Destination: 3977

Back yard paradise

2012-02-03T13:33:00.000+11:00

Our amazing landscaper, Andy, came back today to finish off the last few things (including lights - I can't wait until it gets dark to see it all lit up). So here's some better images (sorry Mum) of his masterpiece;

Committment

2012-01-31T16:24:00.000+11:00

Those who play along at home will remember that I had back surgery on November 3 - almost 3 months ago - and in that time things have changed A LOT in the orange house.

In these last 12 weeks, Loz and I have between us lost a total of 28kg and have gone from complete couch potatoes to a minimum of an hour exercise each day. We also used to eat complete garbage, with 3 (and I'm embarrassed to say sometimes more) take-away dinners each week. AND we used to buy our lunch every work day - sometimes brekky too.

We feel SO amazingly healthy and full of energy now, and while Loz has reached his goal weight, I still have another 8, maybe 10 kilo to leave behind.

So...(and this is pretty confronting for me to post here on my house blog) ...I have signed up & committed to Michelle Bridges 12 week body transformation program, or 12WBT.

I am 100% committed to reaching my goals, but they don't just involve weight loss. For me (us) this will reinforce the good habits we now have, and make sure we keep them for life.
I know this program will take hard work, but I am DETERMINED to see it through & give my back the best chance of a full recovery - by carrying around less of me!

If you want to follow my 12 week journey, you can find me over here. We're currently in pre-season mode, with kick off in two weeks. There's still time to join in you want to do something for yourself that could well turn out to be amazing.

Take care,
Reinsey, Raelene, RDub, whatever I'm called these days :)

Back yard - Aussie Style

2012-01-26T14:57:00.000+11:00

We are two VERY happy campers as our back yard is 98% finished and EXACTLY what we wanted. It's sustainable, all locally sourced, native & in our minds, unbelievably beautiful.

Here's a few before & afters...

This was a really low point directly behind the house which suffered from pooling water after only a little rain. Beneath the creek bed, Andy has run some drainage and used the left over bricks, smashed up, just under the dry creek bed.

Its a little hard to see in these pics, but our gorgeous Ironbark deck extends into a "jetty" which then juts out over a dry billabong. This area used to be "Lake Cranbourne". Now, if it overflows, it's channelled to the storm water.

This is our North boundary which we originally had lined with Blueberry Ash. The problem was I had nowhere to dry any washing & didn't want to plant a hills hoist in the middle of our yard or purchase a dryer. So Andy came up with the idea to span some tensioned wire between two railway sleepers to blend with the climbing frame we have outside our bedroom door. We'll grow some jasmine along the wires too, so the clothes take on a little of its scent while they're drying.

We love love, love it. I'll no doubt post many more piccies in the coming days.

The hugest of huge thank yous to Andy from Eskape Landscapes. If anyone wants work done, I'd happily pass on his contact details.

Back yard sneak peek

2012-01-17T15:23:00.000+11:00

Long time no post!

We've been doing all kinds of fun things, but mostly just enjoying our new lives in this gorgeous home, oh + getting fit & healthy while recovering from stupid back surgery (more on this in a future post I think).

Our landscaper, Andy, who did such a brilliant job on the front has come back (under his own business name Eskape, as the previous company went bust 3 days pre-Christmas) and is turning our formerly flat, weedy, wet, yuk back yard into something we've already fallen in love with.

Here's a quick snap;

Fingers crossed the turf and planting will be done by Friday..YAY!!!

If any fellow Avenuers (or anywhere nearby actually) are looking for a landscaper - I give Andy two thumbs up.

A bit of colour

2011-11-28T18:21:00.000+11:00

We've been looking for something to give the long family room wall a bit of zing, but our searching has turned up a big fat zero.

So my incredibly talented other half edited some photos from our Thailand trip of a few years ago and came up with this. Officeworks printed it up on canvas, and Bob's your Uncle...

Which sits right here...

And the whole room looks like...

Might have to get Loz to work his magic on some more pics to fill the entire wall :)

3 month...

2011-11-23T13:45:00.000+11:00

True to their word, Carlisle contacted us just before our 3 month house anniversary to arrange our maintenance inspection. A really nice guy came out and gave the house a thorough look through, jotting down any of our concerns at the same time...and I'm pleased to say that we had less than half a page of defects and ALL of them incredibly minor;

a little floor repair
the expansion joint for the floating floor in the hallway
a small plaster tear caused by the Jetmaster installer
some minor cracking to be patched
laundry door seal
clips on the gutters

AND THAT'S IT!!!!!

All but the floor has been attended to, and as we came to expect from Carlisle tradies, they were completely respectful of our home and just generally nice, chatty guys. It helps when they ooh and ahh over your home too - but then, we're so proud of it we'd even drag the postie in for a look.

I can't imagine us ever wanting to move from here, but iiiiiiiiiif we did, I'd definitely build again and wouldn't hesitate to go with Carlisle again too. (just hope that whatever they are planning to replace the soon to be closed Monaco display with isn't too much of an improvement over what we have, or that day may come sooner than Loz is expecting...) (just jokes Loz) (???)

How does your garden grow?

2011-11-17T07:22:00.000+11:00

Ours has gone crazy considering it's less than 3months old.

Here's some snippets from around the orange house;

The narrow bed beside our driveway has Dianella "Casa Blue" and Climbing Fig which has already started to stretch out on the fence.

The grasses that run either side of our entrance deck have begun to flower.

As has the Blueberry Ash that we have along our northern boundary. They now peep about a foot above the fence line.

I love the way the "Chinese Star Jasmine" has reached up to the first run of wire.

The mass planting of Dianella in front of the stacked stone wall has gone crazy. These little guys have doubled in size already.

So completely besotted with Kangaroo Paw right now.

Put it all together and it looks like this;

Knifed in the back

2011-11-15T12:58:00.000+11:00

I've had a dodgy back for somewhere between 4 and 6 years - can't remember when it started coz these things don't always have an exact beginning.

Anyway - I thought I'd been doing a really good job of managing it, especially considering we moved 3 months ago. So when it flared up again roughly 6 weeks ago, I was so incredibly pissed off as I couldn't see what had triggered it. In true Reinsey style, instead of listening, I pushed through, ignoring the increasing numbness and then pain in my left leg.

To cut a looooooong story short, I actually went to the GP (rare for me) and he ordered an MRI on my lower back. I had this done on Monday 31/10. Mum and I had a quick look at the pics and thought holy crap, there's something in there. Go back to the GP on Wednesday morning and I'm sent immediately to Monash hospital. By this time my left leg is completely useless and the sensation (or lack thereof) is spreading across my body as well. Freak out meter = 5/10 but I still drive myself to hospital. As you do!

See a neurosurgeon and I'm on the list for surgery first thing in the morning. Riiiiiiight. So can I go home now, promise I'll come back in the morning? Nooooooooo. Freak out meter = 7.5/10.

I was so unprepared for this I barely had any charge left on my phone and work - oh God - there was so much I had to get done!

So here I am 11 days post-op and feeling better than I have in years. I can't sit down for more than 3 x 20 minute sessions a day. The rest of the time I have to be on my feet or flat on my back. But not too long on my back or scar tissue will form. Not too long on my feet either. I've just begun working a few hours a day standing at my PC, but man o man am I dying to go out shopping for browny-greeny-white things!!

Turns out the nerves were completed compressed from a severely bulging disc and they performed a laminectomy on my L5/S1.

The best part...my tramp stamp is still virtually intact.

I've been so blessed to have been visited by some incredibly special people (you know who you are). A HUGE thank you for keeping my spirits up (and for the grouse house mags Kylie). Mum & Loz - you're both amazing :)

Much love,
Reinsey
xxx

Enough already!

2011-10-30T22:48:00.000+11:00

Have you ever seen anything like this endless, unrelenting rain? I think we now have Lake Cranbourne in our backyard.

If I can just work out how to teach the four-legged children to wipe their feet on their way inside... :)

A cushy job

2011-10-27T08:53:00.000+11:00

I've been collecting green & brown cushions for a couple of years now (I know Janine - why was I having an orange splashback???) and they're all sitting happily on the family room couch. It's not that big a collection, coz it's gotta be juuuust the right green. You know??

10 bonus points to anyone who noticed "Ramsay" in that last collage. He fair dinkum poses for the camera. Complete dag of a dog :)

Bit of a fan of this room. Just need (to agree on) some artwork for above the couch and fix my own artwork on the fireplace wall (that painting tape NEVER gives me a clean edge) and it's done!
I love living here :)

Afternoon Tea recipe for the domestically challenged

2011-10-25T09:20:00.000+11:00

Take 1 quick trip to the local bakery
Add 2 fellow chatterboxes
Plus 3 cups of coffee
and settle in for the afternoon

It just doesn't get much better I tells ya :)

Brown & green should never be seen

2011-10-23T12:28:00.000+11:00

But I disagree!

Am l.o.v.i.n.g. all the greeny brown-ness at our place right about now.

I'm trying to keep to the same tones; Jasper brown & Plantain green throughout.

We're about half way through painting the fences Jasper too.

So I think I've changed my mind about brown (but shhhhhh...don't tell Loz I said so)

p.s. those three tealights are on the fireplace wall. Yep, it's Jasper!

Sheer yumminess

2011-10-14T17:13:00.001+11:00

We had our sheers installed in our master bedroom a few weeks ago but with the weather being so blah of late they haven't really had a chance to show off.

Until today;

Mmmmm...they look all soft and romantic like. I LOVE LOVE LOVE living here :)

You can stick it

2011-09-30T15:23:00.004+10:00

I don't understand why every second car is sporting a set of these;

Clearly Dad has a mistress on the side but packs his clubs every Saturday to give him 4 hours of freedom. Mum has some form of online addiction. The daughter has a leg deformity. The son is wearing a scarf with shorts - clearly a poof! And they've got a dog. Did I REALLY need to know this?

Some people have become a little clever...

Could be wrong, but I don't think these are their real names.

This one I approve of, except for the senseless violence!

If you have your family stuck to your window, please don't be offended - but can you explain to me WHY???? I just don't get it.

Sock? Errr.........

2011-09-29T11:43:00.000+10:00

I'm lucky, lucky, lucky to have ducted vac in the orange house, which was supposed to come with a hose sock, but didn't. Nooo...its not to keep the vac warm, it's to stop the hose leaving marks on every corner it gets dragged past.

To me, this was one of those do I REALLY care that much about a sock situations. I'm sure, like me, you have them every day! But dammit, it was in the contract, so I want it.

Well today, after nine weeks of dogged perseverance, I welcome "sock" into the family. Has it been worth the twice (and sometimes more) weekly phone calls? Probably not, but it had become a bit of a game to me, and I won. Do you hear me Argus Technologies? I WON!!!!!

Now I'm off to vacuum....

Cool places...part 2

2011-09-25T17:52:00.009+10:00

This weekend the search was on for somewhere to take the furkids exploring, and we found;

HASTINGS FORESHORE PARK

It was a nice, albeit windy walk. But the best part... an off-lead area for the puppies.

Ramsay gives this place a big panting, paws up :)

Cool places to go in Cranbourne

2011-09-20T17:20:00.018+10:00

Confession time...
I WAS one of those people who thought that Cranny was full of bogans with 11 kids under 12, a front yard car kept for spare parts & dole queues longer than the line for a train after a Collingwood v Carlton game at the "G".

What we've found since we purchased a little slice of 3977 is that, sure, there may be tiny pockets like that, but it's a damn good place to live. The people are seriously friendlier. Everyone says hello or at least nods in your direction. And shop people give much better customer service. How I LOVE good customer service!

So now that we're here, we thought we might start exploring the area and finding some cool places in and around Cranny.

Although we've been here once before, this place is now free, FREE, FREEEEEEEEE. So first stop on the Loz and Reinsey 3977 discovery tour is...

CRANBOURNE BOTANIC GARDENS

Don't groan - it really IS cool. And it's all native. There's loads of ideas for those of us with new gardens to create;

Yeah, it's possibly an old person kind of thing (not that I'M old) (the "old boy" could be though), but it's under 10 minutes from home and did I mention it's FREE?

Tree mail

2011-09-19T17:20:00.000+10:00

A few weeks ago I had to leave for work early on a Sunday morning and I was seriously pi$$ed that I had to drive to Geelong after a late one the night before. By the time I arrived I was still completely feeling sorry for myself until I spied the most random workshop right there in front of the venue. It was called iron and wood or something like that, and since our garden has a rustic flavour, I popped in on the off chance that they made letterboxes. It must have been fate, coz they'd only JUST carved this massive hunk of redgum in half.

I reckon there's going to be people who share our love for it, people who point and laugh and people who are too polite to tell us we've lost the plot. Are you brave enough to tell us which category you fit into?

Introducing our new mail box...

I know, right! It's a freaking TREE!!!

View from the house

This is how she looked before becoming a mail box!

I leant a few lessons that day. Sometimes you have to trust that you're in exactly the place you're meant to be & that a Holden Cruze is a lot roomier than it looks.

The daily commute

2011-09-07T09:22:00.000+10:00

We now have a considerably longer trip to work every day. I say "we" although Loz and I don't work together. The old boy drives my company car to his work and drops himself off. Sexist...no! Scared of me being behind the wheel...totally! Then I finish off the journey, so from door to door, on a good morning it's 1.5 hours. Not complaining, just saying it how it is.

I'm not the greatest of passengers (or drivers, obviously) so at about the hour mark I get really restless and just wanna GET OUT OF THE FREAKING CAR. So Loz (he's so sweet) and I have been playing a few car games to mark time. We've started playing "what's the person next door doing" and oh my god, you wouldn't believe what some people get up to in their cars.

So far this week we've seen people;
Putting on mascara (it's okay, was a female) but not at traffic lights - at 80kph on Princes Highway
Reading a novel - also at 80k

A VERY short woman who seriously was looking between the steering wheel and dash
Several full on arguments
About 12 different versions of people being up to their elbows in their nose

But the MOST entertaining part of the morning drive is when we meet the peleton on St. Kilda Road. When the sun's out there's literally 100's of cyclists that are supposed t stay in their lane. It's hilarious to see what they wear, but even more hilarious to watch the jostling for position at the lights to take front position. Anyone would think there's a yellow jersey on offer, but no, just another set of lights 200m up the road. So as to not offend anyone I won't call them wankers, but seriously.....

And if that chick in the little black Honda that cut me off majorly this morning happens to be reading this, get f@#*ed. I mean that in the politest way, of course!

Getting to know you

2011-09-04T21:57:00.001+10:00

We've been having a lovely time getting to know our house - it's light switches, how it lives, which windows to open when the wind blows a certain way. It's been really fun :)

Our shutters were hung to the front windows on Saturday morning;

Dining and family rooms are coming together - just need some more "stuff";

Still tossing up whether to paint the master bedhead wall in Jasper or leave it as is;

Front and side gardens are done and we're tickled pink, blue and purple with the look;

When we started on this "ïdea"all those months ago, I never imagined that it would be this good :)

A bit of gardenage

2011-08-22T17:21:00.000+10:00

Our landscapers (Outdoor Edge) have allllllmost finished the first stage of works. It's very like the build - the first part dragged, middle part flew and the finishing touches seem to take months. Well not really months, coz we've only been in for 3 weeks. OMG - 3 weeks. In some ways it's seemed like 3 months, and others 3 days.

It's damn hard work this moving business, so anyone out there who hasn't yet moved, live it up now!!!!

Anyway - here's some pics of our gardeners hard work. Now that the bones are in place, we can start adding a bit of our own flavour to the space...

Isn't she gorgeous???

Pours and paws

2011-08-15T10:39:00.001+10:00

Activity central at the orange house this week. We're STILL pinching ourselves that we're actually IN, but the dust - oh my - there's so much dust, and mud, and dusty muddy footprints, both human and canine.

So to eliminate some of the mess, our paths have been poured, driveway too.

Exposed aggregate down the skinny side with a 3m long gap which will have Castlemaine Slate steppers set into a garden bed at our feature window. See our gate all the way down there? We decided (at the absolute last minute) to put it at the end of the house to keep the hounds at bay. We'll put a wrought iron feature gate at the front here - at some stage.

Can't wait to drive on it for the first time. Just needs the saw cuts, an acid wash and a couple of coats of sealer.

Here's a close-up of the blend. It's "Glenelg" from Mentone Pre-mix & I think the boys at 1300 driveways have done a great job.

The front landscaping will continue this week and weather permitting, it MAY be completed (???). Will be nice to see some greenery against all of this paleness :)

We've arrived!

2011-08-09T16:15:00.000+10:00

Just a quick update coz I'm seriously busy at work after having a week off and Telstra have done their thing, meaning no internet at home yet.

I thought the build was emotional, but actually moving into this place we have created is so amazing - almost surreal. We took the keys a week ago on Thursday and spend the next two days gently moving smaller items, painting a couple of feature walls and really just roaming from room to room pinching ourselves.

The actual move day was Saturday (last week) and man was that a day and a half. But by the time we used our double shower for the first time, we had set up all of the bedrooms and unpacked the kitchen. The rest could wait.

Waking up in our new house was like being on holiday in a ritzy resort...until we got to the rooms that had boxes piled to the ceilings. Arrrggghhhhh.

But now, 10 days later we reckon we've done pretty well, and most importantly, the fur kids have settled in which is a massive relief.

Anyway - here's a few piccies;

Jasper feature wall in one of the bedrooms

Feature wall in Dulux "Plantain"

The troublesome fireplace waiting for some paint!

Dining room through corner stackers to alfresco

Kitchen splashback window at night

The whole kitchen

Miss Bella staring through the window!

My Mum & Dad have been over both weekends and have been so unbelievably wonderfully amazing, putting up lights, towel rails, helping with the painting and just being grouse parents. Love you both xxxxx

Landscaping is well underway and we're hoping to have our exposed aggregate driveway and paths poured later this week.

But the best bit is walking the fur kids around the estate and stopping to chat with neighbours, or having little pop in visits from fellow avenuers. I love love love living here already :)

Twas the day before handover, and all through the house...

2011-07-27T12:42:00.000+10:00

...there was plastering and painting, and a fireplace in - GROUSE!

Settlement / handover / what ever you want to call it is 100% confirmed for tomorrow morning. They may still be throwing that final coat of paint on the fireplace wall in between inspection and key exchange, but who cares? It'll be ours. OURS. Muhahahahahahahahahahahaha. How many sleeps???

(no pics - sorry - desk bound)

On the 3rd day til handover...

2011-07-26T10:25:00.000+10:00

...our furkids completely lost the plot.

We've got 2 incredibly spoilt puppies that sleep on our bed (I know - it's naughty but they're sooo cute). Coz we're like minutes away from the big move, we've dismantled the beds and we're now sleeping on our mattress on the floor.

We literally had a ROFL moment when Ramsay, the very quirky Spoodle tried to get under the bed last night...for 20 minutes. Clearly male! Bella (my girl), the little fluff ball, has twigged that something's up and has taken to providing us 24/7 security by way of annoying, piercing, yapping bark. The neighbours will be VERY happy to be rid of us if this keeps up all week.

TWO MORE SLEEPS. Woot woot :)

On the 4th day til handover...

2011-07-25T14:11:00.001+10:00

Old Mother Hubbard paid a visit;

But I've got a damn Board meeting tomorrow night - rude - so nothing more will happen after work!

On the 5th day til handover...

2011-07-23T16:06:00.000+10:00

...our house is a total mess.

The fireplace wall is being re-built to accommodate the flue. Has to be re-plastered, re-painted.

If Carlisle can get this done by Thursday I'll be fairly impressed. Stunned, shocked, but impressed. But the move will go ahead regardless...???

Bank cheque check

2011-07-20T14:06:00.000+10:00

I know we don't hand over until NEXT Thursday, but we've had such ridiculous dramas with the bank that I thought I'd just stick with the original plan and collect our bank cheque as scheduled...yesterday.

Would you believe that they hadn't done it, couldn't find the instructions and sent me away empty handed?

Back to the office, call the bank, completely lose my s**t, and today I have collected...

Woohoo. Just need the house to be finished now :)

Our house has the flue

2011-07-17T16:19:00.000+10:00

We've been waiting, waiting, waiting to see our yummy double-sided fireplace perched in it's cantilever wall. It's been a bit of a saga. First, the wrong fireplace was delivered. Then, when the right one came, it was a new model that was slightly larger. Our SS solved the problem by altering the frame, BUT, it looks as though the wall has been made incorrectly, and there now isn't sufficient clearance inside the cavity for the flue to operate safely.

So this week the most part of the wall has to come down and be rebuilt around the fireplace, re-plastered, re-painted. It's just not going to get done by Thursday...so...we're just going to have to wait an extra week before getting our hands on those keys.

It's been a dream build, so if this is the worst that happens to us we're pretty lucky. By the time its re-built, it should look more like the display version...

Compared to our wall which looks like this...

Carlisle have been fantastic in trying to find a suitable solution. We've even had the Construction Manager on the phone explaining the situation and apologising profusely, and promising to pull trades from other jobs to meet our revised hand over date. Sorry if we're stealing your guys!!!

Practically completed

2011-07-12T18:22:00.000+10:00

Today was "presentation", "PCI", the big check over for final touch-ups to be agreed upon before setting a date for the big key transfer ceremony.

Our SS, Luke, who I've previously raved about (and will again here) has been so on top of the build that we only had a hand full of really minor little adjustments and touch-ups. He's built this home as though it's his own and he was so proud showing us around today.

Coz there's so little to be done, he's set a date for hand over. And I have to add that I did a really good job holding back the emotions until these words came from Luke's mouth... "How's next Thursday, July 21 work for you?". I would have loved to have been composed enough to say "Why thank you very much, that would be simply delightful". But since I'm not actually an upper class pom and more like a crazy woman whose emotionally strung out from this whole build thing, some noise came from me that sounded more like an actual sea elephant signaling it's mate than an affirmation of acceptance.

Piccie time;

I'm all out of words :)

The Avenue at Casey

2011-07-10T00:22:00.000+10:00

Check out the difference in our estate from when we bought the land to now......

It's been quite a journey, not that it's over yet. And in roughly 3 weeks, our moving truck will be driving on into the estate. How lucky are we all to have watched this little community develop from the ground up?

A surprising day

2011-07-08T20:56:00.000+10:00

Thank you to all of my bloggy and Avenue friends for your birthday wishes. I did indeed have a great day with some lovely surprises.

My Dad, who's a big, burly, blokey bloke left me a voicemail message - he sang me happy birthday. I've never heard him sing before. Touched me pretty deeply. Love you Dad.

I didn't work yesterday (Thursday is my weekend) so I had lunch with my Mum - at her work. She packed a little winter-like picnic for us to share in her tea room. Gorgeous.

My beautiful daughter cooked Loz and I a lovely meal last night. We shared a bottle of champers while the boys talked all things supercoach. She even baked me some of her scrummy cup cakes :)

And the man of my dreams (yes thats you Loz) showed just how well he knows me and my routines. He wrote me about 20 little notes and placed them in the order of my morning housely travels.

Need I say more?

And for those who don't know...

2011-07-07T12:57:00.003+10:00

...today is Raels Birthday.

Happy (I was going to say what birthday it is but discretion, or cowardice, is much the better part of valour) Birthday my gorgeous woman.

Thanks for putting up with a grey haired, slightly cantankerous, sometimes untidy, hoarder like me. May we share many more together.

XXX

Our house is stoned, man!

2011-07-01T22:54:00.000+10:00

Rock 'n Stone, Delhi Bronze fine stack. The rust toning will be more prominent after it's sealed.

We're nearly there...

Carpet is in.

Shower screen is fitted, ceiling dumper is in and the mirrors have been replaced.

Look at all of that sun streaming in. Mmmmmm. Rangehood is in now too.

Now that we're in July, the fact that we'll be in this beautiful house THIS MONTH has completely smacked me in the face. One of you lovely Avenue ladies mentioned having spare boxes..... Could we please, please, please borrow them? :)

Star Struck

2011-06-28T17:30:00.000+10:00

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

2011-06-27T09:40:00.000+10:00

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

2011-06-25T14:48:00.000+10:00

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

2011-06-22T15:04:00.000+10:00

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

2011-06-18T18:58:00.000+10:00

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

2011-06-16T22:09:00.000+10:00

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

2011-06-15T21:47:00.000+10:00

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...

2011-06-14T17:08:00.000+10:00

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

2011-06-08T21:16:00.000+10:00

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

2011-06-07T21:09:00.000+10:00

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

2011-06-06T20:39:00.000+10:00

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

2011-06-02T18:56:00.000+10:00

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!!!!!!!

Do you measure up?

2011-05-31T07:58:00.001+10:00

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

2011-05-30T10:27:00.001+10:00

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

2011-05-29T19:56:00.000+10:00

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...

2011-05-28T23:03:00.001+10:00

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

2011-05-21T22:57:00.000+10:00

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

2011-05-17T17:25:00.000+10:00

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

2011-05-15T11:07:00.001+10:00

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...

2011-05-14T20:40:00.000+10:00

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

2011-05-07T22:06:00.000+10:00

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

2011-05-05T21:54:00.000+10:00

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 :)

Baby lock them doors..

2011-04-30T21:20:00.000+10:00

We are officially locked out, but not yet at lock up, coz our corner stackers are in :)

Luckily we had tradies in working today so we were able to have a quick walk through. We've got cornices;

As with all tradies we've had working on our house, this guy was a ripper. The corners joins are perfect.

My fav place in the house - fireplace through to kitchen (which gets put in REAL soon!);

Things are really cracking along outside too...

Entry parapet - looking forward to seeing this rendered - in orange (Oriental Spice).

Extreme close up. The bricks are growing on me, but very happy we're rendering the whole facade.

So far, so good. The brickies were supposed to finish today. My guess, with progress to date, is that there's another 3-4 days work til they're done, so by next weekend we should have both lock up and fix stages completed with only completion to go. After waiting for a year to get the land, this speed is making my head spin!!!!

A little bit of snooping

2011-04-27T17:33:00.000+10:00

Oh how I love a good display home!!!

In our estate we have a recently opened display village with homes that suit our (my) taste perfectly. Yesterday we snuck into the Fairhaven displays on our way to a bloody marvelous afternoon of eat, drink & laugh at Deb's gorgeous new home with Janine, David & Megs too. A huge hooray for Deb & John's hospitality. xx. Where did the afternoon go?? Can't wait to return the favour.

Back to the Fairhaven. What I loved about this house was the corner stacker;

And it's relationship to the pool;
(apologies for the images - stealth mode on the iphone)

With a deck behind the pool fence complete with firepit;

We're now on the hunt for textured wallpaper like this for our bedroom floating wall;

And if anyone knows the whereabouts of this light fitting, I'll be your best friend forever;

On our house front, things are progressing nicely with bricking expected to be completed on Saturday, then moving inside for fix stage. We're still on track for an end of June handover. :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

To market to market

2011-04-24T21:17:00.000+10:00

Slightly old-ish news now as life has kind of caught up with us a bit in the last 2 weeks. Our little cottage on the hill is officially "on the market" for a 4 week campaign prior to auction on May 12th.

So far we've had 3 OFI's - it's open on Thursday nights (to capture the gorgeous sunset views of the city)

...and a day session each Saturday to show off the bush setting.

I'm really going to miss the views and the setting, but the driveway can seriously go!

And it's just so gosh-darn cute inside. Our new bedroom is the size of all 3 in the old house;

The bathroom is the pretty much the powder room + linen cupboard; (no ABS edges Deb!)

And the kitchen about the size of our new laundry;

I WILL miss the Coonara fireplace. I know we have a funky fire in the Monaco, but it won't smell the same;

So for now, we clean and we wait and we stress and we clean some more.

P.S. Soy candles melt from the bottom up (and overflow) when left on a heat source - like a Coonara. Gahhhh!!!

P.P.S. Keep everything crossed for us for a pre-auction sale for a ripping, suburb record type price :)

You're my wonderwall

2011-04-22T19:33:00.000+10:00

Inside walls...

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3

Bathroom

Entry niches - groooooovy!!

No..Jonno...don't step on the................. ooops!

Theatre - the bulkheads should look funky with the downlights in place.

This is our wardrobe behind the floating wall. In the old house we share something 1/4 of this size!!

Pretty grand entrance to the ensuite. Didn't expect this. Different to the display.

Outside Walls;

Garage wall - how different is the wet mortar? I love it's off-whitedness though.

Bedroom side with theatre alcove half way down

We're getting there!

I caught up with one of the brickies yesterday & they'll be working on Saturday & Tuesday to try to catch up on lost days due to rain. They're hoping to be done by Friday *raised eyebrow* but there's only two of them. 10 points for dedication!!

All of those further advanced than us, how long do you think we've got from here???

We will, we will ROCK YOU

2011-04-17T15:58:00.000+10:00

Gyprock that is! It's really starting to look like a house now. Apologies for the pic overload, but I'm in lurve!

Master sliding doors with a glimpse of the spa. Look at all that yummy sunlight streaming in!

Master with floating feature wall. We didn't expect the niche to be open (its a solid back in the display), but the mirrored doors behind will reflect the light, so I think we'll leave it as it is :)

Ensuite; loo on the left, shower with ceiling dumper & double taps. There's a niche too on the back of the loo wall & a rail shower head on the far wall.

The theatre, which sits almost opposite the master. Cavity for sliding doors is all plastered up - loving the bulkheads & the feature window, although it opens funny. There's 3 panes, the centre one is fixed and both sides slide to the middle so it doesn't open all that wide for a big window.

Bella doesn't give a damn about the windows - she's LOVING her new house, especially all the mud outside!

This is my fav part of the house. Fireplace projection on the left and kitchen splashback window on the right. You can just see our corner stacker doors resting in the kitchen too. Once they go in, we'll be locked out :(

Better view of the stacker doors and kitchen bulkheads. Fridge & pantry sit under the right hand bulkhead and the overhead cupboards with frosted lift up doors sit under the long bulkhead on the window wall.

From the alfresco to fireplace wall. Family room on the right and Loz's library will run along the wall where the cornice is all stacked up.

The laundry; overhead cupboards right to the wall, 2 banks of underbench cupboards & the bench will continue to the wall as well. A half-glazed door will add some light. Hope it's not too dark in there with chocolate tiles on the floor and wenge cabinetry??!! I think the benchtop is white though, with white splashback tiles.

Looking down the hallway towards the front door. Small niche on the right & alcove type thingy reserved for pointless branches on the left.

AND...we've had some bricking begin. But I'll leave that post for another day!

Winter woollies

2011-04-14T20:35:00.000+10:00

Just in time for the cold snap. Shame the sliding doors aren't on yet - it was FREEZING at the house.

Quack quack.

Guess which room this is?

Mmmm...ducted vac.

All stacked up and ready for the laying.

Apparently they're going to do a good job?????????

A clean sweep

2011-04-10T18:48:00.000+10:00

Taking a leaf out of Deb's best-seller, we mosied on down with all manner of sweeping devices to de-crapify all of the frame nooks and crannys in preparation for getting plastered this week.

But before I get to today's pics, I need to tell you about Marcus, our most excellent sparkie. When we met him on site yesterday, he took us through room by room clarifying our wishes and suggesting little tweaks to our plans. He also added a few things that we left off (forgot) originally, including a power point in the theatre roof for Loz's projector, and 4 downlights in the kitchen bulkhead.

As with all tradesmen that we've met working on our build, he was SOOO approachable, helpful and proud of his work. But most of all, completely respectful.

So...piccie time;

Our front door is in. It's a Corinthian PMAD101, 2340mm x 1020mm. And it's going to be BROWN :(

Looks just as good from inside too. The green even goes with the wrap.

Looking down the hallway from the front door. The niche where my bare branches will live is on the right (with dustpan on it) and one of the smaller niches is on the left just behind the red broom.

The first door on the right is our master. That's our floating wall with robe behind.

And ensutie - double vanity straight ahead and spa under the window.

On the other side of the hallway sits the "man cave", resplendent with it's 244 power points.

And my gorgeous gorgeous kitchen with gas and electricity ready to be connected to the island bench.

I'm so in love with the build that even the little details are making me happy.

Including the laundry taps to be.

So this week brings bricks and possibly even plaster too plus our first OFI on the old house. It's ALL happening!

Mushroom Salad...

2011-04-09T19:31:00.000+10:00

(sung to the tune of Mustang Sally) Why oh why was this song played ALL the time, and how the heck do you dance to it??

Oh yeah, this is about our build. I remember now.

Mushroom Salad - Austral Mushroom that is.

Took the furkids down to the house this morning, which was a bit of a moment to see them happily running around their new house. I'm still laughing from this... we discovered that our bricks are a very similar colour to;

...Ramsay, our personality filled Spoodle. Almost an exact match!!

After reading so many stories about the wrong coloured mortar, I was pretty happy to see...

...the makings of our off-white upgraded mortar. Loz thinks he's ever so clever picking these bricks. He proudly pointed out the white fleck to match our surfmist gutter & fascia, and the brown blazed bits (boo for brown) that pick up our mocha-choc roof and jasper windows.

Enough brick pics? How about a bit of laundry plumbing??

And our solar panel for hot water is in too..

We also met out most excellent sparkies on site this morning for a couple of clarifications and additions. I'll save this for tomorrows post as we didn't want to take too many internal shots today while they were working.

I love our house, I love our house, I love our house!

It's not easy being green...

2011-04-06T21:43:00.000+10:00

...that's what our house said today, because;

we've been wrapped AND roofed.

But wait, there's more;

Can you see what's hiding inside??

We're scheduled to have the plumbers rough in tomorrow & both plasterers & brickies next week. Will have to race down early Saturday morning to clean the frame off a little before plastering. Don't really want bits of builder crud trapped in our walls.

It's all moving incredibly fast right now. We're blown away by the progress!!

Mocha-Choc chip & surfmist icecream

2011-04-04T22:06:00.000+10:00

Mmmmmm......

Yummy......

That's my kitchen window over there. Laundry on the right. And just to the left you can see part of the fireplace, which looks like...

Our poor chippie had such a hard time with our tricky frame, but it's 100% completed now with bulkheads and feature walls. He even left us our first piece of furniture for the new house...

Love your work Daniel! We'll be calling on him to build a few features outdoors when we move in.

Frame-a-diddly-done

2011-04-01T22:08:00.000+11:00

And roof tiles (thanks Tash)

Plus...

mmmm...surfmist.
Hopefully it plays nicely with the Mocha-choc roof tiles. May only have to wait til next weekend to find out.

Darn daylight savings ending will mean we'll no longer be able to see anything if we go down to the house after work, so it's weekends only now :( I'll miss her!

We also received our frame invoice today. Can anyone answer a question for me? Does frame stage include windows being in, and internal floating walls, such as bedhead and fireplace? Oh, and bulkheads too?

Just one more pic...

A little more progress

2011-03-31T16:33:00.000+11:00

We're in week 3 of framing, and slowly but surely the team of 2 are making progress.

Front door frame is in. If I put a door mat down do you think the tradies would wipe their feet?

How do they even know where to start? Note the gorgeous sunset reflected on our trusses.

Still a fair bit of work to do, but she's starting to take shape. Maybe the framers will finish this week? A few windows are yet to go in. Theatre and laundry door heights to be rectified. Bulkhead to theatre & kitchen to be built, as is the fireplace wall and floating wall in the master bedroom. Plus more roof stabilising and preparation for tiles. With that list, I'm thinking it might still be another 2 weeks! Impatient much?

Through the looking glass

2011-03-27T17:36:00.000+11:00

EVENTUALLY I picked up on Deb's hint that we'd better get our backsides down to the block to check out some unexpected progress;

We had NO idea that our front windows were going to be a single pane. Love them!

Considering I took about 200 piccies today, I think I've been fairly restrained just putting 2 up here!!

Our most excellent framer told us that there was a bit of an issue with 2 of the trusses, so he's done all he can on the roof until new ones are delivered. If these come on Monday, he thinks he'll be done and dusted by Wednesday, with gutter and fascia to follow straight on from that.

Random housedness

2011-03-23T18:03:00.000+11:00

I'm LOVING this stage of the build, Every day (or at least every visit) there's something new to get excited about. Last night we found;

...that our windows has been delivered on site, as had...

...the front door frame + laundry door frame (we think), and...

...roof trusses. This is just 1 stack of them. Big house we're building Loz. Which now looks like...

And by the time we stopped frolicking, and proudly showing off our frame to Emilio & Amy, it was getting dark. So for the first time we saw...

...our gorgeous street light all lit up.
It's getting harder and harder to leave each visit. It already feels like home. Might be a bit cold at night though, so I'll wait until we have at least a roof before we (read I) camp out!!!!!

Avenue Anniversary

2011-03-22T13:49:00.000+11:00

It's around 12 months ago that the first stages of our estate titled, so I thought I'd do a little tribute in its honour. Watching this all grow from paddock to a thriving little community has been a fantastic experience. We've met some wonderful people - future neighbours - and we can't wait until we also share that 3977 postcode.

Hopefully the next Nearmap update won't be too far away. We might even see our slab (or frame) in the next one!

Frame..I'm gunna live forever

2011-03-19T00:29:00.000+11:00

...baby remember my name (remember, remember, remember) That was for you Tonia!!

I do this lame thing where I close my eyes when we're getting close to the block (when Loz drives that is) building up the suspense like a kid of Christmas Day. When we pulled up our driveway, this was waiting for us!

Come on in

Front bedrooms

Master sliding door - floating feature wall to come.

Theatre with lovely lowered feature window

Theatre entry. Those with a keen eye will notice the standard door height. Hmmm. "Hello SS".

The dream kitchen with dead sexy splashback window.

View from the back yard. If you look closely you can see where our corner stacker doors will be :)

My Dad, God love him, stopped by to check out the carpenter's handy work. They got to chatting (yep, he's in the building trade and is a qualified inspector) and he's incredibly impressed by Carlisle, and our chippie in particular. Says he's a true craftsman who takes pride in his work. This makes me :)

Dad's so in love with our slab, that I wouldn't be surprised if he has a photo of it in his wallet. Thanks Dad for looking out for your little girl. xx

Mr Squiggle has paid a visit

2011-03-17T14:35:00.000+11:00

And drawn lines ALL over our slab.

This could well be our THEATRE SLIDING DOORS. Woohooooooooooooooooooo

And this is our kitchen window - isn't it beautiful???

I'm reliably informed (thank you Deb) that actual framing, building, construction type activity is going on as I type. Exciting!!!!! Can't wait to get down on the weekend to check it out :)

Nap time...

2011-03-10T17:57:00.000+11:00

Our slabby is having a little rest at the moment before its slumber is violated on Tuesday by the frame guys.
But our builder hasn't been napping... we've got a new SS, Luke, and we've got a lovely invoice to pay!!!!

Have a lovely looooong weekend everyone. xxx

Nice day for a...

2011-03-03T11:19:00.000+11:00

SLAB POUR

This is for my gorgeous man who couldn't get down to see it for himself...

Isn't she a beauty? And totally worth waiting 15 months for!!!

What's for brekky?

2011-03-02T08:29:00.000+11:00

On Fieldstone Crescent there's a HUGE serving of WAFFLES on a bed of smooth gravelly goodness!!!

Thank you Kerry for sending me this image last night, and to Deb for the "site alert". Fingers crossed for good weather today (for Kerry's slab pour) (for our boxing up) and for our pour tomorrow. Please, please, please let our pour be tomorrow!!!

Here slabby slabby slabby....

2011-02-24T12:01:00.001+11:00

This is as close as I can get to posting a piccie of our slab. Why? Evidently there's a massive backlog in slab world due to the bizarre weather. I can accept this - to a point!

Our permit was received on January 12.
According to the BOM website, we had rain on 5 other week days for the month of January. Our block sat idle.

February to date has had 13 non-rain affected work days, and all we've had are a handful of pegs, some white paint, a swish of concrete and a few pipes. In total, they've been on site for 3 days in the month.

I understand that Carlisle use an independent contractor to prepare and lay their slab, but they could not have possibly done any of the preparation until last Friday as Carlisle hadn't completed the plumbing.

We're now being told that our pour MAY happen on March 3rd. We are less than impressed!!!!!

Screen scene

2011-02-20T20:45:00.000+11:00

Came across this little gem of an idea at the MainVue display in Point Cook. Check the way they've framed the TV - nothing but laminate. Awful photo, great idea!

Oh Danny Boy...

2011-02-18T09:13:00.000+11:00

...the pipes, the pipes....

Can you believe the progress?? Not just on our site, but I swear that our left +1 neighbours didn't have that frame when we were there 2 days ago. Our immediate left neighbours are now scraped, and our right neighbours have commenced framing. It looks suspiciously like a double storey to me. They'll get a lovely view of our master bedroom, ensuite, pool, all the good bits!!!!!

Do you know Alf Resco?

2011-02-18T06:25:00.001+11:00

Last seen at the Saltwater Coast display village, MainVue Homes...

If anyone happens to see him, please deliver him to Fieldstone Crescent - in about 20 weeks from now. Thanks in advance!!!

A herd of Sea Elephants

2011-02-17T07:15:00.001+11:00

Last weekend we found ourselves over at the new Saltwater Coast display village in Point Cook and discovered a real life example of a sea elephant glass splashback. Not only that, it was paired with Laminex "Wenge" (snap), "White" (double snap), Blackbutt floors (yep, snap again), Osprey waterfall edge island bench too! I love it, love it, love it!!!!!

And I'm totally ~~borrowing~~ stealing this idea; they've painted the entire kitchen alcove in the same tone to match. Clever way to blend a darker splashback without making the kitchen look like a patchwork quilt!

If anyone's interested, the builder is MainVue, a division of Henley. Their two displays were really well done, and I'll post some more of their ideas another time.

Look what's a-pier-ed...

2011-02-16T10:52:00.000+11:00

An incredibly gorgeous temp fence;

And if you peer really hard through the fence, you'll see...

...that our concrete piers have been poured.

Extreme pier close-up;

Who would have thought that holes drilled into dirt and filled with concrete could be THIS exciting?????????

A load of rubbish...

2011-02-14T10:01:00.000+11:00

No, this isn't my usual "nothing's happening" rant, because....

...we have a bin. (and a couple of spare tyres - never know when they'll come in handy!)

But wait, there's more....

Pegs too. They've begun the set out, with plumbing and piers underway early this week, slab prep later in the week, and the pour expected next Tuesday (weather permitting!).

It's getting exciting!!!!!

We made it...

2011-02-06T11:45:00.000+11:00

after nearly 4 hours on the road, countless road closures, traffic jams, flooded streets, even a set of boom-gates down at a railway crossing...just in time to see...

...my little brother exchange rings with my new sister-in-law. Congratulations Mrs & Mrs little Reinsey. S, you looked so beautiful & handled the whole event with complete calmness. N, I couldn't be more proud of you. Your speech was sensational. "I now get to spend the rest of my life with my best friend". Reinsey was a mess!
As for the bouquet... my darling Daughter & I didn't get the showdown we'd been talking up all week. The rain kicked in again and she had word that the roads were about to closed around her house again, so my Son jumped to action and took her home.

But I wasn't expecting to be out-played by...

MY NAN!!! Ha ha ha. Hilarious!!!!!

Loz, you were amazing yesterday, not only negotiating some pretty intense traffic situations, but a VERY highly strung Reinsey. You managed to find a way through to pick up my daughter and get us to the church (almost) on time. I love you so very very much. xxx

Swimming pool inspiration

2011-02-05T09:29:00.000+11:00

If you follow our blog you'll know that we live on a VERY steep block backing onto the Ferntree Gully National Park. Not an area you'd equate with flooding!

Check these pics I've just taken of our road taken from the front windows - over a two minute span;

I hope that everyone we care about is safe and dry. And please stop raining... my little brother gets married this afternoon and I'm not sure we're going to be able to get there.

As we farewell the first month of 2011...

2011-01-31T08:58:00.000+11:00

Thats our progress for January folks!!!

Our slab date has now been pushed back to February 26. NOT a happy camper!

But on a more positive note, Loz starts his new job today. Thank God. We came very very close to having to cancel the build. Please keep everything crossed for him that today goes well. xxx

What Paddy shot at

2011-01-22T10:45:00.000+11:00

One of my "boys" at work came out with this "What Paddy shot at" phrase a few months ago. After a solid 20 minutes of tears-and-all-type laughter, we HAD to google it to find out what it means. Turns out, it's a really old fashioned saying for NOTHING. And that is exactly what's been going on at the orange house this week - a big fat nothing.

The first date we were given for our slab pour was Jan 20 = gone.

The second date thrown around was Jan 24, which is Monday. And considering we haven't been plumbed or boxed up, I'm guessing this is pretty unlikely.

Our CSC did tell us last week that we were due to have our portaloo delivered any day, and our scrape was booked for the 12th of Feb.

I'm fairly sure this is our block...pre-christmas. Hmmmmm.

There's a sea elephant in my kitchen

2011-01-14T17:44:00.001+11:00

Dulux sea elephant that is. Our new splash back colour. Thank you Lauren (from Carlisle) for allowing us this final, and very last minute, change.

So here's a pic of our kitchen...

And here's our revised selections...

EDIT: As my fellow house tragics correctly pointed out, the image I posted was NOT of Osprey. Hope I've got the right one now! And I've added our floor selection.

From the display pic, where the darker laminate is, we're having Wenge. White where it's white. Sea Elephant on the splash back, which blends perfectly with the window and sliding door frames. Adios oriental spice!!!

So that's it - no more changes - they're too expensive. This change (and the increased door height to the theatre) cost us a $500 variation fee. Exy I know, but better than having an orange splash back -apologies to anyone who DOES have an orange splash back ;)

SS

2011-01-13T14:57:00.000+11:00

Nope, we haven't purchased a new commodore, we have a Site Supervisor, Rod, and he's going to be brilliant, I can just tell :)

He intends to call every Thursday afternoon with an update of the past week's progress and where we're heading next. He may regret this, but he's okay with us calling him every day if we feel the need, and he'll be happy to put our detail oriented minds at ease.

I was actually expecting a gruff, blokey bloke who likes to keep clients as far away as possible. But he's come across as enthusiastic and totally hands on with us.

.....

The much anticipated slab party will have to be postponed until Monday 24th (maybe even later if the rain keeps on doing it's thing), but we've waited 12 months already, so what's another 4 sleeps??

.....

Carlisle have allowed us to change our splashback colour (don't yell at me Deb) AND after a fair few emails, they've agreed to amend the height of the double doors into the theatre from standard 2040mm to 2340mm in line with the rest of the house per our original request (we didn't notice the reduced height on final plans).

So it's back to Spectra tomorrow morning to pick a new splashback colour. Any suggestions....??

Purrrrrrrrr...

2011-01-12T21:25:00.000+11:00

..mmmmmmmmiiiiittttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!

Yep, our planning permit came through today and our build is back on track for a Jan 20 slab pour!

A hugely massive thank you to both Emilio and Kerry (fellow Avenue neighbours also awaiting on a permit for this stupid overlay on our land) for openly sharing info that has helped us get this through with minimal stress.

xx

Stacked stone - hot or wot?

2011-01-10T11:08:00.000+11:00

We found a house on the weekend with pretty much the same colour scheme as we've planned - beige royal/surfmist, jasper and stacked stone in delhi bronze. But now I'm freaking out...
Is stacked stone still "in", or will people point and laugh at the funny lady's rock house?

I'll put a poll up on the sidebar so you can vote in private if you don't want to hurt our feelings. But we've got pretty thick skin, so feel free to comment too :)

Love is blind

2011-01-05T20:34:00.000+11:00

I got the cutest little package in the mail today from Blinds Online with some fabric samples I had ordered.

Expecting to just get a few hastily & haphazardly cut bite sized pieces of cloth thrown in an envelope, I was really impressed with their presentation.

Which also came with little cards that take you through their 4 step process

As well as handy hints on the back to make sure you get what you actually want...

And then, nestled in their little envelope, came the moment of truth...

Sounds easy! And the best bit - they're made locally in Narre Warren :)

Our tiles are movie stars

2011-01-04T22:10:00.001+11:00

Well...maybe not quite MOVIE stars, but they do make a cameo appearance in the Spectra Selection Centre video tour on Carlisle's new website.

These will feature as a strip in each shower flanked by white gloss tiles. Dark chocolate, slightly mottled tiles will be on the floor. They'll also be the hero of the powder room jutting out from behind the mirror. But the part I'm biting my nails over is having these in the ensuite as the vanity splashback and on the mirror wall of the spa. Might be a bit too much.

How long til the slab pour??????

EDIT: On a recent visit to Spectra to re-select our splash back colour, I snuck a decent shot of our tiles...

De-kor-8-shun

2011-01-03T19:28:00.000+11:00

These are my last 2 mood boards - I promise (Reinsey reserves the right to change her mind and create more and more mindless collages featuring borrowed images of house porn)

How many sleeps until our slab pour you ask?
Seventeen (17)

Oh blimey I'm getting excited about living in this brown, white and orange house of ours!!!

Pillow talk...

2011-01-02T19:28:00.001+11:00

I've been doing a little pillow analysis of display homes and builder websites to find some ideas to dress the beds in readiness for the string of "open for inspections" we're about to undergo.

Of course, coz it's me, I've categorised them...

I might have to start working an afternoon shift coz it's going to take me all morning to pile these babies up.

And just thought I'd mention that our slab is being poured in 18 sleeps (in case you'd lost count).

A new year...

2011-01-01T18:19:00.000+11:00

Just for today, I'm not going to obsess about house colours, worry about finances or freak out about real estate prices.

Today is all about new beginnings and drawing a damn thick line under all that has gone before. 2010 wasn't the best of years, but there's no point dwelling on it.

I'll take from the lessons, change what I can, ditch the traits that no longer serve me and move onto a brand new, exciting, life-changing year.

Welcome aboard 2011. I'm super excited that you're here!!

A bit of decor-um please?

2010-12-31T10:04:00.000+11:00

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!!!

2010-12-28T11:50:00.002+11:00

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

2010-12-26T22:52:00.001+11:00

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.

...................................................................................................................................

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...

2010-12-22T13:35:00.001+11:00

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

xxx