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.