February 2008
Monthly Archive
We swung by the block again on the weekend. It looks like the estate is progressing nicely. Their starting to do the main entrance and the paving on the main road. They’ve also been around and levelled the blocks off nicely with a heap of top soil. Given the mounds of dirt on everyone’s blocks I’d say they’re about to fill in the holes where the nature strip will eventually be. Our nature strip already has a nice addition…. a big bloody light pole! The upside of this monstrosity is that at least it looks nice.
I must say, one thing I find strange looking at all these new estates, is the underground power. Having grown up in a town with power lines every where it is quite a strange thing to have an empty skyline. I must remember to dial before I dig!
So now the real fun starts! We had our first tender meeting on Saturday. We sat down with the fine folks at Urbanedge and went through the pricing of all the extra stuff we have asked for. We’re not really changing that much in the scheme of things. mostly because Urbanedge already includes all the stuff like carpet, downlights, flyscreens etc. I think we’re up around $30k of extras, but when you consider that $20k of that is the alfresco/garage extension and ducted aircon…. well we’re doing ok!
We modified a couple of things from the original request. We’ve decided not to go with the glass splashback in the kitchen, we’re deleting the window above the bed in the master bedroom, we’re going to do feature walls later (so that they’re not in contract) and we’re not having fancy bi-fold doors to the alfresco. So that is saving us about 5 grand right there… Of course that got quickly eaten up with the extras we added in exchange.
It turns out that we actually have another metre down the alfresco side of the house that we didn’t know we had. Something must’ve gone screwy with the first measure up of the house and block. So now we’re extending the alfresco and garage a little more! It means more money, but the upside is that the external portion of the alfresco is 4000×4000 making the whole thing about 6300×4000 which will be great. Being a 4 metre span now, I dont know if they will need to include pillars as well… i’m hoping not.
The down side is now the garage has to be extended as well…. we don’t HAVE to I guess, but we want to keep the alfresco roof line hidden behind the garage roof. So that now means our garage is about 2.4m wider than it was… not wide enough to be a 3 car, but too wide for a two car. Leanne and Kumar had a great idea, which is to add a window in the front of the garage, rather than having an odd sized garage door or a big blank space.
I’ve done a bit of messing about in Photoshop to show what we’re aiming for and the alternatives.
And here is the what our modified one should look like….
The extra window will actually just lead into the garage, but it gives the feeling of the house being bigger than it really is and maintains the balance between house and garage. I should point out that the images aren’t to scale 
We’re also adding a couple of more lights to the alfresco, and a fan point (another good idea from Leanne!)… but that’s it for now! We need to keep some money up our sleeve for when we go choose colours and taps and stuff like that.
So we’re back from Sunny-ish Queensland anniversary trip.
The weather was mostly good, and by that I mean it only rained two days out of five!
I don’t have time for a full spiel, so here is a brief rundown on our first anniversary trip to the Gold Coast.
Day 1 - landed 8am, picked up hire car, shopped, checked in to hotel, pizza for dinner
Day 2 - Off to see the inland, rainforest treetop walk, Mt Tamborine, Hinze Dam (closed), Mexican for dinner
Day 3 - Outlet mall shopping for Thuy, bag carrying for Al, walk around Surfers, Hard Rock Cafe for dinner
Day 4 - Wet N Wild in the rain, flasho Chinese restaurant at Jupiters for dinner, casino for a bit of fun, came out up a few bucks!
Day 5 - More shopping, only one pair of shoes purchased….. tired… want to go home, plane delayed… home around midnight!
And now for some photos!
..and what is a trip to the Gold Coast without Mario Kart GP!?!?
30m in the treetops… yeah lots of fun
Let this be a warning to ya’ll boot wearing types! Your kind aint welcome round these parts…
No concrete and steel here, all rickety wood and cables! Only 6 people allowed per span!
Thuy is great at using the "we’re here for our anniversary" line!
Uh oh… we’re taking photos of wildlife!!
You cant have an anniversary without a Fudge Brownie Sundae!
We just went and saw the movie “Dan in Real Life” with Steve Carell. It was ok I guess… nothing to write home about.
BUT the funniest scene in the movie was when Steve Carell, after having something of an epiphany, goes to talk to his daughters to ask their forgiveness for being a bad father. Whilst everyone else is in tears, Thuy and I are PISSING ourselves because of this:
This photo may not be terribly amusing, EXCEPT that this is what Thuy wore to the Cinema….
Well crack open the Champagne (or perhaps the cheaper Australian equivalent)! We’ve finally gotten approval for our finance, which means we’re now OFFICIALLY building a house! A big sigh of relief all round. I should feel more thrilled, but I think we are just relieved that we’ve gotten confirmation. I don’t think we ever really doubted it, but you can never be too sure!
So our tender doc hasn’t come back from the builder yet, which means we’ll have to wait a little longer before we start getting into the nitty gritty. But that is not such a bad thing I suppose. Speaking of building, one thing I did think of the other day which I must add to the tender is a double door or a 2 metre roller door from the garage to the backyard. The house comes with a single door already, but I just had visions of trying to get rocks and plants into the backyard without being able to fit a wheelbarrow out the back! EEK! So we must remember to add that to the tender request!
We’re finally on our way!
