27th August - Moved in but not yet moved out...

So, I decided half way through last weekend to just move into the new house rather than make a gradual transition over the next  couple of weeks. It was too exciting to leave our new house empty and sleep in the rental.  The kids slept in the new house on Saturday and Sunday (Andrew having the head start as Evie was at a sleep over at a friends house.). We have had a number of firsts - first sleep, first wall painted, first bath, first meal, first piece of mail etc. 

Its chaos - no time even to download photos for this blog entry and we cannot find anything. I am also moving campuses at work so my life at both ends is about boxes and packing tape.  This week, we have moved a load of boxes in the house, put in a modified planning application for a flatter garden, installed a mailbox (in order to receive said first piece of mail).  The driveway man will be starting this week and then we hope to complete most of the landscaping.  The heating has been installed and hoorah Foxtel is coming tomorrow to install an unseemly, ugly but nonetheless very welcome satelite dish on the top of our house. Welcome back Downton Abbey.

Steve got his own way and ordered his leather corner sofa.  Sometimes its easier just to cave.  We had some contingency left over and he spent some of it on his much desired sofa although it was in a sale and not purchased from the man with the vulgar watch and ridiculous sports car. Should be here in 3 months (need 3 or 4 cows to be born, grow enough to be slaughtered for the sofa presumably).

Anyway, much progress this week and we have hopefully transferred the rental to a family from Birmingham (small world eh?).

24th Sept - The Key to it All is....

...in our hands.  Yes, today we reached practical completion and have in our hands a shiney new key.  There is still a list of snags as long as your arm but at least we can now arrange to move in and can wander around the house whenever we like.  Steve will be there all the time from now on just to keep an eye on things and ensure that no-one messes with our lovely new house.

The Key 

There is some cleaning up to do and I will now start painting some of the rooms - especially the kids bedrooms.  That's my weekend mapped out.  Metricon handed over an enormous pile of documentation today but they also left us 2 beautiful, Royal Doultan crystal champagne flutes.  We had brought some plastic flutes from Coles ($20) which looked rather shabby in comparison so didn't bother with those. 

Ah, yes, these glasses beat the $20 for 4 flutes from Coles.

These didn't stay full for long

Me, outside my front door with the cork from the champagne bottle.

20th August – On the Level

Whilst the builders are working their way through the massive 'to do' list we left them last week, we have arranged a 'landscaper' to come and start work on the exterior.  For those up north, a landscaper down here means a bloke with a digger or a bloke with access to large quantities of concrete.  First off the blocks is the bloke with the digger who has levelled our back garden in preparation for the turf, retaining walls and fence.  We have recalculated what we need and therefore need to submit a new planning application for more retaining walls.  In the meantime, we'll just do 1 side of the garden for which we already have planning consent.

We also skipped down to Bunnings (UK translation: B&Q) and bought ourselves some paint, brushes and other stuff.  It was good fun to be able to go shopping for the house after a 2.5 year halt on our DIY talent. Well, what we lack in talent, we make up for in enthusiasm.  It's all very exciting.
I'm having the most fun planning the kids rooms.  Hopefully we will get our keys this week.  The builder is attempting to repair a couple of gashes in our stacker doors but I'm not convinced it will look good as new and if it doesn't, I will be demanding the parts are replaced. I'm trying not to let this stifle my joy at the prospect of having our own home here in Oz.

Might have to pack a couple of boxes soon....

9th August – They Think its all Over…

Well not quite.  We have a ‘walk round’ scheduled tomorrow with the site manager. Tonight we have put together our snag list, which is actually quite long but hopefully not too difficult to overcome.  The carpets are in and pretty much all of the finishing work is complete. 

Carpet, delightful woodstain on the balaustrade.  Hey wasn't that supposed to be painted? Never mind. It matches that door that is not in the contract.  Hhhmmm, scouse works in mysterious ways....

 You can see from these 2 pictures above that our luxury package came with a free pair of manky sandals with each room.

The fence is down too and so we can now see the house free of bars.

Free at last!  Apart from the monstrous mortgage that is.

Steve has spent the last few weeks since the last blog update trying to get tradies to turn up on time.  Probably easier to fly to the moon and back.  Speaking of impossible tasks, the phone company confirm they are unable to connect a phone to the house until Sept 20th!  I mean, the house and all the other houses in the street have appeared magically overnight so no wonder they have no idea that there is a need to provide modern infrastructure to the street. I love the fact that there is ducting to the street but when you lift the branded manhole covers, they are empty. 

Of course this is not the worst of it, what this means is that we cannot have Foxtel (that's Sky to you up there in Blighty). Yes, that's right no proper TV.  Just re-runs of Home and Away, Lateline and Private Practice.  No quality entertainment such as Come Dine with Me (Lucy won't come round) or the Sharks and Nazi channel (aka Discovery channel) but perhaps worst of all, the children will have no kids telly. This tragic turn of events also means that there is no internet.  That is no shopping, no daily mail online, no skype, no shopping, Oh and Steve can't work, no kids homework sites, no shopping.  Bummer.

MacDonalds has free wifi, Steve will be sat in there conducting his business every day coked up on fizzy drinks. Do do do do dooo, I'm not lovin' it.