The house is all ours......Settlement 28th April

Im so excited to announce that the house is now all ours! 

Settlement has taken place and we had the keys in our hands by 10:30am yesterday 28th April!

Could not be happier right now! Settlement went well, met with SS at 7:30am yesterday morning and he went through the PCI list so we could double check to make sure all the things we brought to his attention had been done.

There were so many sticky dots for paint and gyprock repair during PCI how would i truly know if they have all been done. All i do know is the house looked amazing. Couldn't wipe the smile off my face.

Any further things we discover we can have fixed during our 13 week maintenance check.

After meeting with SS we drove to norwest to meet with our CSA for the last time, AM went through all the paperwork for the house, and gave us all the certificates that belong with it too. 

After we handed over our final cheque we were presented with our keys and a lovely giftbox with a set of white towels in it.

So for now we just get to enjoy our new home - well not quite yet! we need to do our flooring. 

Tony from Choices Flooring, Richmond Road Blacktown will be doing all the flooring for the house. Im meeting with Lee tomorrow so they can begin the install! 

Will be one happy duck when the floors go in, and i CAN NOT wait for carpet with underlay! i think we have 1mm underlay in our current house and my dream has always been to have lush thick underlay to walk on.

Here is a key that symbolises not only 12 months of the biggest emotional roller coaster ride i will ever be faced with, but also the key to our new chapter in life, a brand new start for my family. And i cant wait to start living it!

Thank You so much Eden Brae!  You have just made me realise that dreams do come true!

Our Home Almost Complete

Dirt removed from the site now, only one pile of rubbish remains and the mesh around the driveway to take off and we will be able to see our home complete. The dirt at the front isnt very good so there will be plenty to remove before we get ready for our grass and plants

We have had several people asking what we will do leading down to our mail box. We will have a straight path that leads down, with wood look pavers, or cement sleepers and native grasses either side.

At this stage we will most likely tile the portico, but may consider some decking that can extend out past the portico too. There are plenty of ideas as we drive around our new estate. So many homes being built and some people have really nice simple gardens so i dont think we will ever be short for ideas.

Choosing a mail box is harder than you think. There is a lot of choice, but the really nice ones are quite expensive. 

Front garden - Haven't even began to think about this as yet! will shape up the path and get the dirt leveled and see what we have to work with. Its a nice small space to work with so im looking forward to finding some plants to go most likely across the front windows and then another row of plants to follow along the front of the foot path.

Driveway Finished

For the past week i was beginning to think it would never stop raining and settlement would be delayed until it was dry enough to pour our driveway. Thankfully it cleared up and the weather gods have put on some of the best sunny weather i have seen for a long time!  Just in time for Easter, and just in time for the driveway to be completed before Easter. 

Our driveway selection was Colour On Concrete (Colour through is an upgrade of approx $35sqm) and the colour is gunmetal! It is sealed once, and the concreter recommended we do it ourselves again soon to just help it maintain its colour for longer. When it starts to fade i was told that i can purchase the colour sealer in gunmetal to bring the colour back up.

Gunmetal goes perfectly with the tones of the house. Couldn't be happier.

Scott the concreter and his team did an awesome job, and he was happy enough to deal with some last minute panic attacks about the shape and slope of it.  - Thanks so much Scott!

The shape of our driveway - Width approx 5.5m

15th April - Driveway formed Up

Damaged Footpath had to be replaced too

16th April - Driveway Pour

Concrete Leveled to portico for future tiling

17th April - Driveway Sealed

Council Requires us to have plain concrete to the cross over, and also into our yard. Cheaper for them if something happens they have to replace to use plain concrete! We hate it - and so do all the other residents in the area! grrrrr

Driveway slopes down so we required a grated drain

The Emotions of building in the eyes of a 4 year old

A little bit of fun for tonight...........

The other day i discovered my daughter got hold of my building notebook and had decided to draw a face on about 8 of the pages. As i flicked through each of the faces it had occurred to me that i could relate each face back to an emotion i was feeling during the Admin process.

I couldn't contain my laughter, and i guess its one of those classic "had to be there moments" but the innocence of my daughter drawing these faces to almost exactly replicate what i have been feeling over the course of the admin process was just way to special to not share with you all!

Perhaps we have all felt like we had faces like this during each phase of the admin process! Thankfully the building process has been one big happy SMILEY face - it makes up for the first stressful, emotional, time consuming first 6 months of building your own home.

These photos are uploaded in the order she drew them

Tender Presentation - Happy Slightly nervous

Contract Signing - Eeeekk no turning back now

Colour Selection - Hoping the colours all match and compliment each other

Prices for upgrades -  Going over budget and having to remove some items

Confused - So much to think about, so much to do in such a small amount of time!
What if i have missed something in the planning stage.

Paperwork, Emails & Phone calls - Enough to send anyone crazy!

Waiting for council approval & Finance approval -
A day can seem like a week as you wait for a response

Admin Finished - Survived - only just! Lets start building

Watching our house being built - Happy Days!

I told my daughter she has to draw one final drawing of our family and our new house!

PCI - Done and Dusted

Yesterday we met our SS on site to complete our PCI.  

The whole thing took us over 2 hours, plenty of questions to ask, and still didn't get to look at the house as closely as i would of liked as there was so much to take in. Ive put most of the quality of the paint work in the hands of Steve and Tyrells. There were plenty of different coloured stickers all over the walls. To me it seems like all the issues were already found. And i couldn't see any that particularly stood out. If any are missed, it will be a shame but something that will just have to get done in the 13 week check.

The house looked amazing! The mirrors and screens were all installed, and everything was perfect. I could not pick up any faults on the tiles, and everything we had ordered was correctly installed. All the electrical was correctly installed as we had ordered it.

I had typed out a PCI checklist for our house so that i could ensure nothing would get missed. I had read it so many times in the end as i edited it that i remembered it off by heart, but it really helped to make sure everything was checked.

I did still manage to miss a few things, ive emailed SS today to ask if he could triple check for me, and he gave it the once over for me. 

The biggest issues we found were our safety diamond grill doors being fitted in the wrong colour. This was already been rectified and will be fixed for settlement. 

Our superscreen on the front didn't have the 3 point locking system, a cupboard in the kitchen had a crooked shelf, there was 1 broken roof tile that i could see. The rest was all painting and gyprock and cleaning issues, all easily fixable. 

Steve had organised for the gyprocker to be there while we walked around to fix all the little things that were noted on SS and Tyrells report.

SS went through the Tyrells report with us and showed us what each of the things were that had been found. Things i would never of found so its good to know these are being take care of.

After the walk through we were shown how the rainwater tank works, garage door and alarm work. Steve also pointed out each of the drains and what they are for. The HWS wasn't installed so he couldn't show us that.

So much to take in ive probably forgotten most of it! might have to speak to the electrician when he comes to install the appliances to find out how to use the alarm properly so i dont go setting it off in the middle of the night.

The driveway is the next thing that needs to be done, its also the last major thing before we settle. Hopefully the rain holds off so this wont be delayed and wont delay settlement. 

So happy with how it looks, everything looks amazing! i just want to move in and clean it to make it really shine! I love all my colour choices and the house just looks beautiful.