Done!

A little bit of pretty-pretty

Last week started off like this

for Jason, and like this

for Lisa. Neither got a house built.

But by the weekend we were back to more interesting details. Jason worked on researching and designing the custom leadlight for our front door surround and box bay windows:

Awesome!

And I contributed with the purchase of this baby:

err....I'm referencing the ginormous ceiling mount shower rose (Dexter is just there for scale). Imagine a gently cascading rainshower from the ceiling in the master bathroom. Double awesome!

And for the kids' bathroom:

Quite different to the pink one I grew up with in the 70's.

Other cool stuff that might lead to a house to put the above items in to: the updated preliminary plans were finished and I drove on out to the builder's office to collect them, met with the Keith Richards tshirt-wearing Vicar next door who was totally unfazed by that wayward 30cms previously mentioned and is happy to sign that off in support of our permit application - and the council surveyor thinks the application will get processed within a week and a half rather than the 4 weeks I was told last week - triple awesome!

The Illusion of Progress

So its been about 4 or 5 weeks since we settled on this property and could actually access it, make applications on its behalf as the owners, and get the various surveys etc done as part of the building permit process. That doesn't sound like a long time but  we had spent most of the previous two months readying ourselves to hit the ground running. Except red tape is oblivious to our intentions.

A few days ago I drove by the house and caught out of the corner of my eye that little pile of broken tiles on the front "lawn" - and I was happy. I hastily u-turned, snapped a pic and emailed off to Jason. He was just as happy as me. 

Its a very strange thing to be so pleased that something resulting in us having less than when we started should be considered progress - but we'll take it.

Just a few rows of tiles off, some discarded coffee cups strewn on the lawn by the mysterious workers who came and went on a baking hot day. When will they be back? Who can say. Work is currently being held up by the continuing wait for the demolition permit to come through. Its really just a piece of paper, but the local council has taken about 4 weeks so far just to meditate on that.

Meanwhile, we've been finishing off the review of the preliminary plans and preparing notes etc to send back to The Very Nice Building Company - that took us a week - see how time slides by? Now we need to wait on revised preliminary drawings that we can use to (a) meet with the Vicar of the neighbouring church in the hope he will agree that 300mm between friends is no big deal (our 2 metre setback from the church side boundary actually needs to be 2.30) and then (b) apply to council for special permission to keep that setback to 2 metres. Apparently that could take a month to come through - and then and only then can we either submit our actual building permit application or - frustratingly - change our preliminary plans again to  meet whatever the council might require.

So in the space of a week we have gone from thinking we were about to submit our building application to seeing that this could still take another couple of months before we have the go ahead to begin construction. Patience? Its overrated.

Hip hip hooray for a red letter day!

 

 

 

Who even knows what "red letter day" actually refers to - our day yesterday was more of a "mustard envelope" kind of day and that was pretty ok by me since that envelope contained our preliminary drawings!

 

This was enormously exciting as it was the first time we got to see the drawn elevations of the house - or its "face".

 

 

And she has a very pretty face:

 

 

That special delivery came on top of a morning spent with my delightful kitchen designer who is doing a sterling job of making me quite beside myself at the thought of the combined cleverness and loveliness she has drawn up for me. Lord knows if her proposal and our budget have any common ground at all but for the time being I am happily lost in a culinary reverie imagining the miraculous food I will surely produce in such a kitchen.

 

And as if that wasn't enough, there was some actual action at the house site - the temporary fencing went up. Now that might not sound so exciting to you, dear Reader, but for us it is the first concrete sign that something is going to happen there.

 

One of the mums at school was clearly tuned in to my excitement and the long view one has to take on this kind of undertaking: she exclaimed "Imagine the day when you put a beautiful bowl of fresh lemons on the kitchen bench - then you will know you are done!".  



Now you see it...

Ok! So photo posting is MUCH easier when you are not doing it from an Ipad - lesson learned!

Anyway, above is the little box that is going to make way for the new place. We've pulled out the few items of vague value, but really it is just a box with nothing special to feel bad about pulling down, I promise.

It's Saturday, a good day for starting the little jobbies on our to do list. In addition to building a house, we also have to remember to sell a house eventually - and that means taking care of all those little maintenance and updating chores we've been meaning to get around to (before things like moving overseas and having babies came along).

Jason began repairing the roof on the pool equipment storage area. It copped a tree while we were in the US. While he lugged lumber, I made Lumberjack Cake - helpful, yes? Deep discussions about replacing leadlight and garden re-designs were had, additional paving considered.

This week I'm getting the temporary fencing put up ahead of the imminent demolition. We were "on site" (like my use of builder-speak?) today staking out what is to stay in the garden - mostly just a few perimeter trees and a "characterful" couple of sheds that might provide a handy dry spot during the construction period.

The kids did their bit too, rolling some paint onto large sample boards for me. The exterior house colours are all but settled thanks to an extremely helpful heritage colour consultant at the Haymes store in Deepdene - brilliant lady got those and the roof colour all sorted in the space of 15 minutes!

"What colours did you choose?" I hear you ask. That would be Silverton and Silver Shadow, with a little touch of Montalbo. 

It'll be a deeply happy day for me when that paint gets rolled, large-scale, onto the actual house. - But we have a clever, clever plan for a sneak preview on that in the near future so watch this space!

Finally a picture of something

If you took this house and put another one on top of it, you would have the general idea of what the end goal is in this house building game of ours. Two-storey, box bay windows, lovely deep verandah, and I believe the gorgeous flowering garden is somewhere in the box too....no? Oh, at least we have some established trees on the block to give us a little head start.

And I figured out the photo posting bit! (Sort of).

Don't overreact!

Ever feel bogged down? Or like you might be cracking up? So does our building site, apparently. Soil test results came back today, revealing that like a vast number of other building sites in our state, the soil is classed as Highly Reactive.

This means - of course - that we get to pay more money to yet another type of professional so they can tell us to pay more money for a different class of slab foundation. Not earth-shattering (hardy-har-har!),  but simply adds to list of extremely dull things we are having to put money towards when I would much rather spend it on pretty, pretty things for inside an actual house.

So to cheer myself up I indulged in getting quotes for portaloos, temp fencing, timber crossover, rubbish cage and other such items that a girl's heart desires.

 Jealous?

If I knew how to post a photo...

... I would post a shot of the little post-war red brick house that will shortly be laid gently to rest (read: demolished) to make way for the Homemade House. No such luck tonight, so instead I will report that today I made a foray into the back blocks of that factory district of sunny Bayswater North for a kitchen design consultation. I went armed with my secret weapon - the benefit of a very professional kitchen designer's input. It's a beautiful design but I just know the cabinetry company she represents will most likely produce an estimate that will greatly shorten our life expectancy. So my cunning plan was to take her concept (which we paid for and own) to other suppliers for a little price comparison. 

It was quite a lovely morning with two older gentlemen with whom I traversed a whole range of topics during the 2 hours I spent watching one of them gently clicking his way through an ancient piece of kitchen planning software. We covered the 21 year army career of one, including escapades with nurses and a particularly indistinct night out drinking in Sydney which resulted in him waking up inexplicably in Taree.

Then I discovered that the other one lurking in the background is originally from Detroit! He migrated here in 1972 from Grosse Pointe ( and he called ME a snob for having lived in Bloomfield Hills - ha!). This guy used to work for a block buster as a young man and by that I don't mean a video store. Google it if you are interested to learn more about racism being used for commercial advantage. He assured me he is a different person now. Of course there was a girl involved in that  migration tale so we spent some time discussing all these matters until it was time for me to scamper away to the next adventure. 

Did I leave with any kind of kitchen design from them? No.

Did I progress the cause today? Hmmm...possibly not. But I did enjoy their company.

So anyway...

I'm sitting by the bath getting soaked by the littlest Laird of all whilst trying to start off this blog account of our home building escapade this year - I think that will pretty much sum up how this is all going to play out!

We've just paid the deposit to a Very Nice Building Company ( that shall remain nameless in case I get totally fed up with them down the track and want to write libellous things about them here). Now we are awaiting our preliminary drawings to be completed so we can set off the chain reaction hopefully leading to very pretty period reproduction family home by the last quarter of this year.

Re-wind to Melbourne Cup Day 2012 when a discussion about our unsuccessful house hunting over the previous few months led to the sudden thought that the one thing we had not done in our long running series of real estate adventures was build a house! It occurred to us there could be great value in demolishing something and building the home we had always been drawn to, rather than purchasing someone else's "quirks".

Within a week we had made an offer on a property that ticked all the boxes - over 800 sqm, closer to the girls school, and in an attractive neighbourhood full of period homes. The last few months we have spent drawing up floorplans, planning interiors, and liaising with the building company. Somewhere along the way we made a big decision - to owner-build! This is an approach encouraged by the building company, who supply homes to lock-up stage and then support owners to get the rest done. Important note: we really view ourselves as "project managers" rather than hands-on actual builders - we might be crazy but we haven't completely lost our minds!

The preliminary drawings should be ready very soon and we can finally apply for our building permit. Before we know it, it will all be up to us - the world of finding tradespeople, getting quotes, overseeing all the building works etc. Already we are learning far more than I know I ever intended to when it comes to construction but by the time we are done, we will have something to be very proud of - our "Homemade House".

PS this blog was supposed to be called "The year we ate mince" but as it was chicken stirfry on the menu tonight I felt it lacked a little authenticity.