The Red room!!

Excuse the flash reflections in the photo! This is our "home theatre" come family TV room. I really wanted a red room and this is it. It has 2 levels for seats and a little divider wall on the left. It's hard to see the colour exactly but we are very happy with it. There are so many reds out there!!

Finally the kids have their trampoline back. This is our back yard area off the back deck. Eventually I would like to pave it and have a basketball ring etc here as well, and access to a cubby up in the trees somewhere!

Party Pics!!

Over the last two Saturdays we have had birthday parties for Amber and Nicky. The weather was beautiful and it was so nice to use the house to entertain. We set up the table out the front as the back deck isn't finished yet. Here is Amber opening her presents.

Here is her horse cake!!

Nicky and the pinata!!

Nicky's party was a "Weird Creatures" party! Here is one of the creatures that came. Her name is Pudgie!

Nicky's monster cake!

Another weird guest!

Nicky as a four armed, ten eyed, something or other!

The latest things done.

We really want to paint our family room / theatre room in a RED but finding the right red is a difficult process!

This is our walk in wardrobe in the main bedroom.

Remember the trees we cut down all those months ago? See here. Well here is some of them, milled and dried and used as feature timbers around the house. This is in the kitchen and we're also building our main staircase out of it. It is Blackwood.

Here's hubby measuring some of the Blackwood.

Party time!

No it's not the Housewarming....yet.....but it is Amber and Nicky's birthday parties. Amber and Nick have only had one proper "friends" party in their lives (excluding family gatherings of course) and it was a joint one as their birthdays are 11 days apart. This year, I promised they could have their OWN parties and have them at home. I haven't done a big home kids party for a very long time! So, Amber's is tomorrow and Nicky's next Saturday. It's time to clean up this place!!! Darren is coming home from work early to clean up outside and set up the BBQ in the top garage area. I am cleaning up inside and then I'm out to get some hay bales and horseshoes (Amber's is a horse party!). I'll post some pics soon.

And a bit of outside.

Our lovely weeping cherry. We transplanted this from our old garden in Surrey Hills.

Kids kicking around outside. Tim's in his jamies (at 4pm) and trying to run out of the photo!

Where's the ball gone???

We re-painted our front posts in Woodland Grey, the same as our Colourbond roof. It looks good. Daz painted the front door purple just for fun but we think we'll change it to a deep red.

A little bit more of inside!

The start of our outdoor entertaining area. The deck will continue out 5 m to the left of the picture. The trampoline etc. will go out the back where all the logs are.

Wardrobes upstairs finally have handles. Still need hanging rails inside though!! Not so bad for the boys, lots of shelving anyway but I really want to hang up Amber's dresses!

Teenage boy's room!

Tim's lovely room, all organised!

Tim's wall. Note the other team posters and one of Gary Ablett. He just loves footy!!!

It's been a while!

It's been quite a while since I have posted here. I guess that's because not much has been happening on the work front at home. We ran out of money a few months ago and have struggled to get more finance. Darren also started working again which doesn't leave much time to do things at home. It has been a hard time as we felt in limbo somewhat. This house has just cost way too much to finish. I don't know what I was thinking when I read some of my earlier cost projections!! This final stage of all the fiddly timber work, painting, bathrooms, doors, handles etc. just goes on and on!! When the plastering was done, I thought it was almost finished!!
Anyway, we have been blessed and have managed to get some money to finish the place. We have started ordering roll-a-doors, organising slabs for the garage, getting our lovely custom made doors in. Above are the french doors to the study. The left hand architrave is stained as it will all be. We are very happy with the look! We've also got all our cabinetry for the laundry, the "bag room" and our walk in robes. These will be our major storage cupboards so I can't wait till they're all done and I can put some stuff away at last!

Here is our bedroom wall colour, also in the study and formal lounge. We love it! It is an Antique Green, not grey at all (in case you think it looks greyish!)

Here are our Rumpus Room doors with the panelled surround. We love them too. Having doors on downstairs at last makes a huge difference to noise levels!! The Rumpus will be just a great room for the kids. We are determined to finish all the entertaining areas and the kid's play areas outside so we can all enjoy the house over the summer. Then we will consider our future here depending on finances.

We have some beautiful dry stone walls hidden on the property. Darren would love to expand them and use them in landscaping, especially along the driveway.

So, all the skirting and inside timberwork is now done and all the doors are on. We have boxes of handles and door stops etc. waiting to go on, all our cabinets to make up, and we have just got our load of timber from our old Blackwood trees we had cut down. They have been milled and we are going to use them on our second staircase and as some feature timber benchtops in the kitchen. They look gorgeous! Once the painting is done downstairs (and I'm trying to convince Darren to hire a painter to finish it all) it will be ready for carpet and finally, the house will be almost there. Except for the garages, back deck and the other bathrooms of course. And the landscaping. Sigh!!!
Bless you all and have lovely school holidays!!

Next.......

Just thought I'd put this in, a pic of Amber dressed up as...........I'll just ask her..........well, it's a floaty ring and a rubbish bag girl!!

Darren finished the splash backs a few weeks ago. Above, we had to score the veneer board behind the stove to get the glue to stick.

Almost done! You can see the colour. Hasn't been grouted yet but has all the little nails as spacers between the tiles.
It is all finished now and I'm very happy with it. It's an olivey green colour and it ties in really well with everything else in the kitchen. The one thing I would change is the kick boards in the U shaped section. They are off white like the cupboards and just show so much dirt and scuff marks. I think stainless steel might look nice or the timber colour like the other wall.

I have been busily unpacking lately, all the boxes of things that aren't necessities, that have just been sitting in the rumpus room. Lots of books, sentimental items, toys, old magazines. I even found some great kitchen items I'd forgotten I had including some Tupperware I'd bought!
It is fun but my reasonably tidy house has become a city of piles!! Piles of stuff to be put here and there. We still haven't done a lot of our storage areas like our walk in robe, my "bag room" off the kitchen, the laundry cabinets, etc. So, I think I'll just keep the piles, but organise them into where they'll eventually end up. At least I can see all the things I have and get a vision for where to put them. Some of our things I haven't seen since we packed up Surrey Hills which was four years ago! It is quite fun!

Life becomes normal....ish

Life here is at last becoming more normal. We are slowly moving more stuff into it's rightful place. Above is our dining table in place under the lights in the dining room.

Here is the kitchen in operation!! I love my cooker, my benchtops and my huge sink. We still need to do the splashbacks. I think we'll actually continue the green coloured walls along here from the dining room and just use some neutral/beigy tiles for the splashback. It just needs some colour somewhere I think.

Here's the view from the dining room into the kitchen. I should have shut the pantry door in the background shouldn't I, but you can see what a great pantry I have.

Our guest bathroom is the only one completely finished. I finally found the right shower curtain, a classic cream with little roses on it. It goes with the theme I had in mind all along for this area. Now we just need to take the stickers off the toilet and put up a toilet roll holder!!!

This is Jake's room. He loves it. He has a door on the right out onto the balcony. He wants to buy some hammocks now.This is Tim's room. He has been amazing setting it all up. He was in his element!! It will always be neat and organised. That's my Tim and thank goodness there's one in the family!!

Here is a close up of our carpet going down the stairs.

I have been a bit pre-occupied lately with our finances. The bottom line is that this house has cost way more than we estimated it would and it has taken way longer to build. This has meant more time without income for Darren and we have ended up having to borrow more than we anticipated... so we now have a big mortgage.
Our construction loan was up at the end of May. It was a special loan just for the construction period and we had to either roll it over into a normal home loan with the same finance company, or re-finance with another institution. We have been paying a high interest rate (8.2% at present) up till now due to our circumstances (owner builders, low actual income over last few years due to focusing on our own homes, etc.) but we had always assumed that once the house was finished, we could revert to a "normal" interest rate, say in the 5% area with one of the big banks. As interest rates are pretty low at the moment, our rather large mortgage was still affordable if we worked hard.
Then, last week, we were rejected by one of the major banks due to our lack of income. We were devastated. We thought Darren taking time off work to build would work in our favour financially (rather than paying someone else) but now it was to be our downfall. Our current lender had offered to extend our loan for a year but at an interest rate of 7.2%. This just tipped the scales for us. It made our montly repayment seem too much, just not worth it. We started feeling like we should just sell up. We would end up with enough money to buy something else. We just felt like we had bitten off too much at one time, taken too big a leap. We had built a house that was just too big, too grand, too expensive in the end. If we had just gone for something more normal, we wouldn't be in this position. We felt like we had failed. Failed ourselves, failed God, failed our kids. It was horrible.
Since then, we have done a lot of thinking. It would be such a shame to sell now. The house is no where near it's potential, not to mention the limited market for unfinished homes. We decided that no matter what, we have to finish our dream, finish the house until it is beautiful and amazing. Then, if we do sell, we will get a good profit and it will have been worth it all. Darren has gone back to work, I am looking for a job too and we have decided we can do it. We are committed to finishing this house, albeit more slowly now. God has not brought us this far just to have it all turn sour. There is hope for the future. It is going to be financially harder than we thought but it is not as bad as we first thought either. The bank has said that after we have had a few months of solid income, we can re-apply and hopefully get that lower rate. It was more the shock of being rejected. It wasn't something we had considered. I guess it is part of the current economic climate, banks are just being very careful with their lending.
So, it has been a funny couple of weeks. A bit of a rollercoaster in emotions but we have all calmed down now. On we go..... with a smile and with gratitude for what we do have in life!!

Painting upstairs and handrail staining

The painting is almost done upstairs, just the doors to go. It looks beautiful.

Here are our handrails. They've been stained but not laquered yet. The posts will have some kind of nice cap on them to finish the whole thing off.

Here's my precious hubby working away.

More of the kitchen

Here at last is my cooker. I mentioned previously that I had bought it online at Grays Online, an auction site that has scratch and dent items. What I didn't notice was that it was in Sydney and was for local pick up only. I had to organise to freight it down myself and the cheapest I could get was $360!! Oh well, we live and learn!! I still absolutely love the cooker, it was still a big bargain and the scratch on it is very tiny, way better than it seemed in the photo. It's a Smeg by the way and yes, it does have the AGA sticker on it for those who are concerned. This means it is approved by the Australian Gas Association. A friend's hubby mentioned that you have to be careful buying some things online as they can be from overseas and not approved for use here. I also still get a full manufacturers warranty on the cooker as if it were new. The website address is graysonline.com.au in case you're ever looking for something. They have heaps of stuff in all sorts of categories.

Here are the cabinets installed. The benchtops are coming tomorrow!!!!! Yay!!! The plumber is also coming to install the stove and the sink so we might even have a roast tomorrow night for the first time in a few months. I must say I am very "over" my tiny makeshift kitchen in the laundry.

Here is the back wall of the kitchen installed. The fridge goes in the middle and the microwave in the space below the cupboards on the right.