A month since Settlement - ALREADY!

Time flies when you're having fun "cough" i mean packing up and unpacking and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning - what a full on month its been.  The first couple of weeks felt like a bit of a blur, so much going on, trying to juggle work, moving out of the other house, and setting up in the new house.  Plus trying to keep the kids occupied too, its something i wouldn't want to be doing again in a hurry - and im glad that im not!

Dad has helped hubby with retaining walls and leveling the back yard, plus some shelving in the garage, mum has helped clean the house and get it to some sort of state of organisation for me. When they left they surely should of went on a holiday - they will be glad to get home and relax. Although as dad would say "there is never enough time to relax" he is always on the go.

So with the retaining walls finally done and our neighbours fence back to 6ft instead of 4ft high off the alfresco we have our privacy. its so much better, and to top it off the walls look great. I have to find the time to upload all the photos and share with you all what we have done so far.

The fences are next - rear fence to go in tomorrow - its been nice to have an extended view from the backyard, but looking forward to getting rid of the site fence and gaining even more privacy. The last section of the fence will go up in a few weeks once the house next door has its exterior completed and moves inside to internals - the tradies have needed the extra space down the side - they pack the houses in pretty close in these new estates. 

Grass is next on the list and that means getting the yard prepped and ready for it to be installed. i think hubby will be glad when he doesn't have to do anymore digging and soil shifting!

As far as the house goes, i haven't come across any major issues. And for all the EBH builders following the blog - you will be happy to read that we are really happy with our home - totally stoked! can not wipe the smile off my face, and count down the hours & minutes until i can be home from work and relaxing in our new home. The kids love the extra space, and so do we! Its a beautiful home.

There are minor paint issues where its patchy, or hasn't covered smoothly on the window sills, toilet seat is loose and doesn't seem to stay on, Couple of chipped tiles in the ensuite, and on splashback in kitchen,  a key in our sliding door doesn't work properly (getting fixed tomorrow), we had a cracked pipe out the back which required the plumbers urgent attention and was all fixed really quickly. My list is small and hopefully it stays that way.

I hope to be sharing photos again soon to show you the progress of our backyard! Sorry i dont have any tonight - i know everyone loves seeing pics! but just wanted to update you quickly on what has been happening.

In goes our flooring

Our flooring was installed over 2 days. This really transformed the house and made it feel complete. I was also finally glad to get rid of the dust that was on the concrete flooring. I couldn't clean or do anything as it was just getting covered in the really fine dust only moments later.

Its been a long wait to see the vinyl floors get laid. They're such a new product, and after a few recommendations decided to give them a try. Hours of researching and reading up about the product, and then also ordering samples and visiting our flooring guy (Choices Flooring Blacktown) to check out all the samples he had in his showroom. If you're after flooring yourself go and visit Tony, he is so helpful and a great guy too - he will point you in the right direction and give you some really good advice along the way.

In the end i ended up choosing the Polyflor Looselay in the blond country oak. The loose lay is a product that doesn't require gluing into place. Its also 5mm thick and has a layer of underlay under each tile. The tile we chose is also slightly textured. There is so much to consider and i guess since its so new i really dont know what the floors will look like years down the track.

But now that its in all i can say is AH-MAZING! i LOVE it! it feels so soft and warm to walk on, and leading into winter i am quite grateful im not walking on cold tiles. Friends who have told me about this product ahve said they will never go back to tiles again - and i can kind of see why.

My SS knew all about the floors and every step of the building process was there to make sure the flooring was considered. 

We took into consideration

- Slab and how smooth it is - as the vinyl needs to be laid on a super flat surface so it doesn't look rippled when laid

- Door heights are catered for tiles as standard which EBH allowed 25mm for, the flooring being so thin means gaps under doors are larger than usual. so we have actually dropped some doors in the house by 10mm to fix this issue.

- Skirting was still nailed home

- Wet area step ups do become rather large. the standard angle they use is 40mm, the floor is think so leaves a step up of 35mm. this really bothered me to begin with and have been trying to think of ways to hide the step, but now that its done i think ill just leave it, we will get used to the big step, and its better than to cluttered the streamlined effect with a ramp leading upto it - if we start tripping over it we may have to look into something.

- if youre considering this, speak to builder about the thickness, make sure they know its quite thin so they are aware of things that may need to be adjusted.

Coming from a house that was tiled, it will be a bit of an adjustment to the way we treat our flooring. You cant use a steam cleaner on it, and you cant drag furniture over it as it will damage it. The planks are commerical grade but it doesn't stop it from scratching. If we treat it like its real wood then it should hopefully last a long time, and the best part is, we have spare panels so we can just pull a damaged plank up and replace it with a new one.

Ive had several trades comment on how good it looks - some think its wooden tiles, others think its laminate. They are shocked when i show them its a vinyl plank. Now that its laid you relaly cant tell until you touch it and walk on it. Its quiet too, which helps when im getting ready for work and dont want to wake the kids, or when the kids are playing and running through the house its not loud like the laminate flooring can be.

Ive given my house such a warm inviting feel, and in winter when its cold im looking forward to not having to stand on the cold tiles. 

Lets hope this product passes the test of time and im still raving about it in 5 years time.

Something to seriously be considered if you're wanting something different to laminate but please do your research! you want to make sure you know exactly what you are getting and what all the pro's and con's are with it.

Stainmaster Carpet to all bedrooms

Games Room

Settlement Pics.........

Here are some pics taken on the day after settlement. The last time i would see the house empty. The day after we settled i had the appliances installed and the hot water service. We had chosen to install our own oven and dishwasher.

Hubby had cleaned out the garage and washed it down, and was planning on getting it sealed to try and reduce the concrete dust and protect the flooring a little more.

Flooring was to be done the following day. Pics to follow.

Parking in the driveway for the first time

Main Bathroom

Ensuite

Kitchen

 Living & Dining Room

Love our new home!