The end is nigh..

This week will hopefully, fingers and toes crossed, see the end of the build. The plan on Thursday is to go and do our final inspection, then head to the office where we will sign over the house into our names, handover the final cheque and then we get our keys!
It is an exciting time for us, albeit strangely surreal and slightly stressful.
I feel completely under prepared and am battling with that fact that I really will miss living with Mum and Dad.  
It is like time has flown by and left us a little behind, leaving us running to catch up. 
I have arranged for time off work to get the new house sorted. I have the job of arranging to have certain things put in like the driveway, bath rails and other handyman type things. 
We have had a few quotes done for driveways, thus leaving our jaws on the floor with the cost of a few patches of concrete! Unbelievable! I really never thought I would pay over $5k for concrete.. and that is a good price around town.


This weekend was partly spent trying to pack up mum and dads and clear out the mounds of crap we have managed to accumulate in the 10 short months we have lived there. It is safe to say I did not get very far. I managed to throw out some shoes and magazines, not exactly overhaul I had hoped for. I had better crack the whip on myself in the next few evenings and really make a go of it.
There is so much to be done, I am at a loss of where to start so I am trying to just fly with it and get it done slowly and surely. I should win the race that way, or so the story goes.


There are things that I am greatly looking forward to in our new home;

• Cooking and baking in my lovely new kitchen
• Entertaining friends and family
• Curling up in front of the fireplace with a good book and a glass of wine (that is when the fireplace resumes it's spot back on the priority short list, it is off at the moment due to concrete taking all priority positions)
• Watching a film with my husband in his Theatre room (status of this is also currently backburner-ed for now) 
• Enjoying our new neighbours on our street and getting to know them.
• Having guests come to stay (Hint hint international/interstate friends and family!)
• Getting the house to the way we want it to be. This is a long long long term goal, but I still need to put it here, because I need to keep my eye firmly on this prize. 

People always tell us that they have been working on their houses for the entire time they have had them. My wish, although extremely naive and unrealistic, is to get it done as soon as possibly manageable. 

Clearly my reality is further from the reality of reality, but I have to set myself that goal or else we will be one the same as everybody else with unfinished houses. Obviously it will take time and money, there will be other hurdles to jump through and financial setbacks to make it difficult for us, but we will work away at it and hopefully, sooner rather than later, it will be done.

When that day comes I will be happily satisfied for 10 minutes then set about getting ready to redesign and start over again. Thus in turn possibly driving my husband to the brink of insanity or possible divorce. 

Hopefully just insanity. 

Peace out xx


P.S No pics this week sorry, I have not been able to take any lately. Next time I will have some moved in ones which will be way more exciting!

On the home stretch to our new home..

We are getting seriously close now!

I am feeling the excitment brewing in me but also dread at moving and unpacking and cleaning!

This last month PD have been putting the finishing touches in like, door handles, bathroom fixtures, floors, carpets (now there is a story in that, I will come back to it), flyscreens, downpipes and the list goes on. It has really come together now and it is looking great although still not feeling like home to us yet.
It is quite a strange feeling really, we know it is ours, but it really does not feel like it is ours. I think it is because we have not seen our "stuff" in it or really anybodies "stuff" in it. So it has been hard to imagine a little bit. I am 100% sure that feeling will change the minute we have the keys in our hot little hands!

The carpet issue:

Last week after Easter, I popped over on my way to work one morning to check out what was happening and I found that there were tradies swarming over our house.. always a delight! We had the plumbers finishing fit offs and also the carpet layers in there laying the underlay. 
On my way out I noticed the rolls of carpet in the van. I had a look and thought.. "that is not our carpet, I hope they don't lay that!" I was going to say something to the fellas, but I didnt feel it was my place and I figured it might have been another PD house in the estate's job that they were going to go to after laying our underlay. So I went on my merry way to work and did not really think much else of it.
On Friday, Mr. CM called to talk to me and lock in a time to go and do pre-PCI inspection on the following Tuesday. As I was talking away to him on the phone I suddenly thought of the carpet and the conversation went something like this: me - "Oh by the way, what sort of colour is the carpet that has been laid?" Mr.CM - "ahh its a beige sort of colour, quite light, why?" me-"ahhh yeah that is not our carpet!" Mr. CM - "What?" me- "yeah we didnt order that, we ordered and dark brown/grey colour and one that is not cut pile as well" Mr. CM - " Oh sh*t! Well I will get on to the carpet people and get it sorted out."
Pretty funny really! We were just glad that all our paperwork says the correct things and we knew that we were not at fault! 

On Tuesday, we met with "B", a new SS starting with PD, as Mr. CM had double booked himself. At first I was a little annoyed about it, but then B really showed us he was very very good at his job. He picked up on things like thin paint work and bad brush strokes that we could not even see. I guess being new, he was pretty keen to impress, which was a bonus for us. We went over the house with a very fine toothed comb looking for defects and blemishes. We found quite a number of paint touch ups and a few other bits and pieces, but obviously, the major ones were the carpet balls up and a damp exterior wall. So not too bad over all, it took hours though! 
Mr. CM came when we were about half way through so that was good. We discussed the carpet issue again. Turns out that the guys had laid the carpet which had been ordered for a PD house being built further up the road from ours and the carpet people had mixed it all up. PD were happy that they were not at fault and so were we.
The carpet people then proceeded (through PD) to try and convince us to keep the carpet that had been laid and give us $1000 credit for their store! HA! What a joke! Especially considering we had already paid over $2k to upgrade ours and what the heck were we going to do with a store credit? No thanks, pull up your mistake and relay it correctly! Mr. CM and B thought it was ridiculous also, but they have to ask anyway!

So now the plan is that this week PD will have the BSS Independant Quality inspection, then we will arrange a PCI inspection (Practical Completion Inspection) with us. At this we will go over everything we made on the pre-pci inspection last week and make sure it has all been rectified. If we are happy we can settle and handover that day or we can make sure they get everything sorted then do settlement and handover a few days later!

It is hard believe we are so close! Last year when we started the whole charade it seemed so far away...but here we are nearly in our brand new home.. I like the sound of that!