Stairs Are Up!

Finally I can see what the rooms upstairs look like.

Our rumpus/kids retreat area.  We plan to install some tables across that back wall you can see. So the boys can do their homework at one location outside their bedrooms where I can help them. The aim is so they can't have any electronic devices in their room, especially when they're teenagers, well that's the plan anyway.

Hallway looking in from the front of the house. Straight ahead it's the master bedroom. The first left is the shower and bathroom, and the second left is the 3rd bedroom.

This is one of the front bedrooms. This room will most likely be Eli's room.

The second front bedroom. This most likely be Kai's room.

The separate upstairs toilet.  Next to that is a linen closet, Eli's bedroom and Kai's bedroom.

Upstairs bathroom. As you can see waterproofing is done so assuming tiling will start shortly.

Third bedroom for guests.

The master bedroom. I'm now worried there's not enough natural light in the room.

Our ensuite. The toilet will be behind the green wall you can see.

I'm surprised they aren't finished installing our walls. They've been at it since they returned from the Christmas break.

Our garage is also starting to take shape now that there are walls.

During our site walk-through last week, our site manager said kitchen cabinetry will be installed this week and exterior should be completed too.

I'm so excited to see our home finally coming together. I really want to move in already. I now see why people get cranky when builders extend completion or handover dates. 

Construction Update - February 2018

Today we visited our home. It's been about two weeks since we've gone inside. I'll drive past our home every 3-4 days, but there's always tradies onsite when I go past, so I can't sneakily go inside. 

When I first walked through the unlocked gates I noticed our presto cornice was on site. This cornice wasn't available with our builder's standard range and but was available from their supplier, so we were allowed to place a custom order for this cornice type. As plain as it looks, this was considered not standard. It'll be installed mostly in the rooms upstairs. We'll be doing the square set in most of the rooms downstairs.

All the gyprock walls are up! The rooms are starting to take shape. The front room is now looking like a decent size for hubby and I's office space. 

The laundry room has also turned out to be a lot bigger than I initially thought, now the walls are up. Everything else, I'm still doubting whether it's big enough 😜.

Sitting area. We're not sure what we're going to do with this space but it'll have a couch of some sort so you can sit down. 

Where our kitchen oven and stove top will be. The poles and wiring you see on the floor is for the sink, dishwasher and microwave that will be on our kitchen island table. The room you see in the photo will be the pantry, and the hole next to that is the cavity for the fridge.

When you walk inside our pantry, to the left will be storage space under our stairs. This is what it looks like at the moment. 

Can't wait until the stairs are put in so we can have a look upstairs. Hopefully, it's done by Friday as we've requested for our first walkthrough of our home then. Construction walkthroughs can only be done on a weekday, and I refuse to go by myself with both the boys with me.

View from the backyard. The scaffolding that our builder probably owns, (because they need it and a lot of it) but charge clients who build two-story homes for. This type of unnecessary cost that you know the builder is just charging for the sake of charging customers just blows my mind. 

You Know You're In The Ghetto ...

Living back out west ... west again I've notice some ..... social differences.

This post lists the "differences" I've noticed or experienced while living back here.

You know you're in the ghetto when ....

• the lady in front of you is paying for her groceries with silver coins.
• you ask if they take Amex and the sales assistant responds with "what's that?"
• you feel over dressed when wearing trousers and shoes out in public.
• all the babies at the shopping centre are literally newborns.     

Don't get me wrong my ghetto side has also come out since moving back here. On Sunday I argued with the asian dollar store owner over the cost of pegs I wanted to buy. They were marked $2.50 but once I got to the counter owner claimed they were $3.50 and were marked incorrectly. I was doing my whole "According to Fair Trading you have to honour the price advertised, as its not my fault it was labelled wrong." FYI ... I didn't buy the pegs. 

At the shops I was going car horn crazy when I was blocked in by another car. The guy was picking up his disabled passenger .. "Ah don't karrre!!" 

I'm so ghetto ... fabulous!!

Week in Review

Last week was a pretty busy week for me and my little house hold.

Work .... well its always busy in that space. However I feel like I’m winning more battles now - well last week in particular. Tasks and deliverables wise I’ve caught up on all the work that was pigeonholed for me to do while I was on holidays and I feel I'm on top of everything again.

I've been able to gained the business confidence in the system more - which is half the struggle in this project. I’ve ran some demos of a similar version of they system they would be getting and provided an opportunity for them to speak out on concerns they had on how it will change their world. Running the demos provided a platform for me to stand out in this project not only from a system knowledge perspective but an opportunity to network.

I’ve caught up with friends a few times this week, which is very rare for a mum pressed with time these days. On Thursday night stayed out in town to have dinner at this popular Thai restaurant for A’s birthday dinner. Although her birthday was actually earlier this month a girly get together was long over due. I think last time we were all together was before we all went on our overseas trips ... that must be pretty long ago considering we all traveled at different times for a period of 3-8 weeks apart.

On Saturday was J’s farewell BBQ before she heads off to Asia for some travelling and then Canada to try working overseas. I know she’s been talking about doing this for several years now so I'm glad that she’s making it happen. 

On Sunday was M’s bridal shower. Theme was burlesques and her bridesmaid did an awesome job in keeping in theme not just in costume but creating a beautiful space at the home of where the shower was held at. There was obviously some thought put into the menu, the decorations, the cutlery and even the game prizes.

What tired me out the most was the big move on the weekend. On Friday we had removalists move our stuff from storage to our property and thorough Friday and Saturday we continued to move any of the items we had left over from my parents place. The pack and moving I think is the easiest part the unpacking is the painful bit. Finding a place (or lack of) to store the stuff we had accumulated. I did a cull of things before I packed cause I didn’t want to bring it to the new place unless I was going to keep it and while I was unpacking I decided to do another cull and again there was even more stuff to be thrown or donated.

During the unpacking we soon realised we didn’t have a lot of things we thought we did. I either offloaded it to my sister who moved out of home same time as I moved in or we must have gotten rid of it last time we packed for example I can’t find our kitchen scissors?

Not only is the effort tedious but also not that easy when you have a 15 month old baby who either wants to hang around your ankles and interfere with what you’re doing cause he’s intrigue. Or need to check up on every time he walks off into a corner and has gotten quiet cause he’s found something, usually something dangerous to play with.

What goes through my mind as I'm unpacking is I know this isn’t the last time ... that’s the annoying part. Knowing you got to do this again, don’t know when - but its gonna happen.

I started analysing that notion and reviewed how many times I’ve moved since being married and how long of a period between each move:

·      December 2009 – moved into CN

·      17 months later (June 2011) moved to SH

·      16 months later (October 2012) moved to RH

As much as we’re actually creating this place to be more of a “home” for us, (cause we own the place we’re living in for once) I dread pulling it apart for when we do eventually move out again.

On the plus side I love having free range to put what where, personalising our space and spending money organising and beautifying our home. When we were living in CN we lived in such a shoe box that we hardly purchased any furniture in fear it wouldn't all fit. Now that we have a bigger place we can finally purchase some of those big ticket we’ve held off.

Where am I suppose to put all this stuff??

Do you hate moving? When was the last time you moved and what advice can you give to minimise the pain of unpacking?