Star Struck

For those who don't know me (very well) I work in sport and engage with some fairly high profile people on a day to day basis. (That sounds pretty up myself, but I'm really not, just setting the scene for today's little story.) Anyway, last Friday I was completely and utterly star struck in a way that not even Michael Jordan walking into my office would have evoked. Last Friday, I met Phillip Johnson.

Who, I hear you ask?

Phillip is a garden designer, in fact he's won National awards for his work and environmental types would hold him in pretty high esteem. We've seen his work at the Melbourne International Flower Show over the past couple of years and have withstood the crushing throngs to get up close and personal with his show gardens. (Oh God, I'm revealing too much of myself here - yes I'm a complete and utter nerd).

In 2009 he won best in show with "Habitat". A natural billabong, decked "rooms", a produce garden. It was really something. And although we hadn't even considered building a house at this time, this garden left an impression on both of us as something we would like to create in the future.

But 2011 left an even bigger imprint on our nature-loving, greeny (Loz) selves. He named this one "Bathe". It was brilliant. He won the sustainability award but only came third in overall best garden (ripped off). While at the show we entered a competition to have a free garden design by Phillip. We didn't win, but what it did do was put us on the mailing list, and boy this is a much longer story than I imagined...

Fast forward to last Friday, and PJ was at our house, the new one, walking around our yard, talking to us, US, Me & Loz, about all the fantastically sustainable things he could put in place, and giving us our own little paradise in Cranbourne North. Here's some of his work.....

I'm sure it's not to everyone's taste, but if we had a garden like this I doubt I'd ever want to leave home again!

Wanna see more?  Check out Phillip's website here
(OMG - he was at our house!!!  *arms flailing wildly in mild hysteria*)

P.S. 13 more sleeps til PCI  :)

Spice girl

Okay...I'll admit it. I used to get down and jiggy to the tunes of Posh, Baby, Sporty, Scary and was there another? I can't remember. But that had nothing to do with our choice of render colour for the portico, Dulux Oriental Spice.

Thank you Janine for this photo.  I was sooo peed off from not getting inside that I didn't take a facade pic!

For those still in colour selection mode, our main render is Dulux Beige Royal, with Surfmist gutter & fascia, Jasper downpipes and garage door & Austral Mushroom bricks with off-white mortar. 

14 more sleeps til PCI (not counting afternoon nanna naps of course)

Colours of the world
spice up your life
Every boy and every girl
spice up your life
People of the world
spice up your life
aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh

Don't pretend you don't all know the words!!!!!

I'm walking on sunshine

Cannot :)
take :)
the :)
smile :)
from :)
my :)
face :)

Our Blackbutt 2 strip satin floors are in progress..

Not bad for a standard inclusion I reckon.  The finished look is somewhere between the Blackbutt and NSW Spotted Gum samples.  Would you believe that we couldn't decide between the two??  Now we have a floor that is a mixture of both - bonus!!!

Family room (where our Fraser couch will live) through to kitchen. Still in lurve with our corner stackers too.

Library through to kitchen & alfresco.  Wonder when our fireplace will go in??

The kitchen is now waiting patiently for appliances.  What a "get out of jail for free card" we played with the splashback.  Actually, it cost $500 to change to Sea Elephant, from this...

 

This week we've also had all of the door handles fitted, door stoppers too.  The ensuite shower screen is now in place, & the mirrors were fitted - either wrong or with a broken corner.  For some reason, the ensuite mirror was fitted at full length despite being told we had to shorten it?  But it had a flaw in the corner so they've now ripped it off again.  And the bathroom mirror is the standard size, not the upgraded size.  That can come off too - thanks! Carpet went in yesterday but I wasn't able to get a good pic of it from outside.  

Get this - we went down this morning and the timber floor guy was finishing up.  Although our car was in the driveway (left it there while we took the furkids for a walk) he had locked the doors behind him.  Dammit, I wanted to get in to check out the carpet, as did Loz who hasn't been inside the house for weeks, so I mouthed to him through the window "please let us in".  He just put his head down and kept working.  Prick!

Still smiling though :)

I'm walking on sunshine...woah woooooah...and don't it feel GOOD???

Somewhere to park our bums

The best thing (oh, well one of the best at least) about building a house that has more rooms than your old house is that you have to GO SHOPPING to fill the space.  I think I've posted before about how lucky I am to have a man that loves to house shop, and he completely dominated on this particular spree.

This is the display version of Oz Design's "Fraser".  We've chosen different pieces and a different fabric to better fit our room, but basically, this is it.  Apologies for the pics - although I love my iphone, the camera really does leave me wanting :)

 

In our choice of fabric - Beachcomber Taupe;

Thanks for being a hand-model Loz!

As you can see, we've gone neutral so we can add a bit of spice with cushions and throws (coz I'm a chicken!)

Getting impatient now :) :) :) :)

A-door-able

Mr. Jasper Gliderol has found his way home...

All of our robes have been fitted out in preparation for mirrored doors.  This is ours int he master which sits behind the floating bedhead wall.  I gotta say, I'm REALLY excited about having this amount of space.  At the moment, Loz and I share a quarter of this.  I don't have a lot of clothes, but I do like them to hang on timber hangers all lined up according to colour.  Aaahhhhhh.  Heavenly.

And we've even got crappers now :)  Loving those tiled skirts.

I managed to find a door open on Thursday, so I snuck off to have lunch with Mum first, then bought some cleaning supplies with the intention of cleaning out the bath cavities before they were fitted.  Would you believe that in the hour I was gone (might have been a little longer) both bath and spa were fitted.  Dammit.  So I cleaned anyway - and - oh my god this was hilariously embarrassing - I got sprung cleaning my tiles by my SS.  Poor bugger nearly died when he found me in the house.  And I felt like a naughty little girl.  Imagine next week's staff meeting... "You reckon that's bad, I found my client clad in rubber gloves cleaning the ensuite - what a loser!".  I reckon he's lucky I wasn't naked in the shower giving it a scrub!!!!!

Fix my sink

We've had a visit from the plumbers - fit off now complete!

 

Laundry;

Bathroom shower complete with screen & fittings;

And our kitchen has taken another giant leap forward - Sea Elephant time :)

 

Deb - One less thing to stress about :)

It's the final countdown

Today, we received our FINAL invoice in preparation for home "presentation" and then settlement. Yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

But it just wouldn't be our build without a little bit of bank-related fun.  I won't bore you all with the details, and it'll probably blow over in the next couple of days as these things tend to do.  Why oh why do they have to make everything so bloody difficult????

Anyway - pee see eye soon - yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy.

mirror mirror on the wall...

I need your help, assistance, opinions & feedback PLEASE!!??

(this is the display @ Lyndhurst)

 

The mirror dude has been out to measure up today and has discovered that our ensuite mirror we upgraded to is too big for one piece. So by the morning we have to decide whether we want to;

a) shorten the mirror back to standard (above vanity only)

reduce the length of mirror from 3.5m to 3.3m, and;
b) centre it on the wall, or
c) align to the left of vanity leaving a 20cm gap at the spa window.

or;
continue with the 3.5m mirror and have a join that is;
d) centered, or
e) in line with the vanity end, or
f) at the 3.3m mark near the spa window.

Happy to hear your thoughts...please??

Imagine being a mirror installer and having a bad hair day :)

Post tile post

Unbelievably, I managed a whole day in the office today but had this overwhelming urge to check out the house. So I picked up the old boy from work at 6pm and we headed off.

Could not believe our eyes when we rounded the corner and saw ALL of the lights on. Our fantastic tilers were still on the job finishing off the last of the floor tiles and cleaning the place up. 3 days - pretty good effort.

Our laundry;

Bathroom;

 

Now that it's done, I'm REALLY happy about taking the floor tile up over the bath.  Love the straight lines of it all & the white blinds and bath will tone it all down.

Ensuite;

And last but not least, the Powder Room;

I can't really describe this feeling of seeing these colours come together after picking them nearly a year ago.  I know they're not going to be to everyone's taste, but we LOVE it LOVE it LOVE it.

Tiler more

I HAD to go down to the house today (what a shame) to deliver our family of tilers an extra 60 white 100x300 tiles for the laundry.

No, don't panic, Carlisle didn't make a boo boo.  We did a little cashie extension to the bench top in our laundry and coz our SS is a seriously top guy, he let us buy the extra tiles, throw Mr. Smiley a little extra cash for his labour, and happy days - our whole laundry wall will be tiled.

I know, stop with the chit chat and show us the piccies already....

Up over the bath we've got "Loft - Dark Chocolate" in 400mm x 400mm.  This will go on the floor & shower base too.  The walls are just white 200mm x 400mm which we have on the shower walls too. 

Except for the yummy scrummy airstrip of Nickel Plus.  Still can't get a decent photo :(

I've managed to cull the 72 pics I took tonight of the ensuite down to these few...

 

This stage of the build is making it soooo hard to find the motivation to go to work every day.  I really just want to camp out at the house and break into applause with every tile that's laid.

Can anyone tell me what comes after the tiles are done? 

Tea for the tiler man

That title's for you Mum.  Thanks for exposing me to lame 70's music :)

Ahh...back to the house.  Look what we've got...

Floor tile back left.  Wall tile back right.  Feature tile in front (this is the one I've been stressing about).

And here our happy tiler is in action;

 

He's so quick.  This is about 5 minutes later;

Just one more shot.  It's hard to capture the exact colour on my iphone!

For a better look at the colour of the feature tile, (if you can be arsed) go here

He reckons he'll be done by Thursday.  I said "THIS Thursday"?  "Yesh.  I do wery good jobs for you".

Current excitement level - 9.75 out of 10.  Can you imagine how I'll be on Thursday?????

Lighthouse

Soooo much has happened this week.

Painters are done;

Dulux Beige Royal 1/4 on the walls with trims in Dulux Lexicon 1/2.  Can't wait to see the fireplace set into the cantilever wall :)

Electrical fit off is done and dusted;

Fair bit of wiring in the man cave.  But I'm hiding the best part.  Check out the bulkhead;

And I'm a little bit chuffed about the entry hob & niches.  I'm now on the lookout for some type of amazing vessel to hold my branches.  Maybe a chunky timber vase with loads of grain??

L.O.V.I.N.G. my kitchen right now.  Today I found some retro shaped, lime green glasses, so I bought all they had in stock - 16 of them - to go on one of those shelves.  I'm stressing a little about the splashback colour.  Should have played it safe and gone for the wall colour instead of "Sea Elephant".

Can you see the silver vent under the microwave cavity?  Thats my sweeper outlet for the ducted vac :)

I'm getting very very very excited now!!!!!!!