Settling in...

OK, it has taken me a week, but finally some photos of us finally moved into the house. I will write more in a few days and add more photos on the weekend - once we have had the new sofas delivered for the family room (on Friday - yaaay!), and unpacked more of the boxes. Shall also post photos of the driveway and paths - too dark to take photos tonight.

First - a photo of happy Kirky on move in day after he ventured down to the reserve and came back with mud up to his eyes.

Kirk and Tess relaxing in the lounge after a tough day of following removalists and burying bones!


Our lovely kitchen. Still some boxes to unpack - but nothing we seem to need! Slowly getting organised here.


The dining area, taken from the kitchen. Complete with lots of boxes and muddy footprints all over the floor...


Our lounge. We are keen to order curtains or blinds for this room soon, so will attempt to pick out fabric this weekend. Still thinking about whether to paint the walls a different colour in here. Can't wait to get pictures on the walls this weekend - I hope.


The guest bedroom - currently home to Molly the cat who is spending most days asleep under the doona.


The study - which is actually the largest of the spare bedrooms. We figured this will get the most use, so may as well be the nicest spare room. We have an old sofabed in there for guest overflow!


Our bedroom - with Molly waiting for bedtime. Note our lovely silver/grey silk curtains. Very happy with the choice, exactly the look I was after - a little shimmer without being too Vegas!


The aftermath of our first spa.... I really do need to learn to limit the bubble bath... Very happy we added the headrests too!

The famous towel rails that we searched the city and internet to find something just right. Thanks to our friends Phil and Greg for putting these up for us (and they thought they were just coming to lunch with their families!)

The powder room, now with toilet roll holder and towel holder. Followed by the main bathroom with double tail rail and new blind.

So that is it for now! More on the weekend...

More floors!

Firstly - a photo of a happy doggie!

Today we gave the timber floors a clean, along with some other cleaning in preparation for the move on Wednesday. The photos from today are better so thought I better put a few up here.

A close up showing our stools in place. We had our first meal in the house today sitting at the bench - leftover cold pizza for lunch!

Also today our landscaper was there with some workers preparing for the concreting which will be done next weekend. That is driveway, paths and concrete base for decking in portico and extending the alfresco - which will be decked. He also hopes to start the front fencing late in the week or early next week.

Three more sleeps and we are in!

We have handover! And timber floors!

We have a house!!

Handover was yesterday and all went pretty well, although still a list of things to be completed - which is annoying but ok and probably quite normal. It was an exhausting day with final inspection at the house, then handover at the Carlisle office (an hour in the other direction), then a compulsory stop at Bunnings and back to the house. Mainly back to leave a key out for the flooring guys for today, and to sweep the floors to get rid of more mud in preparation for them.

Today the timber floor went down, so of course back up to the house tonight to check it out. Very happy, it looks great - even dusty and dirty!

Now for lots of photos...

Our ensuite, first photo up with spa all done, including head rests, plus vanity taps on.

Close up shot of the flooring at the front door. This shows it pretty close to actual colour, although probably not quite so dark.


Our lovely hallway!

The back room, family/dining. Floorboards very dusty and probably a little lighter in photo than really are.

Our kitchen. What a difference it makes to no longer have a cold grey slab for a floor. Yaaay!

So what is next?

• Monday - carpet will be laid
• Wednesday - we move in and bedroom curtains and bathroom/ensuite blinds installed
• Thursday - a huge day! Carlisle installs the appliances and water tank, plus we are expecting visits from Telstra and Foxtel, plus Mr Antenna, plus the ducted vacuum man
• Friday - ducted heating and cooling hooked up. Definitely looking forward to that heating!

Almost there. Just 5 more sleeps until we are in our house.

Very close now...

Hi - popped up to the house today and someone had left the laundry door unlocked - yaaay! So was good to get in to check out some of the recent work. We did lock up when we left.

Still some things to be ticked off the to do list, but we can only assume this is all scheduled for the next few days before handover on Thursday.

Not a lot new and exciting to take photos of given the work done is mostly finishing off and fixing stuff, like part of the splashback replaced because of chips etc.

But most importantly the spa is in - and has it's air jets. Pump still to be fitted, and as you can see a tile off to allow the final fit off. The gooseneck spout we chose is huge - but ok. We chose a spa set so that the spout diameter is larger and therefore spa doesn't take all night to fill. Well that is the plan anyhow. Plus the spout swivels out of the way. The basin taps aren't yet on - apparently they arrived damaged, so perhaps still waiting for the replacements.

Oh, and the mirror has been replaced with the correct style - not as high to the ceiling and all the way across to the window. Looks so much more sleek than the other one.

And check out the view from the ensuite!

Here is a view of the house taken last week from across the road.

And for some shopping news!

This week I was flicking channels on the tv and came across a show on the How To channel showing a white kitchen, with darkish floorboards and the perfect aluminium counter stools. Definitely looked great and what I wanted.

So after some googling I found what was probably the same stool, the Emeco Counter Stool (from the Navy Chair range) - designer of course! The photos below are the style, although I found designer rip-offs (more within our budget!) which are just slightly different in the foot rails. We bought three today, so can tick that off the list.

We now have two days left of the long weekend which will be mostly dedicated to packing up the house. We have a heaps of boxes and are ready to go! Just 11 sleeps now until we move in!

HANDOVER CONFIRMED!

Well good news now, we have handover confirmed for Thursday next week. A couple of days later than anticipated, but that is ok as we would rather everything was done, plus we have been able to put the timber flooring layers off for a day until the Friday.

So despite the delay, we will still move as planned on Wednesday 17 June - that is 14 more sleeps. Yaaaay!!!!

Carlisle have resolved everything to our satisfaction - the downpipe will be improved and re the bricks, they have agreed to extend the warranty with respect to this item. Dale received calls from one of the directors of the company yesterday and again today.

So all good and very excited. Our long weekend will be spent packing mostly - oh and heading up to the house to look through the windows!