Progress...

It has been a while since I last posted... Things have finally started on the block. We've now got a slab. It was poured 2 weeks ago... The frame was delivered the following day and since then, nothing. We met our supervisor on site last Tuesday and he advised us that the carpenter would start the frames last Wednesday but that never happened. This building game is full of highs and lows, that's for sure...

We're approved...!!!!!!!!

Finally, after 8 weeks in council we got approved! A few changes to the plans though. Front porch has been reduced significantly, skylight in study and  our driveway is apparently too close to the water meter. But, we join the construction list today!!!
It seems like it has been one drama after another- but we're finally t the real start line. Two and a half years of waiting... Let's go!

Waiting for council...

This building thing takes a long, long time. Our plans were submitted to council on the 4th of June and we are still waiting. Desperately hoping for approval this week. I spoke with the council assessor who our plans are with and she did say that we should expect something this week. So, fingers crossed.

I also got a call from our CLO last week who wanted to touch base re going over our contract period yet again. Oh no, I thought. He told me that our house price has gone up $8k since our last contract period lapsed... (My heart sank). However, the General Manager, aka my hero, has come to the party and if we get our 'ACC letter' (authority to commence construction) letter from the bank within 14 days of receiving our construction certificate., MJH will waive the price increase.... Yay!!

A quick update on house purchases...

Bought these bad boys:

Also, bought this rug from Temple & Webster, for the Children's Activity room, but we opened it and it has some staining.... So I assume we will send it back and get a refund:

Got this light cover for bubby girls room... It wraps around the light fitting we choose:

We went off to Merimbula to stay with a school friend and her daughter and partner on the weekend and they took us to the Candelo markets. We picked up a 1920's chair for bubby girls room for a super bargain -$50. I am currently in the process of getting quotes to have it reupholstered.... It's looking like a minimum of $700!!!! Holeymoley. Matt is quite keen to just sell it and make a profit and buy a brand new chair with the profit...but I'd like to have it as a keepsake for our daughter... I will keep you posted on the result.

I am desperately trying to find dining chairs. I have found the perfect ones but they come with a hefty price tag (I was quoted $5700 for 8x dining (2 with armrests) and 4x bar stool)... But I realise this is probably too much but we just can't find anything we like. I rely on matt to keep me grounded but even he has shown signs of liking/buying these chairs....

Aren't they AMAZING???

Purchases...

Tonight we hit the shops for some retail therapy... And by therapy, I mean nightmare!! We got an invite in the post from Domayne to get some super savings! We have been checking out some furniture shops lately because we're keen to have a furnished home from the day we move it. (It was a nightmare as the kids were hungry, tired and were acting like terrors)

Anyway... Hopefully I can post some pics. 

Our dining table:

Our coffee table is the same, but smaller and square. Gorgeous, hey? I can't find a pic...but I am in love. I need to find some chairs.. I'm fairly keen on an 'eames' chair but Matt isn't convinced...they look like this:

We also bought these bad boys:

While I'm posting pics... These are the sofas we bought from freedom:

Good news, finally...

Well, finally some news!!!!

We are officially land owners as of may 26, wooooohoooooo!

And we're off to council TOMORROW!

Start line... fading...

We've been delayed again! We have now been given a settlement time of mid-may. I am not positive about it because it has all been for nothing every other month. It definitley looks like we will be charged extra for going over our contract time, so for every additional month after June 8, we pay $1000 on top of what we already owe.

I probably wouldnt care so much about the delays if they hadn't given us false hope every month! It is ridiculous that they have been telling us since September that it will be next month, next month, next month. It's a joke and a real flaw of the developer. Yes, we are excited to be part of the community, but we're losing money because they can't get their act together.

Are my posts getting progressively hostile???

I'm annoyed at our builder (CLO) at the moment. After seeing the display homes down here, we've realised the wardrobes in Beds 2, 3 and 4 are far too small! I want the kids to have room to play- not a room full of drawers and storage cubes. So I asked for our robes to be extended- I was told NO. I asked Matt to question their 'NO'... so I composed an email for Matt to send to the CLO. He replied and said that perhaps we can make the change.... however the builder reserves the right to refuse any variations after contract signing. Anyway, I called him to see what size robes we could get and if there were standard sizes. I also said that we wanted sliding doors. I was told that even extending to robes was a big ask, no way were we going to get sliding doors as well. Can you believe this? No one I have spoken to can believe that they're not willing to make this change (not even our original sales rep and his offsider)...

We are this week waiting to hear from the Operations Manager, who according to our CLO, is the person who will make the call on our wardrobe change. If he doesn't say yes, yes and yes, I will be furious.

We have been tossing up leaving the builder... but when we close our eyes we picture our MJH house and it seems weird to potentially not have that.

Anyway, fingers crossed it all works out.

In other news, we have decided (haha, so I say now) to build again! We haven't even started our first build yet... and I'm making these ridiculous claims, BUT we're not getting everything we dreamed of in this home. So, we'll do this build, hopefully the house will increase in value and we can start all over again. We're thinking of buying a couple of acres and  building the real dream... possibly owner/builder... Stay tuned... I'll probably have news of another delay in a month ;)

Start line in sight... Possibly...

We have a pre settlement site inspection booked in on Sunday morning... We will be driving in as we'll have the kids but it is exciting as it will be the first time we have been on our block! We'll be able to check out our outlook- finally...

Settlement is expected in the next 2 to 3 weeks.. Hurrah! Fingers crossed there's no more delays.

I called our CLO today to ask if we can raise a variation to increase our wardrobes in the kids rooms and he gave me a straight up no. I was pretty disheartened by the answer for many reasons:
1. The standard robes are so tiny - we only realised this after the display homes opened up here.
2. It seems unfair, we made our selections in jan to march 2013... A year ago!
3. Our land is unregistered... There's still time- we understood there would be admin costs.
4. We're stuck with these wardrobes forever :(

Apparently mjh aren't accepting variations for any homes in the next release. It's blanket 'no' doesn't take into account our circumstances...grrrrr... It makes me sometimes think it's worth losing our $3000 deposit and getting absolutely everything we could ever want!

Anyway, off to re-read our contract.

Refresh...

Am checking my email a ridiculous amount of times per day... We were told end of Feb for settlement notification... Tomorrow is March :(

Finally my colours...

Well the kiddies are meant to be sleeping, so I thought i would try and put up some photos of our colours and all our selections... The externals have changed completely since selections... So they're not included in the photos.

I will put a '$' next to items that were an upgrade to standard.

Exterior:

Bricks - Gertrudis Brown $

Render - Taubmans 'Coffee Cake'

Roof - Colourbond 'Woodland Grey'

Gutter and fascia and windows - 'Woodland Grey'

Tank and downpipes - 'Woodland Grey'

Garage door - Contemporary 'Caoba' $

Front door - Newington XN5 - 920mm - Stained $

Laundry Door- JST1 - Stained $

Timber feature above front porch - stained

Front door lock - trilock 'Satin Chrome' $

Fly screens throughout $

Interior:

Bathrooms:

Semi frameless shower screens $

Hated towel ladders (hard-wired) $

Shampoo nook in both $

Bathroom bench top - Essa Stone 'New Sable Luxe' 20mm

Cabinets - Formica 'Silver Strata Velour'

Sink - Manooga 70mm 

Bath - Caroma 'Newbury' 1700

Floor tiles - 'Hemp Brown'

Floor grout - 'Charred Ash'

Wall tiles - 'Tempo Ice' to ceiling $

Wall grout - 'Ultra White'

Bank of drawers in vanity $

Laundry

Tiling - same as bathrooms

Bench top - 'Stipple Seal'  $

Cupboards - Formica 'Silver Strata Velour' $

Overhead cupboards - Laminex 'White #200' $

Doors

Standard Flush -Taubmans 'Illusive White Gloss'

Handles - 'Amelia Lever in Satin Chrome' $

3 sliding doors - Lin1 translucent glazing 'clear lacquer' $

Pantry door - Lin1 translucent glazing 'clear lacquer' $

Pantry handle - horizon 520mm satin chrome $

Painting

Entire house - Taubmans 'Tombstone'

Roof and Cornices - Taubmans 'Illusive White'

Skirting, doors and architraves - taubmans 'Illusive White' gloss

Kitchen

Bench top - Essa Stone 'White Truffle' - 40mm $

Underbench - 'Stipple Smoke'

Over bench - 'White #200'

Sink - Clark under mount 'Monaco double bowl'

Mixer - 'Saracom sink mixer'

Water purifier - Square neck to match mixer

Pot drawers - either side of oven $

Splashback - 'white metal' on starphire glass

Bin - Hettich pull boy bin $

Water point for fridge $

Oven - 900mm smeg standalone (gas cooktop)

Rangehood to match

Dishwasher - Smeg $

Extras:

White Shutters throughout $

Flooring - Genesis 'Sandy Beech' Bamboo $

Carpet - Balieu 'Pumice'$

Tiles to Alfresco - 600x600 Porcelain 'Beryl' $

We have included a driveway... but we might decide to remove that from our contract $

That's all I can think of now, but here's some photos to get an idea of the look (very neutral) that we're going for.

Bathroom/Laundry Tiles and Grout

Our Kitchen colours

Bathroom and Laundry Colours. I am having second thoughts about the cabinets..

Carpet- Bedrooms and Theatre

This is our outdoor tile (alfresco)

Almost the end of February...

It has been a while since my last post... But with any luck, things will start moving along a little quicker. We are hopefully settling on our land in the next week, unfortunately it hasn't had all services connected but that should be completed in March. Our builder has told us from settlement it will take about 12 to 14 weeks to get started (6 weeks of that is council) so we're looking at starting in May or June. Really hoping to be in by Christmas.

Googong township has finally opened- 11 of the 12 display homes are open. There's a mix of homes but most of them are quite large... Some great and some that are not our taste.

We went to a welcome event on Wednesday night, we were running quite late but met a couple of future residents and some googong staff. Also got a nice bottle of Moët which we will have to keep keep to celebrate moving in.

Hopefully I'll have some good news within the week!