a trip down exterior lane

Lets see how far this house has come....

19th September 2012

2nd October 2012

8th October 2012

18th October 2012

21st October 2012

6th November 2012

Not too bad. Only 6 weeks to go people!!!!!!

Mr Gorbachev, don't tear down this wall.

Too much? I thought so.

 

Anyway, where were we. Oh that's right....
I will wait while you pick yourself up off the floor, because no doubt you have collapsed in pure shock.
How fast is this place coming along? I swear, it is hard to keep up.
Whoever said once lock up happened it was a slow process was out of their mind.
The below picture was taken only 5 weeks prior to the above.

View of our kitchen, dining and lounge room from the hallway

The before picture taken 5 weeks prior.

 I must admit, the panic is slightly starting to set in. We have to pack up our existing house, rent it out to the perfect tenants, oh and organise Christmas. All in 6 short weeks, no biggie. GULP!

We both work full time so this only leaves weeknights and weekends. 

Which sounds like a lot but tis the season for events and almost every weekend is booked up for us. 

So we need to pull our socks up and get it done. Yesterday.

Look at this mess. Some items are packed, other items are waiting to be installed into the new house, other items need to be given to the op shop/goodwill. It's just a big pig sty. Oink oink.. Hang on a minute, does that make me Babe? 

But we will get there. One vase at a time.

Knock knock....

...Who's there?

It's our front door.

It's our front door who?

It's our front door...#letsjustbrushpastthisjokefail

 

Did your face scrunch up thinking "what an odd colour choice?"

Have no fear if it did because this is the undercoat colour. We have chosen a standard white finish as the doors will be covered with screen doors anyway so the more neutral the better.

But there she blows. 

Adam and Eeaves

Did you see what I did there? Classic Emily and her witty sense of humour...

So the eaves are done and done!
One day they weren't there. The next day they were. These builders are incredible.
We decided to only go a bit of a way down the side with the render which is quite standard as we will have the fence from that line.

It looks so smooth now. I cannot wait til it is all painted. It will make such a difference.
Apart from painting and installation of the doors (including the garage door), the house on the outside is done. Obviously apart from the driveway and landscaping.
This is when it starts to feel like it slows down for most people, however, because Matt is in the building industry, he has access to the house still because he has an OH&S safety card which allows him permission to go inside so he will be able to take photos to keep us up to date.

we chose our sofas

And it is stunning.
It was a little more than what we were hoping to spend, but the place we bought it from were having a 20% off sale and it is made in Australia and has a 10 year structure guarantee. We also decided to include a safeguard spray on the material which means, if we spill red wine or any liquid and it stains the couch then they come and clean it professionally for the next 5 years and if they cannot remove the stain then they pay to have it re-upholstered.
We got a four seater and a three seater.


Here I am casually fake relaxing on one of the sofas. The colour here is the colour we have chosen however the legs are different. We like the light wood so have gone for a natural wood as apposed to the teak that it currently has.
The sofa comes up grey/silver/blue and will match the pale grey walls and neutral tiles.

highlighting the blue tones

highlighting the grey tones

It is made to order and yesterday was the last day for before Xmas guarantee and because our house has hopes of being built before Xmas we wanted to get in just to be safe. In fact, the man allowed us to extend the date to today for us to accommodate us. What a guy!
And if for some reason the house is not finished when the sofas are then they will store them for us free of charge.

So what do you think?

well render me happy

Peeps we have render. An undercoat of render anyway. The colour part of that is still a few weeks away.

I know we are biased but I feel like it really has the WOW factor they talk about in those home related TV shows and magazines. When we drive towards it I can't help but smile with pride.

The entry way feels so grand. I just love it. I love it all. The detailing of the render is a work of art. It is faultless. You always hear of these disastrous building stories but we just haven't had any. Everyone works really hard to make it perfect, and I suppose, on occasion things can go wrong. It is a lot of work on the site manager and all those tradespeople involved to have everything timed perfectly. Sometimes it can go wrong, but it doesn't mean they aren't working their hardest to make it right. That is my motto when I make a mistake in my job.

I want to leave with this adorable photo.
It is someones lunch.

It was in our "study"  and it made me smile so much seeing it. I imagine the mans partner making him the sandwich to take to work. It was all packed nicely, and looked delicious might I add. Then perhaps there was a few of the others heading to the local McDonalds around the corner and he thought "forget this sandwich, I want some Maccas" So it was just discarded to the side. I wonder if his partner asked if he enjoyed his sandwich and he had to lie and say it was delicious with panic stricken eyes.

Anyway, adios Amigos. pew pew!

let there be light

I have found pendant lights for our house and I am in love.
I seriously want to make out with them. When I saw them I knew they were the ones.
I always thought I would get industrial pendants from IKEA.
You can see my old post on them here
But having so much time to choose made me start searching for something better. That rang alarm bells because if I had found the perfect pendant, why was I still searching? That was when I realised we needed something else.

So thus began the new search for pendants. I rallied all my work colleagues and friends to help me find them. I had a short list and appreciated everyone's feedback on why they did or didn't like them. It made me open my eyes to a lot of issues that I wouldn't have realised had I not asked so I am thankful I did.
Time was approaching when we needed to have them ready for the electrician.
So today after hours of internet searching we went to Beacon lighting who were having a 30% off the second light sale. Which was quite handy as we were purchasing two lights.
As we walked in and I rounded the corner I saw our new lights. When I saw them I gasped in amazement. My eyes followed the pendant up til they reached the cord, then there was an intake of breath and then the final gasp and swallow as I saw the top of them.
I could barely speak but I think I said "Matt we are getting these", although it may have sounded like "Mart vee geet thaaa".

They are everything I wanted and more. So much more. I never knew a pendant could look so nice. All the way to the top. I never even looked at the top of pendants in the past. Mainly because they were boring and not worth the look I guess. But these are sexy to the very tippy top.
I mean just look at that cord. I'd love to get all tangled in that.

 We told the lady we would take two. We were quite lucky as they had only just been released recently and they only had 3 left. Two in the back and the one on display.  We took the two out the back and went home on our merry way. After paying for them of course. Actually, I may have skipped back to the car and smiled like a freak the whole way home. 

I am still smiling now.