Contracts signed

Yay! Finally contracts are signed and handed into Clarendon! So very excited that we can finally start moving along in this journey :)
Next stop - external colour meetings!

Finance Approved

After such a long wait and some vigorous hoop jumping we have finally received approval that the bank will approve both our finance and construction loan!
Such an exciting day - and a lot of weight taken off my shoulders.

What a busy week full of exciting news that keeps stepping us closer to starting the build - champagne is in order!

One step closer

So as we continue to jump through hoops with the bank and wait and see how well they score us we received some much welcomed news.

We are one very small step headed in the right direction to registration date!

Now a trip to the land to see if the fence has come down :)

Small changes

In a drive back home today I took a journey by the land to do the usual check to make sure it's still there - with nothing else happening it is exciting watching the land transform into a ready block.

Dad and I were a bit confused driving up to it. The boundaries have been moved - next doors light post was now on our block, a drain into the sewer had appeared and the electrical box was on the wrong size. Our landscape plan would have to change due to these unexpected changes!

And then we realised we were looking at the wrong block!

So we drove down to our block and realised why the confusion, some things had changed. Next door has always had a light pole smack bang in the middle of their block and now it had been completely moved! It was now located on our west boundary with an electrical box on our east side. Not such a big issue, just a huge change! Got to check out our distance requirements, and I bet next door are thrilled that the light post has been moved!

A whilrwind of a month

So it's been a very busy April & May. Doug has returned to Australia for 4 weeks and in that time we needed to make sure we had decided on all external and internal decisions, along with the dreaded landscape plan.

After a bit of toing and froing with the builder, we were able to get our tender and contract presentations done within record time, simply so that Doug's signature could be on both without too much hassle.
     On a side note here, it seems very interesting that the banks and our broker have absolutely  no problem working with us along side Doug working abroad for much of the year, yet the builder seems to find this a very difficult idea to comprehend. It seems the way of thinking is "the paper says all parties must be present. There for all parties must be present." It leaves me wondering how military wives, which there are many, go about building properties in Australia.

We've spent the last four weeks in meetings with the builder, with the broker and then running between the brickyards, roof tilers, bathroom tilers, kitchen company etc. Along with a few visits to Bunnings for ideas of what we can do ourselves, and deciding what to do about flooring. It seems all of these decisions came easily. Bricks and roof tiles were chosen in a day. The bathroom tiles was a bit more of a discussion, but still a decision was made within the day as well. Paint colour was a visit to Bunnings to go through the Taubmans paint range - but to be honest I've been looking at all of these things for months, trying to come up with ideas of what I liked well before Doug came home in order to make the decisions easier.

We're going to do the flooring ourselves, which whilst we know what we like, it gives us time to finalise our decisions in the end - and change our mind if we decide to. Doug is convinced he can tile the house himself - and whilst I'm sure he can as well, I'd rather get a professional to do it - at the end of the day, if something goes wrong and I'm not happy I'd rather get angry at the contractor then the man I live with!

But after all the rushing to make sure we had everything set to go we've put the breaks on again. Seems that is going to be the way with this build! We've been advised by our broker to hold off signing the contract and paying the rest of the 10% to the builder until final approval has been given by the banks - we have approval for the land but are still waiting for the construction half of the loan. So we are waiting and are sitting in limbo, eagerly waiting for the next section of the plan to start, so long as we have the guarantee from the banks - so everything is crossed from this end!

At least in the meantime I can keep driving by the land and longingly look through the fence as construction is being finished.

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!