Lots of stuff has happened over the last month. We’re all moved in, mostly settled and have started work on getting the outside as nice as the inside! The first step was to get a driveway and deck built. We had Stylish Decks construct two decks for us, one under the portico out the front, and one out the back under the extended alfresco roof. We’re stoked with the outcome! Looks great!

The guys that came in and did the decks were extremely polite and professional. I was actually surprised at how quickly they managed to build the whole thing. The neighbours are still waiting for theirs to be finished and they started a long time before us! And they weren’t just quick either, but detailed. Every plank spaced perfectly, every cut was nice and neat. The whole thing was just finished off really nicely. As an added bonus, they actually cleaned up the site after they were done, and that is a rarity these days!

The portico is about 2m x 3m and leads out to the concrete path. The colour looks great, and provides a nice highlight to the front of the house. It needs a bit of a clean, because I’ve been in out the front door a bit the last few days!

Portico deck

Out the back we have alfresco with our new BBQ now set up and working. It’s already had a few uses since Friday! I’m very happy with the outcome, and definitely glad we went with the deck rather than pavers. We will pave between the deck on the garage (that’s on the right), and probably move the BBQ out there. We’ll then get some tables and chairs our there, and maybe an outdoor couch.

Alfresco looking to deserted backyard

Stylish alfresco!

The wood is Merbau, and it’s just been stained with some deck oil. The colour is just amazing. Beautiful reds! Gets a really nice glow with the sun on it!

Merbau

We also had Stylish Decks do the driveway. We had a stenciled bluestone look done. Looks really good. I was initially concerned that it might look a bit “fake”, but I was surprised at how nicely it came up. Very happy over all!

Driveway

Our house is now officially complete! We thought it was a bit touch and go there over the last few days…especially with a public holiday in the way. Some things on the list were not quite finished, last time round, and a few things were not quite right (all minor I might add!) but our SS has come through with the goods as we had hoped!

Thuy and I both had the day off today to finish packing, and to organise some stuff from Bunnings for the new place. We went to the house early this morning to measure up the courtyard and alfresco for dirt and paving etc. We were amazed when we arrived to see now less than 7 or 8 vehicles parked all around our house! Plumbers, electricians, air con guys, painters, tank guys you name it they were there. It was a pretty crazy half our when we were there, with so much happening. We did our best to stay out of everyone’s way, pretty much keeping to ourselves and doing our outdoor planning. Our poor SS was looking a little under pressure (hopefully not from us!) with his phone going off every 5 minutes. I know I’ve said it before, but a really big thumbs up and thanks to him for getting our house done and looking great.

Without further delay… here are some long awaited pictures of our NEW home!

Thuy in the kitchen

Bathroom 2

Out to alfresco

Theatre room door open…

Theatre room door closed…

Theatre room door half open (or half closed?)…

Prep room

Shiney new ovens!

Down the main hall

Ensuite basins

Ensuite

Tank, hot water, air con

Kitchen fully installed!

Action central!

That’s one way to get a tank in the yard!

On Monday our new lounge arrives, our driveway and decks are being built, and later in the week our blinds should be being installed. Perfect timing! Of course, the only people to NOT have their act together are Telstra. Apparently the whole estate won’t have phone connections until the 21st…. which is pretty bad considering we have neighbours that moved in nearly a month ago now!

Basically, he measures the baby’s head, checks the heart beat. Points out things like the lungs, liver, kidneys, stomach etc. It’s a real shame there is no audio, because it is very interesting. Somewhere in the middle you will see that he is definitely a he

WOW!

Ok, well anyway…. we have on Occupancy Permit!! WOOT! This means our house is officially suitable for living in! Now all we need is the bank to go look at it and give it a rubber stamp, and then our second inspection, and then settlement and then move in!!

I reckon 2 weeks from now and we’ll be in! Fingers crossed!! We’ll be going by the block tonight to see our completed fence Yay!

We dropped by the house last night, not to see the house this time, but to see the fence! We got a call from “u need a fence”, it turns out that they were doing Lot 1’s fence this week and asked if we were happy to have ours done this week too!! Why not, I say!!

Fencing started

Thuy forgot her shoes…

Telephone, gas, termite protection all installed!

Portico render finished…looking lovely!

The only potential issue we had was that there was still quite a bit of concrete and mess out the back of the block that was awaiting clean up. We mentioned this to the fencer, and as it turns out he knows our SS. So he got on the phone and got that organised, and got the OK to build the fence early as well! So, as we speak, our fence is probably just about done (it was just posts yesterday).

Also yesterday, MCSConnect came out and dug our phone cable. So that’s another one we can tick off the list!

AND, all the way around our house we now have some “termaguard” thing which apparently stops termites from lunching on our woodwork.

On top of all that, we had a peek in the windows and it looks like the painters have been back and redone the couple of patches that need doing. So that’s another bit of good news! We’re not sure when our 2nd inspection will be, but hopefully soon! With the fence all done, we won’t actually be able to get into our yard to peek in the windows anymore!!

Overall we’re pretty damned happy. We had a bundle of sticky dots, but overall we really struggled to find anything to pick on. Most of the issues were very minor paint issues; mostly things like a bit of wall paint on the skirting board, or a scuff on a door or whatever. But for the most part the place was in near perfect condition! We have one sliding door that is a bit misaligned, one bench top that has some strange marks on it, a few lights that must have dodgy globes, and someone must’ve hit one of our down pipes with a bobcat during the clean up but that is really about it.

A couple of things aren’t quite finished yet, but they’ll be done during the week (namely the render isn’t quite finished, and the theatre room door is coming as well).

We went there with the intention of being really picky and going over everything with a fine tooth comb, but there really just wasn’t anything to pick on. Believe me, I’ve read a lot of people’s blogs about the dramas they had come inspection time, and we’re both relieved that we have had no such problems. I mean, you expect little imperfections in paint and stuff like that… particularly on very large walls like the hallway which any imperfection just jumps out, but a lot of what you read you wonder what the hell the builder was thinking.

I thought I’d have a heap of photos, but it turns out we were so busy inspecting that we forgot to actually take any photos…. DER.

I have one photo of the front of the house, and that is about it! The render near the front door isn’t quite done, apparently the guy ran out of paint (or whatever it is that they use).

IMG_7130

So with any luck, we’ll have our second inspection friday next week (fingers crossed they can get all the tradies back in to finish the place off), and assuming the bank doesn’t stuff us around with their inspection, we should be able to be in before the end of the month!

We don’t expect there will be much to pick on though, the place was looking pretty nice last time we saw it, and our SS has been doing a great job of making sure everything is finished off nicely. Fingers crossed!

Well, let’s jump straight into the good news! We received an email from Urbanedge today letting us know that our first inspection date is on the 15th of October! The news was a great birthday present for Thuy! We figure we’ll be good to move in in the first week of November if all goes well! We’re definitely at the last mile now!

It’s good to have a time frame, as now we can finalise our fencing, drive way, decking and blinds! Yay!

I have some photos here from a few weeks ago, as well as some “through the window” photos taken over the weekend. As I said, I’ve been a bit slack at updating the blog lately!

Before the site cleanup

Laundry all finished

Main bathroom shower

Control for heating/cooling ducts

Our non-standard tapware (Thuy is very happy!)

Basin with taps

The dunny!

And the most recent photos from last week (through the windows)

No more temporary fencing!

Through the back window to the lounge, waiting for carpet.

Ensuite bath

The big ensuite mirror installed! Looks awesome!

Whilst we’re still unsure about exactly when handover is, we know it is close! In the next week or so we’re hoping to hear when our first official inspection is. If all goes well, about 2 weeks after that we should have the keys to our new home!

It’s a difficult time because there is so much to do in so little time. Fortunately we’re not in a big hurry to move this time. Last time we moved we had only one week to clean the apartment we were moving to, move all our stuff in and clean the old place. To make matters worse, last time I had the flu as well! This time, however, we can take a bit more time. Obviously we don’t want the house sitting there unoccupied, so we’d like to be in fairly soon after handover. But it means we can take our time moving all the rest of the stuff over.

Other than the moving thing, we have some other big ticket items to pay for. We’ve gotten quotes for blinds ($7k), fences ($4k), driveway ($3k), decking ($4k) and moving ($3.5k)… and it’s actually a LOT of money..and money we don’t really have to go splurging. Needless to say, the new fridge, home theatre and car are well and truly OFF the list for now… especially given we have a kid on the way!

We’re probably going to move ourselves this time. It may take us a couple of trips, but it’s going to beat forking out $4k again like we did last year!

For blinds, we’re probably going to go with a combination of roman blinds with motorised roller blinds where appropriate. Down the track we may have to call in Mum to help us with some sheer light filtering stuff for behind the romans. We don’t have to funds to do it now… so we’re going to leave it.

We got a great quote from a guy for the decking, driveway and path… he’s basically ready to go, so now we’re just waiting for our handover date!

The fence place we got our quote from seem to be a bit confused. Firstly they sent has back a quote for a place in Point Cook, and then when they eventually sent us the correct one the measurements were wrong! So i don’t know what we’ll do there!

We also found out from our new neighbours (Hi Karen and Nik!) that we may not even be able to get the phone on until November! So that may slow down our moving in plans. No phone means no internet, and no internet means no work! EEK!

I really have to hand it to these guys. They really do put in a lot of hard work. It’s easy to forget how much work goes into building a house. Especially when you’re just walking through or perhaps visiting a display. It’s been great each week to actually see these guys hard at it as it just helps you appreciate the attention and effort that goes into something which we usually take for granted every day we walk around our house.

We’re still waiting on a handover date… but we’re hoping it’s not too far away. We have fences, decks, curtains, blinds and a driveway we want to get moving on…but everyone always asks the same question…. “when is your handover date?”. BAH! Hopefully we’ll find out tomorrow, because then we can spend the weekend getting the rest of this stuff organised.

Photo time! It’s all looking a bit messy in the photos. A lot of dust and stuff everywhere…but once it is has had a bit of a spring clean it will look lovely!

Master Ensuite

Main bathroom shower

prep room

kitchen almost complete

kitchen looking proper flash

laundry tiles

main hallway