This Blog is Not Finished!!!

I'm here and alive and well! So is the house!! We moved in, then we moved out again while the floor was being sanded and polished and we moved back in again this week!! This is a very short update of the things that have been happening so far. Over the weekend, I plan to go crazy with the camera and update properly with photos and more information. THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO WHEN YOU GET THE KEYS!!!! We have barely been able to draw breath let alone sit down and type a post!!

Exciting things that have happened since we got the keys!

• Our amazing Queensland Spotted Gum hardwood floors were laid (they remained unsanded/polished for 2 weeks to adjust to humidity levels etc.)
• Floors were sanded and polished!!!!
• We built all our retaining walls (this had to be done before our boundary fences could be put up) and when I say we built, I actually mean my husband and his band of 'brothers'!!
• Boundary fences are finished (just finished yesterday)
• I've sealed the grout on the porcelain tiles (has an impressive 15 year protection from stains etc). I wouldn't actually call this exciting more painful!!
• We painted all our ground floor skirting boards (whilst we were camping.....) and these have all now been put on. They were left off due to flooring being done post-handover
• Half of the double roller blinds have been installed (upstairs) - we had to wait till the floor was finished for downstairs, these are being done today - including our black fabric pelmets
• Victory came yesterday and installed sheer curtains to master and study and plantation shutters to both bathrooms and theatre. These are absolutely stunning! LOVE, love, love them!
• NBN is connected
• Half of our scratched doors and frames have been replaced - yes half, see below......
• Appliances were installed (eeek see below) 
• We had the Theatre painted - Dulux Raku, feature wall in bedroom - Dulux Stepney and the fire hob and bulkhead - Dulux Raku
• Drive way and other areas in the backyard were excavated yesterday ready for concrete! Good bye muddy mess! When I left today they were not there so not sure when it is being poured. The weather has not been very kind again
• Our side wing fence is up - looks great and after spending over a month at friends, our beautiful dog can finally come home (finished yesterday)
• Holes have been dug ready for the decking to begin in the backyard - sometime this century!
• Our reverse-cycle air conditioners were installed - post-handover (not through Carlisle Homes)
• It's been all about deliveries, deliveries, deliveries and workman everywhere!! Glad the blinds are on now!!
• Front door tinting is happening in the coming days (light tint from Tint Master) 

Frustrations and ongoing dilemmas!

• Telephone is not working - going round in circles with Telstra, NBN and Argus Technologies - should get a better answer by the end of today... Should....
• Half of our windows and doors were replaced. Absolute incompetence by our SS. This has been a big issue through the build and it somewhat escalated last week when A & L showed up with half of the works - they were completely unaware of the other half - even though it was on our completion of works list to be done post-handover our SS only fulfilled some of it. A lot of angry calls were made as well as emails, discussions with managers of all.. It will all be done and has been ordered but now our floors are done we are not happy with it!! Lots more detail to come about this.....
• Of the 6 appliances we had installed (fire place, ovens x2, cooktop, range, hot water service) only 2 were correct, not damaged, not defective..... The ovens were perfect. More to come on this - most of this has been rectified but still some issues!
• 2 areas of the kitchen vinyl wrap was damaged by the installers of the range and the window people post-handover - this is going to be fixed
• Still waiting for our one and only timber infill to be painted the correct colour. It was painted white, instead of Woodland Grey as it should have been. Such a minor thing in the scheme of things now but frustrating all the same
• When we collected our keys our SS put wrong door handles in two rooms (doors and WIR) - still waiting for this to be done

Looking forward to doing some major updating of things in detail in the coming days. First to come has to be the floors - stay tuned!

Carpet Work Begins - Takarra Ridge Wool Blend

No idea what has happened to the renderers. The weather forecast was for potential rain, so we should be happy that they haven't been yet. The rest of the week isn't looking flash either so it might be a while till we see the finished product! However, the carpet layers were there all day today so work inside moves forward. Underlay for upstairs was laid and the carpet has been rolled out and cut in most rooms. All rooms upstairs are carpeted (except bathroom and powder room!). Downstairs, the underlay is also down and the carpet has been rolled out - is some parts to flatten and decrease (master bedroom, study and theatre). In our previous home we had a light colour wool carpet and we were really happy with how it stood up in wear and tear and in durability. In 11 years it was only just starting to look like it needed replacing and it had been there for a few years prior to that. We chose a wool blend for this home in the hope that it would also be easy to clean (especially having kids) and have found that lighter carpets are actually easier to keep clean than darker too! It's not a plush carpet but it does have a soft feel and it hopefully ties in with our coastal location. 

Underlay - Super Premium Foam (Cat 3)
Carpet - Takarra Ridge - Wool Blend Loop 520 (Cat 3)

Underlay

Underlay in Master Bedroom

Upstairs Bedroom

Rolled Out Upstairs

Rolled out Carpet Ready to go

Theatre Room

Carpet Close Up

Upstairs (few dirty boot footprints - eek!)

 

Takarra Ridge - Wool Blend 520 (Cat 3) - Colour Selection

Shower Screen, Taps Changed, Movement with the Fire.

Went past the house over the weekend as my sister has just moved back from WA. We were going to peek through the windows and have a look but we were lucky enough to turn up when the shower screen was being installed in the ensuite; so we ducked in for a quick peek around! A few more jobs ticked off the list!

Ensuite Shower Screen Installed

The Correct Bath/Spa Tap - Vito Bertoni Taya

Upstairs Bath Installed

The Correct Bath Tap - Vito Bertoni Taya

Top Edge of the Tiles Painted...

It's not finished yet, but the top edge of the tiles has been painted. I thought it was a bit odd at first but the more I thought about it the more it grew on me! The tiles at the house we are renting at the moment catch the dust really harshly as they are not smooth - painting may eliminate this. We looked at the display images as we had never noticed it before and sure enough they are painted - it's funny the things you never notice!

The Lock on Master Bedroom Double Door

Our ceilings are 2740mm high and little ol' me cannot reach this lock!!! Think I might need to buy a step ladder!!

Colourbond Capping on the External Fireplace Brickwork

Work on the fireplace has started!!

Curtain Choices

We have 22 windows and doors in total and 18 of these will be furnished (no furnishing to ensuite highlight window, kitchen and butlers splashback windows or front doors).

We have recently had quotes for these and another one tomorrow. We knew it wouldn't come cheap and there have been a few surprises. We are lucky enough to have a friend of my husbands doing the roller blinds which make up the majority of the blinds. This has halved the cost (compared to in store pricing) and we are able to get a higher quality blind for much less. We have decided to do duel roller blinds - which we have never had before so in total there are 30 roller blinds - crazy!

Here are our the blinds we are hoping to get.

  Duel roller blinds - white                          Operating on the same bracket

 

Sheer Curtains for Master Bedroom and Study

White sheer material we have chosen and design - Black rod and black eyelets

Black Padded Pelmet (with white roller blind)

Black pelmet above doors (similar to our black doors)

and in bedroom 

 Black Pelmet Colour Choices

We have chosen Warrick - Saturno Ebony - the darker centre material)

Plantation shutters like this for theatre -in white

White plantation for bathroom and ensuite

I'm Addicted to Adairs...!!!!!! and a Few Other Purchases

I wouldn't call myself a home-styler, in fact I think I have very little idea of what looks good and what doesn't in any fashion sense! However, I am really enjoying the fun side of designing and furnishing. I had a little taste for it when we sold our house and we wanted to get it looking as appealing to others as we could. It may be starting to turn into a full blown fetish now! I still don't feel overly confident in the decisions, but I am having fun. I have started following a great blog called Lime & Mortar. She has some really practical organisational ideas and has a great blog on furnishing and designing her newly built home.  I was reading through her posts and the comments she had about Adairs (linen, towels etc.) made me think they were worth checking out. I hadn't really been in there before so I went in for a browse. Well what a mistake! I am officially addicted to all their products!! We had been searching for new quilt covers and I would happily buy any of them! They are great quality and everything we have bought, we managed to get on sale which was great. I was in there yesterday grabbing some towels and the sales assistant told me there was a Kids Adairs shop at High Point, Melbourne - that is sure to send you into bankruptcy... Love to see it one day after I recover from financial ruin!!

These are the purchases we have made..

Quilts - Enchanted Forest - Pink,  Raindrop Confetti

Blankets for the girls - Morgan Stripe, Alex

Towels for the new bathrooms and hand towels for powder rooms - Flinders Chevron

Curious Yellow Owl - we are going for a splash of yellow here and there!

And the cleaning products - you have to try these!

The linen spray - you could spray on everything in your home; its delectable

Laundry detergent, floor cleaner, all purpose spray. I am yet to use them all but they all smell so fresh and are made with essential oil. 

I'm saving them till we move in!

These are the cushions (some of) that I want to buy!

I'm going to wait till they go on sale and then purchase away!!

Our Doona Cover (not Adairs - Logan & Mason)

Study Chair my Husband has Picked

For guitar playing, reading or contemplating life!

Matt Blatt - Jean Prouvre

Our Side Table - in yellow, not red

Jay Lamp Table - Vast Galleries 

Internal Doors and Skirting Boards

Last week was a busy week internally (running a little behind with the blog!). We were more than ready to see the brickwork start but no action. Instead Winter showed it's full force as the inside of our house steamed on. Happy to report one small spot of water getting in and the rest dry. Still not overly confident with this 'backwards/reverse' building technique but as long as things stay dry and the bricks go up, we will be happy. 

Most of the internal doors were fitted out. The front doors are yet to go on (quietly relieved about this!). They require an extra piece of timber to keep them together that was a few mm off. 

Master Bedroom Doors (upgrade)

Still to be painted in Lexicon Quarter

Open!

Upstairs Bedroom (standard)

Door and WIR Door

Bedroom 2 - Duel Door

This is our 5yr old daughters room - it's going to make it difficult (if not a little amusing) for her to ever slam her door!! Those of you with children will understand!

Upstairs Bathroom (left door)

The extra storage cupboards we added (deleted the extra upstairs toilet)

Closer Look at Upstairs Bathroom

(We also have these doors for both the ground powder room and first floor powder room)

You can see why I am glad the from doors are not on yet!

Our skirting boards were also put on. Due to our higher ceilings, our skirting boards were automatically increased. We thought this was just to the ground floor but the first floor appears to have the same (still need to measure and check). I popped around while the carpenter was there on Sunday working on this. When I arrived I was surprised to see someone I used to work with years ago in a part-time job. I took him away from his work for about an hour but it was great to know he was doing the work and he explained a lot of things to me. The skirting boards looked great and really cleaned up and finished off the rooms. After about half an hour of chatting, I was almost struck with a lightening bolt when I realised that there shouldn't have been any skirting boards on the ground floor.......... I was too busy taking in all the work he had done! We are having hardwood spotted gum flooring put in after hand over (not through Carlisle Homes). Our flooring company (ideally) would have liked to install the flooring during the build and we asked Carlisle if they would be willing to sign a waiver for this but it was knocked back. Not a huge big deal. The main things for us/them is that the timber will need to but cut around the kitchen, rather than placed on the timber. If the flooring is done after the kitchen one method they use is placing quad around the edges. We don't like the look of quad and therefore don't want it. So instead our floorer will place the boards as close as they can to the edges and use corking - a gap filler - which requires no quad. The skirting boards will also cover this where applicable - hallway etc. We have 3 rooms to the ground floor with carpet - so our contract stated that ALL skirting was to be left uncut, unpainted for client to complete post handover. SOOOOO, my long lost carpenter friend then had to rip all the skirting off that he had spend the day doing and it would need to be reordered for us! I felt a little bad - it wasn't stated in his paperwork. All's well that end's well!!

Upstairs Skirting and Cornice Finished

Shopping!!

Seeing as the build is flying ahead we thought it was time to make some purchases. Shopping for a new house sounds like great fun but with a just turned 5 year old and 3 year old in tow, it can be rather testing!! First on the agenda was new beds for the girls. They are both currently sleeping in their cots (that convert to toddler beds). They have been great, but our eldest's feet are almost pushing through the bed end! 

Here are some purchases we have made so far. Fun!!

Bed for One Ratbag

One for the Other!

Bar Stools x 4 for the Island Bench in the Kitchen

Kitchen Pendant for the Island

There will be 3 of these (LOVE!!)

Bench Seat (not table) for the entry

Study Desk (minus all the chairs!)

Pendant lights x 2 for Master Bedroom

Absolutely love these - a bit different - made from wood

Close Up