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.

My kitchen

Yesterday, Darren and his brother Mark, picked up our kitchen cabinets from our cabinet maker in Melton!! Here it is being installed today. I am SOOO excited!! This wall above contains the pantry (on the left), the fridge (in the middle) and a "kids bench" where the toaster etc. will be.

This is the U shaped area under the bulkhead (see link to old post here). These cabinets are a different colour to the other wall, for a bit of interest! The sink goes under the window, stove on the right (I bought a beautiful 90 cm Smeg upright cooker with electric oven and gas cooktop - I got it from Gray's Online auctions for $2000 less than RRP. It has a few small scratches but nothing I care about), dishwasher on the left with lots of drawers everwhere and a huge pull out bin. I've sent off a plan to the bench top people, we want to get Caesarstone in the "Ice Snow" colour. Hopefully that will be organised in a week or so.

Other jobs done lately include starting the handrails upstairs and in the stairwell. We've gone for solid timber posts and rails that we will stain, and black powdercoated steel uprights (not pictured yet).

The wardrobes upstairs in the kids' rooms are also finished. The doors are on the floor just waiting to be painted.

Darren's little things

Darren is working on the upstairs fix, i.e. doors, skirting and architraves around the windows. He's also fitting out the wardrobes.

Here is Ben's door. Notice the little brown blocks in the corners and at the bottom. They are little feature bits, the things Darren loves to add to the house!

Once they're all painted in glossy white oil paint, the doors will look gorgeous!

In goes the heating.!

We have lived up here for about 8 weeks now with no heating. It has been very cold. We have had a little fan heater (see above) that gets dragged around and fought over but the house has been freezing and we've had to rely on lots of blankets and doonas! Today, Darren and his helper Tim started installing the central heating ducts. Tim had the day off school because Darren really needed someone small and agile to help him. His pay was 4 packs of footy cards which he thoroughly deserved!!

Under the house running ducts in the mud!!

Peeking through the return air vent hole!
They didn't get it all done today so we have one more cold night to bear. The plumber has installed the heating unit and tomorrow, the rest of the ducts will be run. I cannot wait to feel that warm air flowing into the house.

Internal timbers, doors and at last.....stairs!

All our doors, skirting boards and architraves have arrived and have been dumped inside wherever a space could be found!

I have been absolutely fascinated by the way Darren has built the stairs to the upper storey. It truly is an art form I think! He started out making the side bits (called stringers I now know!). He carves out shapes in them using some kind of power tool. See below. He then makes a mirror image one for the other side.

The treads and the risers (that is the horizontal and vertical stair bits) then slot into the stringer in the spots carved out. He then makes wedges that he hammers into the gaps. See below. This makes the whole structure tight and prevents creaking etc.

Below is the almost finished product! Very clever in my book!