Friday 7 September 2012

The weeks since handover....

It's been a crazy few weeks since we got our keys! We have done the fence, turf and laid timber vinyl click flooring through the whole house except media room and bedrooms. Our carpet has been installed too (absolutely loving our shag pile carpet in the bedrooms!!!) and I've finally been able to make a start on unpacking some boxes. I am absolutely loving the house, I find myself staying up until midnight most nights without even realising, I'm happily moving stuff around and sorting stuff out and before I know it it's way past my usual bedtime.   Also loving our vacumaid and vacpan.  I wasn't sold on the whole idea but I'm glad we got it - the vacuum cleaner is so powerful and the vacpan in the kitchen is a god send.  You simply sweep towards it (it's in the kickboard of the kitchen cabinets) and then tap it with your foot and the dirt gets taken away by the vacumaid hose!  Our floors are great too - they are a vinyl click together product sold by Harvey Norman called Allure Loc.  They carry a lifetime residential warranty and have a commercial wear layer.  We tried to scratch them with knives and keys when we first looked at them and couldn't!  They are a DIY product or you can pay someone to lay it for you - we chose to DIY as it was a saving of close to $4,000.  Andrew was cursing ever saying he would do it after a few days - whilst they are click together they are still very fiddly and time consuming.  We love them and think they look great and they also hide the dirt really well.  We've had a lot of comments from visitors too!

The first few days Andrew was back he noticed a number of things around the house he wasn't happy with (he wasn't around for PCI) and our supervisor happily came out to the house and noted everything down and arranged trades to come and fix them all. We're still waiting on the plumber to fix his part but I'm told he will be out on Saturday.

We hadn't planned on sleeping at the house until the floors were finished but of course I managed to twist Andrew's arm and we set up our camping bed in the middle of the lounge room! Had a horrible sleep on that so ended up putting a mattress on the floor and moved ourselves into the media room for a bit more privacy. Once we had some old sheets on our bedroom windows we then moved said mattress into our room. At the moment I still don't have our bed at the house so the mattress is still on the floor, though having carpet now makes it much more "liveable"!

 
Our previous home was only a 3 bedroom weatherboard so we really don't have all that much furniture, just a dining table and chairs, our bedroom furniture and two couches so the house is looking rather bare. In the coming weeks / months (when funds permit!) we will be purchasing a new bedroom suite, desk & bookcase for the study and tv unit for the media room and a few other bits and pieces. As well as those things we had wanted to get a new lounge and on the weekend Andrew's parents very kindly bought us a black leather lounge for the media room, it is arriving on Saturday so I'm excited to see that go in. I bought some cushions for it tonight too. 


Our new lounge (in black)
Cushions for the new lounge!
Hoping to get some electrical work done over the coming weeks, including putting up our feature light in the entry way. I attempted to put it together tonight but didn't get anywhere!

Next week our driveway is going down so I will finally be able to drive in the garage at night!  Then after that we'll be looking to get the house rendered (currently only the front is done), the decking on the entry and alfresco done, and get started on the gardens.  I have a fairly long list of odd jobs to do already including filling and sanding nail holes on all skirting boards and giving them two final coats of gloss (we took the skirting off and then put back on after we had laid the floors to give it a neat finish), sorting through our mountain of clothes and looking in to those wardrobe fit outs with drawers etc, organising the block wall for other side of entry and gates for the front, and backfilling our other side against the retaining wall and looking at ground coverings for that area too.  I guess the jobs don't stop once the house is built!

A few pictures below of the house happenings of the past few weeks....






 
Getting closer to the finish line... for this area anyway!
The finished product (complete with mop streaks!)

 
 
 


Turf laying progress shot.
 





 
Our shag pile carpet!
 
Media room carpet.

Finally in our own bedroom ..... but the mattress is still on the floor!

My bargain find at Far Pavilions - $105.00 reduced from $350.00 - currently in our entry way!

49 comments:

The Decorating Emporium said...

Love.it! Everything looks fab, Em. The floors are gorgeous and I just love the look of freshly laid turf - we're hanging to have grass here.

I really like that lounge, too. I've always wanted that exact one but have never had the right space for it. It will be so fantastic for your media room.

Ok, I'm going to stop gushing now! Glad to hear you're enjoying the house. And, really, the building bit is the easy part - the hard work once you're in never ends!!

M
x

Em said...

Thanks M! I have to say that the turf was probably the most exciting part for me - it was like instant gratification, from dirt to grass! Andrew had wanted a very particular grass and wanted to inspect a few but after 20 minutes of having the yard levelled he was sick of the dust and just said get some turf here ASAP!

I'm excited to get the lounge tomorrow, at first I was umming & ahhing about how it would look in the media room as I didn't want it to take over the room but after drawing a scaled room plan (I know, crazy!) and drawing the lounge in it I think we should be right - I hope! It is perfect for lounging around in and Andrew can have the long side and I fit perfectly on the little chaise side!

laurenb said...

Awesome!! It must feel so great to finally be waking up in your house. Love that you went diy on the flooring, looks amazing! It's all come together so quickly!

We'll be much the same furniture wise, except we don't even own a dining table haha. The new couch looks great and I reckon it should be perfect for the media room. I love how we are all setting up things so differently and there's so many little things that are different with each marcoola.

Love, love, love that you have allocated 'sides' for your new couch, hehe.

Mel said...

Wow Em, it looks your place has been as crazy as ours!! Your floors look fantastic! What a mission! my husband did the same type of flooring himself at our townhouse, I distinctly remember all the cursing lol. I am SO jealous of your bargain mirror! It is so funny because I was looking at that exact same mirror yesterday afternoon and couldn't justify the $350, I should have asked for a big discount too!! Which store did you buy it at? I was looking at the one in the valley/emporium. We bought a new chair instead lol. Can I ask who you got your turf through? I have had one quote so far which seems quite reasonable, but always handy to have another! Bet you will be glad when you get your bed!! It is all looking great!!! xx

Em said...

I can't explain how good it feels to be 'in' the house Lauren & Mel! It's a strange feeling to look around and think that a few weeks / months ago it was a bare block of land and then a building site. It's amazing how much of a difference having flooring, carpet & turf makes - it seems to have gone from an empty shell to a real house.

It is funny that we (Madonna, Lauren & I) all picked the same plan and then did our thing to make it individual and are doing the same thing with the decorating!

Mel, the mirror I got from Far Pav factory outlet. I didn't even know one existed until Mum bought a new dining table and chairs and that was where they had to pick it up from so I went with them and saw the mirror and had to have it. We'd had our eye on one at Harvey Norman for months for $699 and couldn't justify it right now so when this one came up I jumped. They were having 50-70% off everything at the factory outlet so I pushed for 70% off and got it. The guy there told me I was 'very lucky' to have come at the right time because normally they don't get many items like that unless they are damaged, which it wasn't.

We got our turf through Paul Nunn at Cleveland Turf. After a last minute research attempt at what was best for our conditions we wanted to get 'Aussiblue' which is a hybrid version of the old blue couch. It worked out to be $5.80/sqm which was a bit more than what we were seeing in other places for Wintergreen etc but glad we spent the little bit extra as it's taken really well and I haven't even looked after it as best I should! Arcadia Turf are the other mob that we were looking to go through but they didn't have Aussiblue.

Good luck with the rest of your jobs, I'm feeling a little less motivated now that Andrew is gone again but I'll get back in to the swing of things soon!

Em

Designed by penny paid by Jason said...

Hi EM,

sorry i have just come across your blog.
i wish i had earlier as we are almost at handover too. this friday for us.
possibly too sleeping on the floor for a few days too!
Pen x

B is building a house said...

That is one sexy looking kitchen island!!!! :)

It all looks amazing. You must be over the moon.

Love the mirror! What a bargain!

B

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