Sorry It's Been So Long

Well the last few months have been really emotional to say the least. I didn't realise until I starting writing this post that I probably had been putting it off a bit.

We did our final inspection on Wednesday 10th November, went into head office got our big binder of instructions & paperwork, all our keys and a couple of bottles of wine & hey presto the house was ours!!! It felt a bit surreal that we were finally here & there was no more waiting! The timing worked out really well as my sister was due to arrive from London on Sunday 14th so we were out of mums & she had somewhere to sleep!!

As my holidays didn't start until the Friday we just moved some mattresses in & some clothes, put some of our paper blinds up & we slept there the first night!! We were so excited but it felt kind of surreal & like we shouldnt be there!

The next night we were out celebrating when we got the news that my beautiful Nanna Smith had just passed away. At the age of 92 she was someone who made us laugh, made us cry, taught us how to love and created the most incredible family to be a part of. She was such a constant presence all of my life and we miss her terribly. I miss my Wednesday nights with her but I know that part of her is present in each and every person in our family and that she will always be around.

With everything that happened and my sister arriving 2 days later i guess we weren't really too worried about the house much and haven't really given it the excitement or the attention that we probably thought we would. Most of the next 2 weeks were spent with family and making sure that my sister caught up with everyone that she needed to before she went back. It was so nice to just have her around for 2 weeks and do the simple things like shopping or just hanging out! Getting her on the plane to go back was tearful but at least she got to see this house that consumed every one of our phone conversations for the past year!

Our new fridge & bed were delivered but the brand new fridge had a dent!! A small one but a dent nevertheless and the guys that delivered it managed to walk clay all over our carpet in our bedroom.... the fridge door that was dented has now been replaced and it is all working perfectly.

We had a few issues with our garage doors, the day after we moved in the double door stopped working but with everything that was going on we didn't really get around to trying to get it fixed until the following week. After no response from the installer, I contacted EB who organised the service call straight away for us & it was fixed within a couple of days. Rather than reprogramming the door they just replaced the whole motor and it has been great ever since.

We have also managed to put a few blinds up around the house, mainly on the windows that get a lot of sun during the day. We ended up doing white venetians with the wide shutter blades. They look great & are pretty cost effective if you do them yourself. Lucky most of our small windows are standard sizes so we were able to just buy them rather than having them made. The only issue we do have is the big lounge room & dining room windows, they are about 2.65m wide & the maximum width you can get is 2.4m so we will have to split it into a couple of blinds. At the front of the house in our bedroom we are hoping to put in plantation shutters so I have organised a measure and quote for early in the new year.

The retaining wall that is on our diving boundary has now been finished started. Our backyard has been a mess of mud, tools & machinery for the past 6 weeks but with the good weather just before Christmas they managed to get the wall done. We have also hired the same company to do the retaining wall for the back of our block, the step where we will be terracing the back corner and also the retaining wall out the front along the driveway. They are really nice guys, have been great to work with, keep us up to date every day & they have made sure that the job is done right rather than just getting it done.

So what's next? well we have started putting in the paver borders for our garden edges which is coming along well but putting Allans back to the test a bit. We are trying to get out early in the morning and get some done before the heat hits and then get back into it in the late afternoon.

I am still deciding which walls to put some feature colours on & we still need ALOT more furniture, all of our furniture from our unit would probably fit into about 2 rooms in the new house!!

Not much new to show but some photos below of our progress.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and that the new year brings lots of progress on your builds.

April
xxoo


The Wall of Dirt being cut ready for the retaining wall








Our new houseguests




Retaining Wall finished!


Back Retaining Wall started


Back Retaining Wall almost finished


Back terrace - this will have my clothesline (can't wait to be able to hang sheets up properly!) and also my vegie garden, a hedge will go along the top of the step so that it is not a eyesore.


Master Bedroom need to add upholstered bedhead & blanket box, bedside tables, & pictures, oh and some plantation shutters...



Kitchen & Lounge Room - new lounge is almost decided!! This lounge will be going into the media room, still to add a picture between the two windows.



Pavers for garden edging delivered - warning though if you ask for hand delivery they can only hand unload them from the truck straight onto the ground, they can't walk with them as I found out!! had to restack 400 pavers by hand after they stacked them on the kerb!!


Garden Edging & irrigation started..... grass will be going in this front part with a street tree and then behind to the garage is a garden bed


more of our garden edging efforts this morning before it got too hot & allan hurt his back :(


Spare Bedroom - need to add lamps + picture & still debating whether to put curtains up....


our lonely christmas tree.... will be much better next year when it has some more furniture around it!!