Settlement

We got a letter from the conveyancer today to let us know that estimated date of land settlement is 5th feb :) I think all the bank paperwork will be finished about that time too, so it looks like we will start the build in early feb. :)

banks, builders etc

Today we finally got unconditional approval from the bank! yay. Now it has to go to settlement (fingers crossed this doesn't take too long) and then everything's ready to roll.

I was talking to the builder today and he said he will let us know next week what our start date is. I'm guessing late jan/early feb. Originally he said we would start in mid jan. I guess it all depends on the settlement but hopefully we will get to see some action soon. Things are actually happening!!

The year of the house! :)

Well happy new year everyone, and welcome to 2010: the year of the HOUSE!! :)

It's been ages since i was last on here so i thought i better add some new pics.

the site after it was 'scraped'. Notice that we now have a neighbour! Pretty much everything between that house and the light post is our block

Where the house sits on the block

Our kitchen! It's only small but it is enough for just the two of us and eventually our young family

Exterior Colours

So here are the (unconfirmed) choices for the exterior:

 Roof: Colourbond 'Pale Eucalypt

Gutters: Colourbond 'Wilderness'

Facia: Colourbond 'Paperbark'

Eaves, front door & garage door etc: (paint colour to match 'Paperbark') perhaps Haymes Paint 'Thistle Flower'??

Brick: PGH townhouse range 'Colonial'

House Number

I see that Mia's Folly has a house number so i thought i would tell you ours.

We will be living in a number 47 house, which i think is a nice number. I just didn't want it to be a 33, 66, 13 etc lol. I wanted a number like 25, 7 or a number with 7 in it. I asked the builder what the street number was when we first started looking into the block. I think he thought i was a bit mad or something. He said he had never been asked that before and they usually didn't find that out until you actually move in and have to get a mail box! Anyway, when we signed the contract we found out it was 47 :)

very happy with that :) It also has a nice ring to it when you say the whole address :)

Bricks

I also went to look at bricks yesterday. Stupidly i went in the afternoon on a near 40* day!! The walls were all outside with no shade so by the end i was sweltering : (

We have to choose from the PGH range. I really liked the sandstone range, then realised that they will be an extra $2k --> $3k :(

There weren't that many i liked in the standard range, and the ones that are ok are blends so we would still have to pay a bit extra. I went by the block to have a bit of a look-see - and the builder was actually still there working on our neighbours place (which is rare as he actually lives in a town 2hrs away)

I talked to him for a while and he said the brick ranges are all changing so there might be some new ones we like. He also said that as we are half way between Sydney and Brisbane he sources from both states (which have different ranges at no extra cost to us) So i'm going to check out QLD's PGH range and hopefully find something i like!

kitchen!!

Yesterday was a busy day for me, first I went to the kitchen shop to have a look at choices. It was lunch time so i was free to roam and look at whatever i liked while all the assistants had their break. I think  i prefer it that way as i could think for myself without being followed around. Anyway I had a look at some of the larger samples of Laminex and other laminates.

At the moment we are looking at getting Laminex Coolum (pale blue/green with cream tints). This was a compromise between DH's blue bench and my choice of creams/browns etc. It will still be fairly adaptable but will add a splash of colour. It's fairly light so it won't be too obtrusive even if a future buyer doesn't particularly like it. See sample below.

and here is a sample of it as a laundry bench (it changes colour with the wood pattern they have used)

and as a kitchen bench:

I went through all the creams, beiges & brown laminate brands to find a match. I ended up choosing Laminex stone beige. It picks up the cream/brown flecks of the benchtop.

The colours together. Benchtop: Coolum Laminex, Kitchen cupboards: Stone Beige Laminex, Paint: Hogs Bristle Dulux (idea only)

I love the look of the kitchen doors with an arch design (eg in photo above with coolum bench and white cupboards) but it is going to be too expensive so i will just have to stick with plain laminate cupboards.

While i was at the shop one of the assistants gave me a copy of the kitchen plan :) He had only just finished drawing it the day before so the builder hadn't given it to us yet. I'll post pics once i have scanned it