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!!