Wet & Dirty

What a wet & dirty weekend

Plans to go away for the Australia Day weekend started off well... until ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald came down the coast!

Plantation Homes notified us that there were some trees on the block where the house is going and asked if we could remove them before they start, so we hoped to head to the Coast for the long weekend to remove the trees and have a little holiday at the same time. We also needed to visit our new neighbours to have consent forms signed by both of them for the relaxation on the side boundary setback adjacent to the footpath (elevation D). BUT after the arrival of Oswald, camping was definitely off the charts so we spent the day removing the trees and meeting our new neighbours instead.

Alex and I are going to get along juuuust fine with the neighbours behind us ha! When we visited them to introduce ourselves they kindly offered us to come inside and sit down and before we knew it we were drinking wine and having beers with them and didn't leave until hours later! Great afternoon to top off a days (ok maybe an hours) work in the rain and mud removing trees.

We are now looking to move into the final stage before construction starts (1-2 weeks) as soon as we receive Covenant Approval.

Trees and shrubs

Gettin' wet & dirty

Ta da! No more shrubs

Sold!

We visited the block while we were on the Sunshine Coast for New Years and noticed that they finally put a sold sign on the block (4 months late!) just a little bit excited

Council Approval

We received Council approval (in record time - 1 week) today! Glad to move onto the next step and get the ball rolling. Now, just to get the Body Corporate on board to realise how fab our plans are and approve it

Colour & Electrical Appointments

What a crazy day!

Probably advise NOT booking both of these appointments on the same day ( I had done a massive amount of pre-planning and it was still horrid). It’s a lot to take in, decide on and sign off on in the one day. Both appointments took 3-4 hours each and both Alex and I were brain dead and completely over it by the end of it.

At this point we had to remind ourselves ….

However, we did pull through and you can scan through our selections in the Colour Selection and Electrical Plans tabs.

Construction Contract

Construction Contract signed. All landscaping quotes for the fence, driveway, decking and grass collected and sent off to the Bank with our Contract, for finance approval.  

That sounds a whole lot easier than it actually was ha!

(image via flickr)

New Home Proposal

First and foremost I have to say a MASSIVE thank you to Jayne and Brett for helping prep Alex and I for our New Home Proposal meeting. I think I would have died of anxiety from all of the ‘unknowns’ which seem to come out in your New Home Proposal meeting. Xx

So, I may have worked myself up a little too much for this meeting and it actually wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be. It was actually great fun seeing exactly how the house was going to look inside and out and how it will be sited on our block. There were a few hidden costs and quite a few items that the Sales rep had miss-quoted but it wasn’t too killer. The main ‘unknown’ for us was finding out that our house is in a minor fire zone and so quite a few things had to be modified on the house.

Such as:

• All glass had to be strengthened
• All wood had to be a certain degree of flame retardant
• All weep holes and the whirlies on the roof had to have metal mesh added to them
• Fire safe seal around the garage door
• Fly screens had to be changed to a particular type of metal with smaller ‘holes’
• Flame retardant sarking around the wood frames (inside the walls)

All of these things are to prevent airborne ambers flying into the house and burning through and causing a fire. Luckily, we are in the lower end at about 12-12.5. Apparently this number goes all the way up to 40 so I would hate to think what you would have to do to a house in those conditions.

Rather be safe than sorry though and let’s hope we never have to deal with a bush fire.   

Appointment finished yahoo! Now long weekend with friends at the beautiful Noosa Heads

(image via Noosa YHA)

Porchlight Interiors

I always knew that when the time came to build a house I would hire the help of a designer to help select colours for the house (inside and out). Why spend all that money on a house to not invest an extra couple of hundred dollars to get it right?

Alex and I wanted a colour scheme of black, white, grey (all 50 shades) and taupe. We had general ideas on what colours we wanted where but wanted help on picking the exact shade and making it all work together, so we hired the help of Porchlight Interiors.

T from Porchlight Interiors came out to our house for a consultation to get a design brief from us. From there we had another appointment with her to go through the colours that she had selected and what we liked and didn’t like. T also came with me to help make a firm decision on tiles from Beaumont – I felt much more confident with my decisions once I had the tick of approval from a professional. 

Hiring an interior designer is not for everyone – but it’s definitely for me (and my indecisiveness) and well worth the money spent! I’ll definitely be having T come back to the house once it’s complete.