover also on the same day could be described as interesting, however, that description just doesn't cut it. With the seed in their minds set that we were going to hand over today, I got to work on the bank. Pushing the point that I wanted handover today, The bank needed to organise the valuer to value the property to give the go ahead to release the documents, the task of giving all the documentation the bank needed from us to do so, certificate of currency, authorisation from us to release funds as well as additional credits to specific accounts, and council approvals. Wouldn't say that this was a walk in the park the day before handover.

Friday morning, 9am, outside our house that was about to become our home. Checklist for the day:

1. Walk through and pick the crap out of it. Check.
2. Confirm with bank that I successfully pushed and a bank cheque would be waiting at the bank. Check.
3. Go to bank and pickup the cheque. Check but this was not without problems in itself. It just had to be the day that they had a problem with their system and that it wouldn't let them print the cheque out, when it was only 30 minutes until our appointment with the builder for settlement... which was 40 minutes away.
4. Arrive at Beechwood head office, 15 minutes late, 20 minutes before office lockdown with supervisor meeting. Nail biting finish. Check
5. Exchange tiny cheque with big value on it for some shiny new keys.... CHECK.

SUCCESS. Walk through and handover in a day. Took many hours on the phone this week and some grovelling and wind being blown up many asses, but it all paid off in the end.

And now begins the very fun task of moving in. Yet another scrammble took place after this to find a truck at 3pm on friday afternoon for saturday pickup... SCORE! Got lucky on the 4th call. Landscaper startes next week. SCORE. By end of next week it should be like we've been there for weeks and HOPEFULLY by christmas we should have the construction site turned into a very good looking property!

So close yet so far

One more week, or so they say until we have keys in our possession. Boy has it been a crazy past week organising for this all important walk through. Calls to the builder, the bank, insurance companies and other trades we are lining up to do work on the place as soon as the keys are ours. We have our floor coverings down now, tiles and carpet. The house is sitting there waiting to be lived in. The most frustrating part is now. The paperwork before the fun. I just want it now. Even if its just to move our stuff in, not just living in it. Just having our stuff in the house and being about to spend time in the house will satify my hunger for wanting to be in. Can't wait!!!

What a Great Fit

Two great men graced out home at the end of the week, Mr. Electrician and Mr. Plumber. These men have transformed the inside, quite surprising, from a building site to an (almost) complete home. All powerpoints, phone points, aerial sockets, gas points, shower heads, toilets and the alarm we're put in which amazingly gives the house this "finished" feel. Its really quite the feeling. Tiles for the hallways and family room have been delivered and awaiting the tiler to return to lay them, then we need the carpet to be laid and the maintenance crew to hit all of the minor items and this baby is ours! The maintenance crew has some work to do with the painting... If you notice in some of the photos, someone (not sure if it was the supervisor or not) has been VERY particular and gone over the entire house marking all the paint defects in the house. Not that i'm complaining, means the final product will be perfect, but boy-o-boy, I'd had to be the one to fix it up. Its going to be insanely tedious.

Tap Tap

Tickling the toes of the business end of the build now sees the tapware now gracing our walls along with its long lost cousin, paintwork. We have been told that the tiler will be back to complete his work by doing the hallways and family room. Whats even more exciting is that the supervisor is now 'off the record' saying that we should have practical completion and if we're lucky, handover on the 2nd of December. Oh how I will be watching the calender now!

Luck is on our side

Things could not go any better for us with the house in the last week. The tiler was due to finish his work on wednesday and we were told he wasn't and things would be pushed back and the painting would be starting the week after. With that in mind we turn up to the house hoping to see a finished alfresco area and front porch. we weren't dissapointed. The alfresco area was indeed finished as was the front porch, and to find once looking through the windows that painters have already begun, and in a big way! Ceillings and walls looked to at least have 1 to 2 coats on with most doors being painted and the external was almost finished.

On top of the world at this point, just as we are leaving, a massive truck rolls up of front of our place to our surprise, to clean up the front yard. Had a good long chat to the guys, with a coke and a case of beer and some quick work moving some bricks we wanted kept and removal of the fence later, they helped us out in leveling out the majority of the block and knocking out one massive mount of dirt we had on one side of the property. If we weren't there, we would have lost all the bricks we needed for the letterbox, and I would have had to fork out for someone to do the work they did just because they were there. Very nice guys and now the block looks almost livable! Getting very exciting now as if they keep on this hot streak they are on with the work being done, we are DEFINITLY looking at the end of november!