Lock up!

Well we really are into fixing.. but lock up :P It was delayed because of our brick error which did end up being a bit serious. They have had to render the back of the house. This was our compromise, we are left with a really dodgy looking side wall after Austral delivered 2 different batches and our choice was to accept the compromise or delay our build time at our own expense. Feels like we got screwed either way sorry to be blunt! Nevertheless now I am getting used to the idea of render out in the entertaining area. And of course I am pretty excited that the house is feeling so 'house' like now that the plaster etc is happening. Thanks for following along!

Bifolds from inside. There is a view of the You Yangs from that little window and if we had known we might have put another window next to it. But it is possible we won't keep the view depending on who builds down that hill. We had a view of them from the dining table, but the neighbours next door built tall ceilings and so we miss the view by about well less than a half metre!

Everything plastered. This is a few days ago and now there are cornices and skirting boards too! Have been slow with the blog updates. Hopefully more pics soon.

What you are looking at here is our vegie garden area (or one of). There is a retaining wall and then a path beside it so that the patches are higher up to save our back.

These are the wall sthat will end up being rendered. Loving my bifolds! The boys are going to build a deck and some sort of permanent cover so that the children can play here in the winter with protection for the elements. If anyone has ideas about more stylish ways of doing that - appreciated them!

View from the neighbours house :) Still render to this front area. We are so nervous about colours with that especially given that our brick is now a different colour to what we matched with.

Colour Palettes

This will be a quick one. Pics speak for themselves??

Bathroom Tile - Stone Ash Matte, same tiles on floor and wall, Stringybark Laminex vanity doors and top with white being featured in the aluminium windows, square basin and skirtings etc..

Austral Access Fawn Brick with Surfmist Colorbond Roof, Dune Gutters and Downpipes with Woodland Grey Fascia

Kitchen Colours: Silk Finish Polar White Laminex Cupboard Doors, Ice Snow Caesarstone Benctops, Milton Moon Starfire Glass Splashback, Pure Mineralstone Laminex top the pantry, paint sample is Solver Knave and finally flooring Bolero laminate wood in Dusty Rock.

Dreaming up a kitchen

We have been putting quite a bit of time into our kitchen dreams this week and decided it would be good to share our thoughts. Now for those following at home ;) you may be wondering why I am adding 'upgrade' values. This really doesn't mean much to many, but is an element of the fabulous resource sharing that goes on over at the Homeone forum which we are finding so helpful and we want to return the love.

We believed that Technika was the kitchen appliance range in our standard options (Optima Nuovo), but it turns out that the standard brand is Bellini - so we now are wondering what the cost of this upgrade is going to be?? In any case, an underbench and cooktop set at 900mm will be our choice. Brand etc to be continued..

Too cold to get my camera out of the car tonight but will add a photo of the display home kitchen at Point Cook to show you what the layout looks like. In the meantime:

An idea of our underbench oven - the Technika T948SS

And likely this for our gas cooktop?? -

The fridge we are liking might have an issue, there is a wall on the Drysdale30 to the left of the fridge that could really put a spanner in the works with the french door opening. 

However, hubby is certain this is what he wants - the Electrolux EHE5107SA. It does appear to be getting some good reviews not only on review sites but throughout the forums.

 

We are upgrading our kitchen sink to the Abey double undermount [Stratus or Quadrato?] (upgrade estimate = $850) similar to this: ok well not -that- similar to this because we are after a square shaped bowl and of course our benchtops are different colour completely and our tap/faucet is more 'modern' in style. Anyway an idea of double undermounted sink:

Benchtops - Caesarstone Osprey on Left or leaning toward Ice Snow (right). This is based on the idea that we will be steering for white on white on white and therefore to add texture we will go with Ice Snow. It actually still looks very white (check out the second pic below of a white kitchen with Ice Snow Benchtops).

Matt Polar White Laminex for our doors?

Handle upgrades?! Erk - that one hurts.. very tempted to try and upgrade ourselves post handover.. no value for money in doing so with PD. I think I like Handle No 26 in this shot (it is the smaller of the long matt options and sits in the Builders Handle Range:

We are missing firm ideas on our rangehood and splashback colours but pretty confident to be going ahead with the glass splashback - with young children, running a business and a flamboyant cook in the household, easy to clean is a high priority. Well actually in this house buliding bizzo -easy- is a good general rule of thumb to guide our choices. Not because we are lazy - but because our lifestyle as young parents lends itself more to a focus on living and enjoying life in our home than on unnecessary upkeep of it??

Until next time.. thanks for following along.

Well, here we are!

This year we decided that we needed to make a change. Well actually, we acted on the decision this year but probably made it last year. Our life is busy and we feel that functionality is a priority right now. After looking for property for a good while and not finding anything that clicked, we decided that building was a good option. So it seems to all be falling together; we have sold our home, found a great block of land centrally located. We have chosen a preferred builder and researched like crazy. Just waiting for the last ducks to line up.

Because our family and friends are so far spread, we loved the idea of starting our 'build blog'. If you didn't already know it, it's the thing you do when you build a home in 2011 ;).

People have been asking if this is our dream home. It's not really our dream home; there are limits on what we can 'do' and we have chosen a floorplan that we love over the fanciest of fixtures and fittings.  However when life is a dream, and you are so incredibly blessed to be building a house, even to have a roof over your head - well that makes this a dream home of sorts doesn't it?