Working our butts off!

It may not appear much in the pictures but we have been absolutely working our butts off to get to this stage! Every weekend that Alex has been home we have spent majority of our time outside doing the landscaping. Our turf was delayed due to the rain but now that we finally have grass, it hasn’t rained! Hello empty water tank and massive water bill! 

We went with a Buffalo grass - originally it was going to be Sir Walter but we changed our minds to Sapphire, which is another high performance buffalo grass, after seeing, feeling it and hearing raving reviews about it. It is exactly like Sir Walter but is softer, greener and handles full sun much better than Sir Walter. We're super impressed with it and it is SO green!

The decks to our portico and alfresco are now complete and looking amazing. We are letting them weather at the moment so they can be oiled soon. Alex built our entire fence on his own (clever little man I have) without ever building a fence before. We did hit a few hiccups but nothing too difficult to work around. Our fence has been the talk of the street and they all love it (with the footpath being on that side we have had quite a few ‘watchers’ during the process). The neighbours that are due to start construction on their house soon want to build their fence the same way! We went with Merbau for our decks and fence simply because we love the look and colour of it - some would say that Merbau is too good to use as a fence but to be honest, we only had to build one side of the fence as the other sides were already erected. Also, the fence is along a foot path which, according to our building covenants, state that we can't have a regular 'divider' fence there so the Merbau worked out much cheaper than using Hebel or a rendered block wall (it's 35meters long!). The fence will need to be oiled when we do the decks so we have a bit of oiling ahead of us.

So for now we have decks, turf and a fence – still to come gates, river rocks for the sides of the house, gardens and curtains!  Oh and a retaining wall!

But first… a wedding to attend in Bali yew! 

Internet finally!

So much to update you on since our big move weekend and weeks that followed (can you believe that Telstra have still not connected our TV, phone and internet?!) so I will try to keep it brief with lots of pics yay!

In summary:

• Installation of wood flooring and carpet
• Electrical fit out - including 50 or more LED down lights, pendant lights, bathroom vents, LED strip lighting, fans, external lighting etc etc
• Move day
• Termite and pest spray
• Excavation of the backyard to give a more level ground and tidy up of the block
• driveway was cut in
• Josh and Alex prepped the driveway, marked it out, leveled and had the concrete poored - this was a week long process.
• Fence posts and palings were sourced, collected and delivered 
• Fence post holes were dug, concrete poored and posts went in
• Portico deck  
• Summer was bathed hehe

While all this was going on tradies were coming and going at the house to fix a few teething problems and people were arriving to quote for curtains, shutters, turf, retaining walls and so on! Crazy last 3 weeks to say the least.

Alex worked tirelessly putting in all of the lights with Scotty and again on the driveway with Josho. Josh did the most amazing job on our massive driveway! Such a large task for one guy and although he wasnt happy with the finish on the middle section (Josh is an absolute perfectionist and such a hard worker!) Alex and I are just ever so grateful that he did it for us and we are not worried about the finish that only another concretor would be able to pick up! While the boys worked away I made sure they were fed and hydrated haha. Thanks to Josho, Nath and Grant for helping us get there in the end.

Ben from Performance Excavators has done all of our excavation needs and did an amazing job at it. So glad we found him. He's a local super chilled out surfie dude from the area ha!

By this weekend we should have the front yard turfed and a deck to the alfresco area. Alex will also be working away at the fence palings with whatever help I can provide!

The photos are all jumbled up and after trying to re-arrange them a bazillion times and them not co-operating, I've given up!



New deck to the portico



Fence palings being delivered

 

Half the fence posts in

 



After shot of wood flooring install



Day 3 - final section of driveway

  

Day 1 - section 1 of concrete





Section 2 of driveway



After shot of excavation



Shot of the backyard before the excavation work



Before shots of backyard



After excavation shot



POD delivery bang on time again





wood flooring install

Before - wood flooring



Josho working away on the driveway





day 2 - section 2 of concrete with few extra helpers at hand 



Fence posts are up



This is similar to what we want to build



Coming soon...

Another late post to come! Unfortunately we still do not have TV, phone or Internet connected. Telstra made an error with our connection to Telstra velocity request so we are without until the 18 July! Once we have a Internet connection I will be able to update you on our flooring install, electrical fit out, driveway and hopefully our fence by then.

Stay tuned...

Handover Day 20 June 2013!

So excited to share that we had handover on Thursday 20 June 2013!! wooo woooo wooo!

The house is finally all ours. I have the key to prove it (and there's a lot of them!). Alex unfortunately had to work so I had to attend the handover all by myself, it was a little sad but the house is not 'complete' just yet so we will share the house together on Friday night when all of our wood flooring, carpet and light fittings have been installed and then the house will feel complete.

Plantation gave us a beautiful handover present which was a little bit spesh and I can't wait to use them in the house.

The move begins this weekend eep!

Late post coming soon!

Lighting

We had a big spend up at Beacon Lighting a week or two ago. Ben was the man and ever so patient and helpful. We essentially bought the entire house worth of lighting goods with the exception of a few ceiling fan/lights, mirror lights and a pendant.

Next up... our mate from Scotty's Electrical will be doing the install for us.

Can't wait to see the house with all of our nice ligths and remove the hideous Plantation Home 'dog cone collar' fittings!

Under the kitchen cabinet lighting

 External lighting

Ribbon LED lighting for under the kitchen island bench top

 Dimmable LED downlights throughout

Non-dimmable LED downlight

I want two black fans like this but can't seem to find them. If you know where I can buy them (or you sell them) please comment below. I would love to hear from you!

3 days to go

Yerp 3 days to go!!! Yew!

We had our final inspection with the site supervisor on Thursday to take a look through the house and stick a red dot to anything that needed fixing. Few things to do but on a whole everything is looking great for handover this Thursday.

The fence has been removed and all the Goop was gone from the windows - what a difference it made! The garage roller door was on and working, along with the alarm system. The data cable guy was at the house while we were waiting for our appointment so he ran us through how to use the alarm and data systems.

The completed fence! Thanks to Uncle Billie and Mitre 10 Mega Store for helping us out with our paint selection. We colour matched Dulux Domino to a different brand. Dulux did not have a primer in it and it would have required more than 2 coats. We colour matched Domino with Wattle Solar Guard, which has the primer and only required 2 coats. Two coats was plenty enough to be over it, I couldn't have handle having to do more!

 Fire proof fly screens have been installed.

Goop gone!

WIR and all cupboard shelving has been refitted at the correct heights.

Love the size of our bath in the ensuite