Ohmagod! The waiting......

You know those dreams you have where you're trying to get somewhere important but all these things keep happening or getting in your way? Distractions and events that stifle your every move to get where you want to go?

That is where we are at the moment. For various reasons our house has been put on hold - AGAIN!!

There were forces acting against us that meant nothing could be done before the Christmas/New Year period. Thankfully everyone is booked for the 11th of January and it should be all go, GO, GO!!! 

So we are still only up to a drainage channel dug and the set out complete. It's something, I guess!

On our last trip down I finally sorted out the floor tiles. I'm so happy with them I could cry! It's such a big thing as the tiles go through the whole house but the bedrooms. Big decision. Big money. 

These tiles were on sale at Beaumont's and were well under the budget due to a sale. Here's Molly choosing the colour. I disagreed with her assessment and chose the darker ones :-)

Almost...............................but not quite.

We finished off the dining table top last week. Two coats of a wax/oil mix and I think it looks stunning. I can't wait to see it in our house.

Speaking of which. 

Dramas!!!

For various reasons our mortgage application had to be put through the ringer again. We thought everything was sorted but the Commbank, bless them, were running off the old building quote (pre council approval requirements). This may or may not have been the fault of our mortgage broker who provided them with the amendment that the bank say they never received.....
I decided there really wasn't any point of a witch hunt while we were still trying to secure financing. 

I new the finance would be approved but I had told the builder he could start as I was just waiting for the documents. Which was problematic as the builder won't start until finance is guaranteed. Christmas was coming which meant a delay with the bank might see us not get a slab until the new year!!!! 

Anyway our mortgage broker (I think through guilt) had a rush put on the bank and the loan documents were issued, signed and returned in record time - like 5 hours.

Our builder was stunned - it never happens that quick, he says. Well, it did this time, thank goodness!!

So the builder has marked out the site and now our block looks like this;

Although the plumber is starting the underslab drainage on Monday so there will finally be some sod turning!

Momentum

This is the last time we'll see our block like this. Our next trip down in December should see a slab poured!All the ducks are lined up and the builder starts next week.
I still can't quite believe it.

The friendly chooks at Eden Farmstay

We just returned from a short but quite lovely trip. Again, we stayed at Eden Farmstay. Truly the best self contained accommodation in Cygnet. Matt and Jo are generous hosts and their farm is just idilic. Lots of cute animals for little kids and big kids. 

While we were down I chose tiles, a toilet and a bath. I also bought some fancy pendant lights for the kitchen from Freedom. They were $50 each down from $150.

It was serendipitous really. I couldn't decide what lights to have over the kitchen island. This excellent little find chose it for me. 

They're colourful, funky and excellent value. Winning!

ISSUED!

OK. I know I only posted, like, half an hour ago. But this news is just too good.
Our builder just notified us that the council have issued our building, plumbing and special plumbing permits. We have the all clear and can start at our leisure! Yay!!!
Now one more hurdle - the dreaded bank. We have pre approval but there has been a couple of small blowouts. Hopefully we don't need to jump through anymore hoops with them. We have to wait until Monday to find out.
As soon as we pay the deposit we're go!
OMG.

Our home. Here.

Our lives. Changed.

Logistics

Up until now I've been distracting myself from stay-at-home-motherly duties by making airy to-do lists of logistics of the move south. But now. It's real. Geoff is home for a week from work then he really isn't back here in Wagga until we do the Big Move in late January. That means going through the storage unit, clearing out all of his stuff from Mum and Dad's and helping me with the odd job like paint stripping the table top.
I'm getting serious quotes now from removalists and really starting to feel the financial weight of just moving some stuff, not all our stuff - just some stuff, over Bass Straight. It is an expensive piece of water.
I upped our space from 20m3 to 25m3 and the price jumped by $1000.
I was looking into a shipping container from Wagga to the farm but that was about $11000 (including the container to keep).
When money is tight it is time consuming to find the best value. I think our best and cheapest option is still just the traditional removalist truck. Our quote for 20m3 is $3150.
And then what to do with the stuff as the house won't be ready until March. I was worried about storage on site of our stuff so I was looking at hiring a container locally for a couple of months - about $1500.
Thank goodness our builder has promised the garage at lockup stage so we can put stuff in there. We have to do our big move then as we have some things they need to put into the house (like the kitchen benches). So we just wanted to do one Big Move and have it all over. Geoff will be working so Molly and I will move down permanently with all our stuff!
I have no idea. None. What we will do for accommodation. We have asked a neighbour about staying in their self contained apartment usually reserved for their kids. Hopefully that will come about. Our other option is onsite caravan. I will happily suffer either. I'll just be absolutely stoked to be down there for ever!

Geoff finished sanding the table;

No more until it's back together with the black varnished legs in the new house :-)

More projects

So I found these chairs in Vinnies today. Another project to add to this one. 

They're a bit scratched but solid. Recliners. Comfy as. I'm going to reupholster them to go in the lounge room. 

I'm thinking (p)lush velvet. 

Oo la la! 

And here's an update on the table situation;

I've roped Farmer Geoff in to do the paint stripping of the table top. I didn't want to ruin my hands :-)

Patience

It is indeed a virtue.

And happily one I have been in possession of... so far.

I have to admit though it's wearing thin. I knew the council process was the most likely to cause delays. And it hasn't disappointed. Ticking bureaucratic boxes. With every email or phone call from the builder - a deep breath taken and another invoice paid. The biggest issue has been the water treatment plant and dispersal area.

The end is in sight. Hopefully in less than two weeks we will have the green light. That of course will then depend on the bank. And they aren't known to dawdle...

In happier news I have engaged an old friend who happens to be a cabinet maker to build me my two kitchen benches. My kitchen will be very simple with no cupboards. Just the two benches - one for the sink and dishwasher and a big island bench for prep. Everything else goes into the large walk in pantry. I'm very lucky - he's making me an end-grain butchers block as well and doing it for a great price.

They're going to look amazing.

Landslide

Not us, thank goodness.

Planning approval from council was delayed as we waited for confirmation from geo-types that the house wasn't going to slide down the hill.

It won't. We have a piece of paper to prove it. It cost $880.

We received planning approval yesterday and now the working drawings can be put in for the building and plumbing permits.

I met with our builder in Hobart this week to finalise the plans for submission.

I just love our builder. He doesn't scoff or roll his eyes when I have a crazy idea.

This is all very, very exciting. Patience is indeed a virtue in this situation.

To keep me busy I have started my first little DIY project for the house.

We have a dining table as old as Geoff that came from his parents when they downsized. We got rid of the chairs when we left Sydney. They were bulky and a bit too hard to sand back. But the dining table was definitely worth keeping.

I'm trying for a funky black legs and stained wood table kinda like this one;

I can't find a photo of the whole table pre-zhoosh but I have pictures of it in pieces.

Here is the first leg (literally!!) of my project;

I had started sanding before I took the 'before' photo.

I think Geoff took over at this point...

One down, one to go.

Sanded and stained. It looks a bit the same... but better - I promise!!!

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

This process is so excruciatingly slow. Our application for planning approval has been in for nearly three weeks. We were only just told that we needed a letter declaring the site free from any risk of landslip. So, now we're waiting to hear back from the people who did the soil testing for us. Hopefully they can get the information they need from the original report. Otherwise they will have to do another site inspection. In any case it will be good to know that we aren't at risk of our house sliding down the hill.

In the meantime I have been very busy thinking about finishes in the house. Our builder says the build should be pretty quick - 4 months. So there won't be much time to make decisions. I have already bought all the taps, the shower base, the stove and rangehood. I am looking at options for a timber vanity in the bathroom and pendant lighting for the kitchen. As mentioned before I seem to have champagne taste with not even the budget for beer. I am hopeful though that I can be clever and get a high-end funky finish through hardwork and determination! I will not accept that a tight budget means the cheapest option from Bunnings is the only way to go.

Some ways I'm looking at saving money;

I have spent a lot of money on my gorgeous stove. To offset the cost of this extravagance I'm having a bare-bones kitchen. Geoff is making me a concrete benchtop to go over a basic timber frame. This will house the sink, the dishwasher and some open shelving - I'm thinking of having curtains instead of cupboards. Very kitsch! I'm hoping to find an old table for a kitchen island. And if you're wondering whatever I will do with all my pots, pans, appliances etc etc we have a rather large walk-in pantry that will house all.

I'm going to make some funky pendant lights for the kitchen island and dining table. At the moment I'm quite taken with concrete. I'm going to give them a go so stay tuned for a post on DIY concrete pendant lights. The fittings and cord for pendant lights is pretty inexpensive and a lampshade can be made out of anything. So this should be a bit of fun.

I love the idea of these concrete pendant lights over the kitchen island. There's a tutorial I'm going to try here.

I'm also hoping to make our bathroom vanity. I'm thinking of keeping it very very simple with just a couple of lovely timber shelves. A couple of baskets to store stuff and a recessed shaving cabinet. A wall hung basin with a couple of timber shelves either side (not touching the basin) and one long one underneath... Not sure yet about that. But whatever it is the timber, white basin and black tap will look AWE-SUM! And very very expensive :-D

Kinda like this one I got off this blog. Although I don't think the budget will stretch to quite so chunky timbers.

Final draft and first purchases.

After 3 more drafts we are finally there! We have a design that we are happy with that will meet our meagre budget. Both Geoff and I agree that we actually prefer the new design even though it's not quite as grand as the original draft. 

It's still keeping to our concept of a silvered timber clad rectangular barn shaped building. No eaves, lots of windows. We've given up the mezzanine for standard height walls. This has saved us a lot of money. We are using scissor trusses to give us the raked ceilings throughout the house. Double glazing has given way to single pane low-e glass in our many floor to ceiling windows. The glass gives us 75% efficiency of double glazing at half the cost. We have a lot of glass.We have such an amazing view you can't not have the windows. I hope we don't regret this decision if we struggle to heat the building. 

We have kept some of Dennis' best ideas from the original draft - the sun corridor between the view and the kitchen and laundry. The large walk-in pantry. The garage with covered walkway to the house entry. 

I really really like it.

I have started to buy things for the house - somewhat prematurely. But I have little else to do at the moment. Planning and building a house is an all consuming project.

  

I ummed and ahhed over my kitchen and bathroom taps for ages. Should I get safe taps or the ones I really really like? I'm happy to say I went with the ones I really really liked!! I'm a demon at getting the best price so I shopped around and I'm pretty sure I got the best price going for some pretty funky tapware.  I think I'll reveal them when the house is finished. Gotta keep you guessing!

I'm having mild anxiety attacks about it all. It has been a dream of ours for so long. I can't believe it is finally happening. I wouldn't admit it until now but I think a part of me always thought we would never get here. 

The First Draft

The designing process is underway! We have engaged a lovely designer/builder called Dennis to design and build our house. We've had a lots of emails, a few phone calls and one face to face meeting with him and I think we're in safe hands. 

We are shooting for a building contract signed by 30th June to take advantage of the increased First Home Builders grant of $20,000. If we sign the next day it's $10,000. 

We were so excited to see our building drawn up. Dennis came up with some excellent ideas that we would never have thought of. We've had our first draft costed and of course it came in way over budget. I was expecting that to be the case but it was still disappointing. I have full confidence in Dennis to sort it out though.

In the meantime I'm spending way too much time looking at fittings and finishes. Taps, tiles, flooring. Kitchens, bathrooms and fireplaces. After nearly two years off work looking after my daughter I am so relieved to finally have a project.

The First Draft

Be careful what you wish for.

Well. This blog is about to get a massive injection of posts.
We are finally in the financial position to start building our home down on our empty block.
And you thought it would never happen!
We have engaged a building designer/contractor person and are in the preliminary design phase. We're hoping to have a contract signed and dated before 30th June 2015 to take advantage of a First Home Builders government boost which ends this financial year. Plans through council soon after and hopefully building by October.
It's absolutely incredible to think that this time next year we may (fingers crossed) be actually LIVING at our place.
There are so many things we're unsure of. Like what are we actually going to do with 32 acres? Beyond our own self sufficiency it'll have to earn it's keep. Geoff will continue travelling with his TV work for the time being. But I have basically retired from all that and am still unsure what direction my life will take other than South.
We have been staying with my parents in Wagga since our daughter was about about 4 months old. We had to make the decision whether or not I returned to my job at Channel 9. I decided I was done and unfortunately Sydney is not really the town for a single income family saving to move to Tassie.

My Massive Distraction at about 5 days old.

My Massive Distraction this week at 17 1/2 months.

In the meantime I will just write about my experience on here. I really enjoy reading about other people's experiences in the whole lifestyle change sphere. So maybe someone will stumble across this and learn something from us.
It certainly is a scary thought. Be careful what you wish for because you just may get it - then what are you going to do?