Treechanged

Treechanged is about a surburban family building their dream home on five acres of Australian bush land.

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Introducing baby gumnut

I’m taking a break from cleaning the rental for inspection to introduce you to our newest (and last, let’s make that clear) Gumnut who is now 11 weeks, or could be 12 – I have lost count. Baby Gumnut was born on the 22nd of October, just five days after his eldest brother’s sixth birthday. Like all my offspring, he took thorough advantage of the womb service , born at a hefty 4.6kgs at 39 weeks –…

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Recapping my last blog post:– the internal fit-out had not commenced on our house, I was struggling with inspiration and motivation, and I was heavily pregnant. I’m pleased to report that all these things have changed, particularly the latter. It’s going to take me a great deal of time to bring you up to speed on Treechanged’s progress, so settle in, grab a cup of tea or a glass of wine and let me fill you in.

A change in supervisor

The view through our fireplace.

Shortly after my last update we were advised that our site supervisor had left the company. The news was not met with any kind of emotion from us as we had never met the guy, Paul had only spoken to him over the phone a couple of times, and we strongly suspected he probably had only visited our site once. We assumed whoever took over would maintain the status quo.

Thankfully our assumptions were wrong, and with a new site supervisor came progress and communication! He made appearances on site, he organised meetings between us and the trades and he would volunteer information without us having to ask. This change in regime combined with seeing steady progress made us feel more positive about the building process.

Our deadline oops

It was getting quite obvious by October the house would not be completed for the Christmas deadline. My husband went through the contract and calculated the 300 and something day building deadline would fall just before Christmas, and after that the builder would have to start compensating us. So he rang the builder to enquire about the deadline and when approximately they thought the house would be finished. The answer …. late March. Practical completion for Treechanged was due for late March.

There had been an error in the calculation of the deadline, and it was our fault. It was pointed out the contract stated working days, and not just ‘days’, so completion doesn’t actually have to take place until June. My poor husband felt very sheepish for his oversight as he works as an engineer and deals with contracts quite often. The problem this change of deadline presented was schooling, as I wanted to start our eldest Gumnut at the local school for the start of Term One. The local school is 40 minutes away from where we currently live, so it would be three hours out of my day to make this happen which clearly wasn’t going to work with a newborn and toddler. We briefly considered moving closer to our build, but in the end decided to stay put. He’ll start the school year back at his current school.

A walk-through of the house

The plans are courtesy of Rural Building Company and are subject to their copyright.

Entry Welcome to our front door! That is the third instalment of the glass pane that sits alongside the door. The first attempt was the wrong size, giving us a 50mm gap that ran lengthways between the glass and frame. The second attempt they cracked it. Someone’s employer is probably not going to be pleased.

Our entry is a larger space than we imagined and in hindsight we could have put that space to better use in other parts of the house. I have a vision of cladding the wall in reclaimed wood and having the words ‘welcome’ or even the longitude and latitude coordinates in white wooden lettering affixed to it, I have run neither of these visions past Paul yet.

Flooring: Dark grey, modern slate-look tile.

The view through our fireplace.

Parent’s Retreat We went on a mission to find a four metre long couch that would fit the space in the Parent’s Retreat but the narrowness of the room eliminated many designs. With a husband on a mission to find the world’s comfiest couch (he says our current couch is an instrument of torture), and needing to find one that would stand up to the ‘kid’ wear and tear test, it was a challenging search.

We settled on the King Living Jasper in the colour Walrus with Walnut wood accents. It can be configured many different ways – from memory it’ll run 3.8 metres along the wall which is 4.2 metres long, and the chaise will be positioned on the ‘study’ wall end.

King Living’s Jasper lounge suite

I am pleased to report we have also chosen our carpet (go us!). The first attempt at carpet shopping was a nightmare. Our middle gumnut is in the midst of the Terrible Twos and had chosen the same day to be in the foulest of moods. I was the parent taking a screaming, unruly child shopping, wishing the earth would just open up and swallow us whole.

Flooring: A woodgrain look carpet in the colour Ghost Gum. It is a 100% Solution Dyed Nylon Level Cut Loop Pile (for the carpet nerds out there).

Office

This space would have been the perfect size if it only had to be my office. We were looking into making it also serve the purpose of a guest bedroom with a pull-down wall bed, but unfortunately it is just not going to be large enough.

We only put one power point in this room, which wasn’t our brightest moment – so I am limited in the positioning of the desk. I still dream of a complete wall of bookshelves and possibly mounting a big whiteboard to one of the walls, but we’ll see.

Flooring: The woodgrain look carpet will also make an appearance here.

Mastersuite

View from mastersuite

We designed the master around our king-sized bed. There is no real surprises with this room. The walk in closet is smaller in reality than my imagination, but still a workable space –I am not someone who has a large shoe and clothing collection.

At the moment it just has the standard shelf and rail installed, which is not the most efficient use of space. I have permission from Paul to have it fitted out by a wardrobe specialist after we move in.

Flooring: Woodgrain look carpet.

Ensuite and Powder Room

The house is now at the tiling stage. One of our neighbours has actually been contracted to do the tiling, which I’m really excited about as it just brings that old ‘it takes a village’ community charm to the project. He has started tiling the ensuite shower recess, which includes a feature wall of rust looking tiles.

The view through our fireplace.

The cabinetry is in. One Sunday afternoon we went up to the house for our weekly look around and saw that the cabinetry had been delivered. The next day I took my best friend up to the house because she had not seen it since the bricks had been completed. We arrived that morning, and when I took her to see the ensuite and saw the cabinets installed that weren’t there 24 hours earlier – I squealed with excitement. By 10am the lone cabinetmaker had already installed 80 percent of the house’s cabinets. Despite being 20 years my senior I could have kissed him.

The view through our fireplace.

I’m happy with the way the colours are coming together in the ensuite – it’s always a fear that once your choices are installed and are in context, they might clash.

Tiling in our shower recess has started

Ensuite floor tile

Flooring: Despite looking convincingly like floorboards – those are tiles. They are the tiles the snobby interiors lady refused to sell to me.

Entertaining Hall There is no glass installed in our main hall yet, so our builder has ingeniously boarded it up to get it to ‘lock up’ stage. I am just totally in love with the view, the volume and the vibe of this space.

One of our favourite places in the world (the little that we have seen of it) is Queenstown in New Zealand, and we have often romanticised about moving there. I love their modern alpine homes with expanses of glass, the use of natural materials such as stone and wood, the cosiness of a central fireplace and the vaulted angular ceilings. This area of our house reminds me of a Queenstown home … the outlook is just a little different.

Looking into the formal lounge. Kitchen is positioned to the right and dining room on the other side of fireplace

Paul and I debated on which way round the dining and free-form living (aka the formal lounge) would go. The formal lounge is across from the kitchen, and the dining room is on the other side of the central fireplace, towards the road side of the property. It was not the way I would have had it, but the size of the couch dictated the order of things in the end, making Paul happy as he got his preferred configuration. The lounge for this space is also from King Living – we chose the Concerto in the colour Tundra.

Flooring: It was a decision between New South Wales Blackbutt and Wormy Gum Vein hard wood floors for this area – the added character of Wormy Gum Vein won out. The wood flooring will be boarded by the grey slate tile.

Kitchen

For someone who is by no means a gourmet cook – I am ridiculously excited to see my kitchen come together. There are a couple of things if I had my time again I would change such as put in a bin draw (silly oversight by us) and the benchtop is not presented in quite the way I assumed it would be – but so far these are only minor things. Pantry however, turned out bigger than I thought (bonus)! As has the storage space in the cupboards.

Kitchen

A couple of weeks before the cabinetry arrived Paul and I were driving back from a house visit doing our usual lament over the lack of communication we receive from the builders. Paul goes “They must be getting close to ordering cabinetry now, but they have not been in contact to let us know when the cabinet maker wants our appliances. I bet they call us and want them that week (the builder was aware we needed to order the two ovens and dishwasher).” As if by fate Paul called me the day after the conversation … the builder had contacted him, they wanted the appliances delivered to the cabinet maker by 5pm that afternoon!! Having to come from Germany, our appliances were a six week order, so the five hour turn around was beyond ambitious. Cabinetry proceeded anyway without the appliances. We are still waiting to receive the appliances, but have been told it should be any day now.

We are half-heartedly looking for suitable bar stools for the breakfast bar and pendant lights. A recent trip to a winery has given me a new direction in colour scheme for main hall and kitchen to explore, but I’ll give that its own blog post later.

Flooring: Grey slate-look

Passageway and Activity Room

Last time I blogged I talked about the ‘half-finishing’ tradies … this continues with the internal fitout. The carpenter who did the robe fit out started on the shelving in the passage way before disappearing without finishing. It has been approximately five weeks now and he has not returned.

The Activity Room does not seem quite big enough for three rambunctious boys, but looking at the positives I don’t exactly want to encourage them to be inside when there is five acres to explore.

There is a very large linen closet situated just off the Activity Room – this will serve as the toy cupboard.

Flooring: Wormy Gum Vein hardwood

The Gumnut’s Bedrooms

These are almost completed. There is just the sliding robe doors to be installed.

Eldest Gumnut: Gets a generously sized bedroom as it was originally meant to be our guest room. Considering the age difference between him and our littlies (four years plus) – it will also serve as a refuge for him when he gets older. We are buying him a loft bed with a study table underneath. At the moment an outer space theme has been suggested by both him and Paul, but minds are likely to change a hundred times between now and move in day, so watch this space.

Middle Gumnut: Will inherit his brother’s race car bed. He is car mad (unlike the eldest) – so that will be the theme of his room but in a vintage style. I’ve already bought some pictures for his room.

Baby Gumnut: Will have a Woodland animal theme to his room, until he gets old enough that we can redecorate to suit his personality. His room is the smallest. It’s not tiny, but small enough that I am thankful to have the additional space of the activity room for him.

Carpet: We have chosen something hardwearing and child friendly – a 100% twist pile called Lorton, in the colour Opulent.

Kid’s Bathroom

This is where I think our biggest error has occurred. The kind of one that every day I walk into there, it is going to niggle at me. There is one vanity on an extremely long bench and it looks strange. Paul didn’t want to go the double vanity as it ‘is just a kid’s bathroom’ but now I see it, I think it was a bad move – and with three kids, we could have done with that extra sink. One of my friends did suggest installing an extra vanity either side of the original so each child has their own sink. I thought this was a great idea – Paul did not. So if anyone out there has any great decorating tips for me to make this sink seem not so lonely, I would appreciate it.

Whoops. One lone sink on a very long bench.

With bath installed.

Laundry

Tiling has started in the laundry, and I am really happy with it. It looks better in reality than in this picture. When Paul showed me the picture I thought the feature accent looked too low and a bit awkward, but when I saw it on the weekend I thought it looked perfect.

The tiles in the laundry will be replicated in the kid’s bathroom.

Laundry cabinetry and tiling

In closing

Well 12 months has just ticked over since groundworks started. It’s been a long road – longer than expected but I feel like it’s a worthwhile journey.

Every time I go up the hill to the Treechanged house, it gets harder to tear myself away to ‘come home’. I did think we would be in by now but we are now aiming for moving in over the Anzac Day long weekend.

Next on the list of things to do is the completion of the tiling, along with the decking which should be starting soon (Paul is looking particularly forward to that one).

Wishing all my Treechanged readers a fantastic 2016, thanks for reading along and apologies for my intermittent blogging. I will introduce our Baby Gumnut soon – I think he deserves his own post.

A dream emerges – a progress update Recapping my last blog post:- the internal fit-out had not commenced on our house, I was struggling with inspiration and motivation, and I was heavily pregnant.

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At a snail's pace

At a snail’s pace

It seems I update the blog as often as something happens to the house. Okay, slight exaggeration – but the ‘comfortably in by Christmas’ deadline seems to be slipping away fast. We’re frustrated, and as we watch similar homes by the same builder go up around us at a reasonable pace, we can’t help but take it personally. Did we just get the dud scheduler (apparently while our supervisor was on…

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Mental blocks

This time last year I imagined I’d be knee deep in interior mood boards, paint swatches, cut-up home magazines and sketches of how I wanted things to look by now. I’m not. I have nothing. I keep waiting for the inspiration to hit where I all of sudden become a flurry of activity drawing up a cohesive interiors plan. Maybe it’ll happen once the bricks are up … maybe it’ll happen once the…

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Smoke Signals

I’ve entitled this post Smoke Signals for two reasons: a) I have been without home internet for a month, so it’s felt like I’m living back in an age where smoke signals were a method of communication. b) Burn-off season has started at the block. Most current photos of our build has any progress clouded in smoke thanks to my husband. So lets rewind and recap the last couple of months. – We sold…

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Brick by brick

I’m not a patient person. Building is a painful experience when patience isn’t your strongest virtue. Building is also an extremely slow experience whose part-time hours seem to suggest that he isn’t as worried as you are about the fact that winter is just around the corner.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it would seem our house is going to take as long as Rome did to construct.

I know it isn’t…

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2015 - The year of the curve ball

2015 – The year of the curve ball

Today has been a good day.

Firstly, this FINALLY happened:

Our current house is officially under offer. I was so happy to receive the phone call by the real estate agent this morning – no more home opens! Keeping a house in display home condition with two children is impossible, especially when one of which is a toddler. I have better chance of finding the elusive rocking horse poo than I do in…

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Our one wall

Friday night Paul calls me “You won’t believe it – we’ve got a wall!” I was so excited.I was given the choice of coming up to see the wall, or waiting for the weekend – “probably best to wait to the weekend eh?” Um, no – I will not be waiting for the weekend, I am not good at waiting. I was so excited, the kids got bundled into the car and up the hill we went!

Who would of thought I’d go so ga-ga…

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The bits and bobs

I am so totally and utterly behind in the blogging world, really sorry everyone – life has thrown a couple of curve balls my way which have been a distraction from what’s going on at the block.

We’ve put our current home back on the market as well. That hasn’t helped – especially when Mr 15 months old goes on the type of rampage that would make even a seasoned rock star proud just before home…

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Professing my love

My husband and I always joked that if our relationship ever went south – we wouldn’t fight over the kids, or the dog, or the house … but there would be an all out war over our bed!

It’s a damn good bed, and I chose it. If you took a big cloud, wrapped it in fairy floss and then set it on top of wings of an angel … that would be our bed.

So this Valentines Day, I’m professing my love for my bed.…

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After two years ...

We finally have had a visit from the slab elves! I’m so excited.We bought the block just before Christmas 2012 – so this moment has been a long time coming.

I haven’t seen this sexy piece of concrete for myself yet, I’m hoping to take a trip up there this afternoon.

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Tour de Display

The display home was definitely what sold us on our house design. There isn’t many off the plan homes that are designed to take advantage of a big block with views down the valley. Our love of the display home was so much so that if we were given a dollar for every time we told the builder “just give us what was on the display”, we probably wouldn’t need a mortgage. A word of warning though, it…

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