Do you measure up?

Our garage does.

Judging by this sticker, we can't be far off getting our front and rear garage doors.  Tuscan profile in Jasper.

This makes me :) coz;
1.  Although I don't like brown, Jasper is kind of growing on me
2.  It means we'll be moving in soon
3.  The garage will then be water tight
4.  It means... (I know - madwoman!!!)

A partridge in a pear tree

We've got what I think is a Manchurian Pear on our nature strip.

It just appeared out of no-where, but it's making me incredibly :) coz;
1.  It means we're going to be moving in soon
2.  I lurve deciduous trees but they wouldn't fit with our garden plans.
3.  It means we're going to be moving in soon.
4.  It'll blend in nicely with our autumnal external colour scheme
5.  Ha ha ha.......

It's a cover-up

After an exhaustive 5 quote search for window coverings, we've finally finalised and placed an order.

All front-facing windows (including the garage) will have white shutters, as will the highlight window in bedroom 3.

Both bathroom and ensuite will have 63mm white timber venetians. We were planning on shutters or roller blinds, but shutters were ruled out as our bath and spa would have stopped them from opening properly.  We'll put these in the 4th bedroom too just for consistency.

 The theatre will have a roman blind so we can see the feature garden out there during the day, but totally block out the light when Loz has the room in man-cave mode.  They'll mount the blind just below the bulkhead so should sit just below the top window frame when folded.  We've picked a really rich coffee coloured fabric with loads of texture and added blockout for this room, but then have used this same fabric throughout the rest of the house.

Light-filtering rollers for the "library", family and dining, plus panel glides on the corner stackers all in the same coffee fabric.

And in our master bedroom we'll have the same fabric, blockout, made up in a roller that will sit on the outside of the frame rather than inside the reveal so we don't get any light through the gaps.  And to soften it we're having side drapes with an eyelet header in a really gorgeous white linen-like fabric.  It's a bit like old-fashioned cheese-cloth actually.  Hope it looks okay!!

A MASSIVE thank you to Deb for recommending Sharon's Blinds in Dandenong.  Their prices are excellent  (happy to share via email or private message) and their fabric range was so diverse even a fuss ass like me was able to find something I liked.

For some reason, now that the blinds are ordered, it feels REAL.  We're really going to be moving into this beautiful house that's been 18 months in the planning...SOON!  Yes, there were tears on the weekend :)

Won't you take me to...

For your viewing pleasure, I present you a 4 minute private tour of "The Orange House".  Don't let the dodgy camera work distract you from the lyrical genius of Lips Inc.  Enjoy :)

Next stop - Caesarstone City

Not a real lot of progress this week, but all of our kitchen cabinets are now in place anxiously awaiting their Caesarstone Osprey topping.

A close up of the "Wenge" Laminex up next to white;

 And the laundry is all done minus tiling;

Ensuite cabinet ready for a coffee break (Espresso Caesarstone);

Our Austral Mushrooms have been cleaned;

 

And we've got downpipage too;

Painters have been in prepping the window frames and they'll start getting some colour up on the walls during the week.
Our lovely SS is happy to open the house for us during the week to have the windows measured up.  It'll be great to finally meet him as we've only spoken on the phone so far. The ordering of window coverings makes it all seem so close now.  Exciting!!!

Growing pains

Our little estate is about to become MASSIVE according to yesterdays mail. We received a little brochure and a CD with about 3,000 pages of info on it, and being the massive techy dork that I am, I've captured some of it below.

There's two parts of this I'm REALLY excited about.

The wetlands that start not far from our street;

But the best bit is;

The William Thwaites Town Centre at the entrance to our estate.  We've heard a rumor that there will be a pub & judging from the image there'll be a handful of shops as well as a supermarket. 

Bring on a good coffee shop I say!

Do you reckon we could all try and sneak a suburb name change in as well??  The Question is, what would we change it to?  Suggestions?

Fake tan

Someone left the render out in the rain;

 

Check the nifty was they try to keep the rain off their fresh work;

Which would probably have worked if not for this amount of rain;

But I'm sure Carlisle will re-do it and hand us over a beautiful house.

And on the inside (viewing zoo style coz we're locked out);

The cabinets all appear to be finished minus the caesarstone benchtops in the kitchen, powder room and ensuite, and the sinks can't go in until the benchtops are done.

The footprint stepped into the entry hob has been fixed, and all of the walls have been prepped for painting to start early in the week.  You've gotta love progress!!  This is where I expect it to slow up a fair bit though, so we'll wait patiently and switch focus to choosing all of the extras we'll have done after handover to make our house a home :)

Going, going...

GONE!

With a 120 day settlement juuuuust to be on the safe side.

In an act of defiance, seeing as this is the first weekend we haven't had an "open for inspection" in ages, this morning I DIDN'T make the bed. Naughty :)

Although I'm 97% sure he doesn't read our blog, I'm going to send a MASSIVE thank you out here to our gorgeous agent Paul. To get 4 bidders to the auction and actually get us a sale in a bloody difficult market is testament to his customer service skills and dedication to the job.  We didn't quite reach our reserve ($2,000 short) but right now a sale is a sale (and an unconditional one at that) so Cranbourne North - here we come!

Karma Fairy update

Some of you who have followed along at home may remember the internal debate I held with myself over the soft close drawers (and Loz subsequently losing his job - yes doubters, they were totally connected). Seems I've repaid my karmic debt, as ALL of our kitchen drawers are soft closing.  Mmmmmm - soft closing!!

As you can see, the kitchen is NEARLY all done.  The pics don't show the "Wenge" colour very well, so I'll try to take some better ones next time we can get in.   But in the meantime, here's about 20 different angles of MY kitchen :) :)

Back end of the island bench to come & pantry doors (wenge) to be hung.

Dainty pantry - but it's okay.  The front door is pretty wide, and to be honest, thats where MOST of the meals come from!!!!!

Painters are booked in for later in the week.  Both lock-up and fix invoices arrived on Friday.  And the old house goes up for auction on Thursday night.  We've got 5 potential bidders (if they all show up), which has to be a good sign, right?  It's all happening.  Just need to catch my breath a little :)

Now we're cooking

In our KIIIIIIITTTTTTT-CCCHHHHHHH-EENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

 and a little laundry peek on the right...
but wait, there's more;

Our showers are waterproofed...

plus cabinets ready and raring to go.  A lot of white, I know.  But we've got Espresso Caesarstone benchtop in here with chocolate floor tiles that go up the bath hob as well.

Just one more look at our corner sliders!!

See the brickies STILL working out there?  They were cracking on with it today and might have finished this arvo.  Bring on the lock-up invoice.

And...there's STILL more...

Doors & architraves & skirting boards.  Fix carpenter was in and out in a day!

I hope, hope, hope we can get in on Saturday and see all of our cabinets in their new home :)