Flat Packs

In order to break up my feeling of "everything taking forever" I ventured into the world of flat packs last week in the purchase of our very first piece of furniture :) - yes it is way to early, and yes it means I'll have to put the item back in its box only to be rebuilt again next year when we actually have keys to a house. But it was very exciting to finally have something that is "ours" and to start imagining all of its uses.

So what did we buy? Well after chats about the cost of putting a gas point outside in the alfresco for the bbq I saw a sale on Butcher's Trolley's. Perfect for extra cutting space in the kitchen, perfect for wheeling items out to the bbq, perfect for cleaning up after after dinner drinks in the alfresco :)

Here it is in nearly all of its glory. It may not be much. But it is our first piece of furniture.

Lauren has finally made up her mind

So its all a little bit slow at the moment but behind the scenes alot of decisions have been made...and unmade. First was the Eden Brae, then the Jandson and finally Lauren has convinced me to retreat to the comfort zone of the respectable Clarendon, today weve put the deposit down on the tender and the ball has started rolling...all be it on a rather flat surface at the moment. Why?.......
Well we liked Eden Brae, our eyes were initially firmly set on the Saville 21 with all promotions added, even an extra 2 squares for $2000. For our first build though, all the bells and whistles would be wasted if we moved in a couple of years...who knows?

Clarendon have just launched the Domaine range and we like the Kilara 1 floorplan with a Carlton facade.
We have decided to leave the floor [I still want porcelain : )] and aircon to contractors at the end to give us some breathing space, plus theres some space for a pool in the garden.

So Eden and Clarenden were our primary choices, there is a minefield of builders out there, we looked at a lot of them and most pull up horror stories online but I think were going to get out of this what we put into it;
I expect no more and no less than what we finally agree upon.

Next step...confirm mortgage!

THE Exchange

Punching my way across the Tasman Sea with 40kts of wind and waves to match the last thing on my mind was our exchange, recieving the email however was every bit as exciting. Lauren on the other hand has been rushing about this afternoon cheque in hand, declaring a champagne toast on our victory....

Lauren post the picture for all of our followers to fill in for the 1000 words ive left out!!

A Pair of Proud Dirt Owners

Finally the time has come to hand over the first large piece of cash in this project - meaning that ...

The Land is Ours!

Such a very exciting milestone: one that seems to occur in a very unexciting way - hand over the signed documents, hand over the cheque and we're done. But none the less, Doug and I are very excited and proud of ourselves.

During our Skype celebrations (Doug is back sailing the high seas, to which I am told they are very high today!) we were commenting on how slow the process is and how impatient we both are. After spending years working at sea we are used to the speed with which cruise ship life works and it will take time for us both to adjust to "normal life". With registration not happening until the end of May (finally a date has appeared on The Ponds website!) we are relieved that we have time to decide on a house and work out finance, but we also want the process to hurry up so we can see our own castle appear before our eyes.

I'm busy trying to decide on the best home for us, then taking lots of photos of display homes to email to Doug for his stamp of approval. As soon as we find one we love, work out costing etc, I'm out looking again "just to be sure" and I find another new love! I'm sure this process will keep going until we finally commit to a particular house.

But today is about the land and our small stamp on property in Sydney ... the countdown to drinks on our own turf can now begin!

Foreign Exchange

ok so the bunch I used to transfer money out here was http://www.smartcurrencyexchange.com/
if anyone is needing reasurance then use this company, very professional and fast service.
I have to say handing over a large sum of cash whilst waiting for exchange rates to reach my
expectations was a big gamble of trust on my part. This paid off!

Its Only Just Begun

Where to begin...? 2 weeks ago in a last minute split decision Lauren and I threw down a deposit for the land in the morning, first at the door day after the new release having regretted not doing it the previous evening...that same afternoon I was on a plane leaving for NZ and the clock was ticking to arrange the finance.
Im from England so it wasnt going to be easy, what I didn't realise was the minefield waiting for me to get GBP into AUD. We have one week now and the money hasnt arrived yet partly due to my hesitation to hand over a large chunk of cash and on the other hand these last few weeks has been the weakest in history for the pound! Typical... anyway this is now a necessity and one can only hope for the British Empire to rise again so that our 451.7m2 slice of The Ponds becomes cheaper into the future... Watch this space for the drama to unfold.....x