The 35th Week: our new home!

Exciting news. The floor went in at the end of last week which kicks off practical completion week! We've been given a handover date which is exactly 35 weeks since we embarked on the massive project this blog was named after. It's quite incredible that the builders are going to be right-on-time! We'll be having our pre-handover inspection later this week to identify any defects ahead of final handover next week. And then comes the small matter of how we pay for the bloody thing...!

Literally. A. Possum. While we were inspecting the newly laid cement, we noticed the painter had left the front door wide open. Given the cement was still wet, we couldn't enter via the front. We circled around and found the back door unlocked and entered that way to close the door. We took the opportunity to have a look around inside. We were standing in the living room when started by a sound and movement coming from our fireplace. There was a dark shadow climbing out of the frame - it was a possum. We don't know where it came from or how long it had been there. It leapt off the frame and absconded up into the darkness upstairs! Given there was still no power connected, we didn't want to chase it up the stairs with no light. We shut up the house and left, hoping that it could find its own way out. The last thing we want is for it get sealed up in the walls - that would be a nightmare for us and the possum.

Just as Canberra begins the inexorable slide into lock-down due to COVID-19, our lighting supplier contacted us to say that we should immediately pick up our feature lights to avoid the risk of not having them available as and when required. There is still a great deal of uncertainty as to which stores are considered "essential" or "non-essential", so we figured it would be a safer bet to just go and get them. The lights themselves are fairly large and would not fit in either of our cars, so we rented a van to safely transport the lights from the shop to our home. Unfortunately, we weren't able to take the lights directly to the site because they weren't ready for them yet, and as the site was still not secure, it wasn't safe to leave them there. This was particularly annoying as we would have to rent another van when the time did come. When the lights were eventually installed, there were issues with pretty much every one of them! Firstly, one of ou

We're getting to the point where we need to consider what to do about landscaping. The house takes up most of the block so we don't have that much space to work with and we want to make the best use of what we do have. This means engaging a landscape designer to help draw up some plans. We want a low maintenance and modern garden.  One of the key considerations is the selection of plants on the west side of the house that receives the harsh western sun. We like the look of bamboo along our splashback window and hopefully it will be suitable for the conditions.  Then there is the front courtyard that is accessed from the master bedroom, a private retreat if you will. We're thinking of a tranquil space where we can relax with a coffee and book and listen to the soothing sound of a trickling water feature!  Choosing a designer has been the hardest part. We've looked at countless websites and photos but we finally both agreed on a company we like. They're p

We dropped by the site on a Sunday morning, and to our surprise there was a ute in the driveway and the place was a hive of activity. It turned out the plasterers were doing their thing and hanging gyprock walls. I wasn't aware tradies worked on Sundays, but obviously they were keen to get the next stage payment - pre-sheeting. This was very exciting to see and gave a real sense of how the finished product will look. Getting high ceilings on both floors has paid dividends - the place already feels light and airy.  Next we meet with the tiler to decide all things tiles, from colours, patterns, direction and grout. Spoiler alert: there is a lot of grey. 

As we drove toward the house this week, we noticed something was missing. That something was two levels of scaffolding and for the first time we got to see the unadorned front facade. For the past few months, while there was a lot of internal progress, nothing much appeared changed from the outside, so it was very exciting for us to see how some of our design choices played out in real life. We were particularly interested in seeing how the wood panelling feature on the front turned out and how our colour selections came together. We think it turned out quite well. Next week, the plasterers start, but not before the solar guys get in to do their pre-wiring. It was lucky they were able to fit us in on such short notice otherwise we might have ended up with some ugly external conduits. We were lucky that the lower roof finally went up ahead of a week expected wet weather. Now we need to start thinking about landscaping.