The end of this week will mark 11 weeks since moving into our new home!!! Can you believe it? 11 weeks during the build felt long, 11 weeks during planning permits felt like a life time and yet 11 weeks in the actual house feels like a blink of the eye.
The list of wants and things to do is still never ending, and I need to remind myself that this project will take a few years. When we first moved in I found it really overwhelming. I was emotional and exhausted. I wanted everything done, and by yesterday! My gorgeous hubby had to kindly remind me that I needed to enjoy the process, and also remind me that it was going to take a while to do everything. To be honest – I had pictured a display home in my mind and it just wasn’t. We had old crappy furniture mixed in with the new (or it will mix once it arrived, but that’s another story) and the shopping list was growing by the day. I wanted to go and buy everything now, but as our build costs had blown out it had reduced my spending amounts and I had to prioritise. First world problems hey!
Anyway, now we are in and getting more comfortable – I love the house! It is everything we imagined and more. The spaces are working really well and the kids are happy. I can watch the news while cooking dinner as the kids are busy in the toy room, pottering in their bedrooms or watching the box in the kids retreat upstairs.
The kitchen is by far my favourite area – the huge island bench is fantastic. I love having so much space to cook, and it has quickly become the hub of the home. The bright white feels fresh and the pops of black give it a modern look. The pantry is another happy place – I’ve been hanging out to have my organised space and organised it is. Now I have always had an organised kitchen but now with so much space it is easy for everyone to keep it that way. I just need some more oxo canisters – love them. Oh and having the fruit displayed seperately has been great – the kids can reach it and see what we have and are happily picking fruit as their snack.
I also love my walk in robe!!! I hope to one day fit it out properly, but for now it works. I can see all my clothes and it makes dressing in the morning so much easier. The children having walk in robes is great also. While they don’t appreciate it, I find it easier to put their stuff away and they can see what they have.
We did have some teething issues – blocked pipes was a major one… Insert crap, literally running through the back yard. Yuk!!! The heater/aircon wasn’t connected properly. The gas on the stove was weak – that was a quick fix – it was a simple kink in the tube. There are still a few paint spots I’m not completely happy with. The solar hot water was faulty – this took a number of visits before the fault was found. The stone around the sink in the pantry still needs to be trimmed back so the accessories can fit in. The chopping board for the Pete Evans sink in the island bench still needs to be replaced (another pantry one was sent – wrong sink)
Our current battle is with Telstra. OMG this is painful. As we are a knockdown re-build council requires us to have underground services. That is, no overhead cables. So Telstra need to connect the house under the road, and with all their communications sorted out via overseas workers they just don’t understand the requirements. They keep telling us it’s connected, but what they see on their computer is the previous house. I can see the conduit out the front. So my advice – if you are heading down the knockdown re-build path, start this process early. It was so simple for the electricity with Jemena – don’t understand the issues with Telstra. All I know is that I have wasted countless days waiting for them at home to still not solve the issue – and my mobile phone bill is huge with data usage. Come on Telstra – sort your game out!!!
So I was planning on showing some pictures here, but they won’t load – dam Telstra again!!! This dongle internet set up is so slow. So in the mean time if you want to see some pictures head on over to Instagram – @donovansdaily. I have plenty on my page. Oh and I really will try and blog more.
Has anyone else experienced the pain of their new home not looking the way you planned it in your mind?