Ooooh they're BEAUTIFUL! I want the black ones!!
Remember....ask forgiveness, not permission

Hey JJ! Thanks for your kind comments about my selections Funny thing is you guys have the same internal doors as us, and weird enough, the Kmix toaster and kettle (the traditional style one) are the ones I have bought for our new house! We obviously have similar tastes eh?!! Love your selections too, especially your front door and matching panel! Can't wait to watch your house take shape.

Received a phone call from the officer assigned to our building application at City of Cockburn...it's still going to be at least 2 weeks before he even takes a look at it. He did his best to reassure me that it's sitting in his in-tray and he will get to it...eventually. Sigh. I guess we got the slow one...the guy I spoke to last week was working on applications that had been submitted AFTER ours

So, where we're at right now:

Building application has been with council for just over 4 weeks.

Scheduling for 3 weeks.

On a more positive note, we just had our last rent inspection (ever! - hopefully!)..we're moving in with friends in a few weeks, whilst the build is taking place. Will be walking distance to work in the city and all the lovely going out places (although we're supposed to be saving money so we can get pretty things for the new house!).

Not long now hopefully! And it was at least nice that they called to give you a time frame.... Too bad they couldn't tell you more though!

Yay for last rent inspection ever! When DP and I moved into my parents last year in Oct, I cleaned our rental top to bottom and there was a great moment of relief when I finished and locked the house behind me. It takes off a lot of pressure! You must have lovely friends - and a great opportunity to save money for those beautiful house things!

It's so good having that last rent inspection, isn't it?! I can't wait to hand my keys back to the agent and be done with renting!! I'm moving in with my folks next week, which is scary. But, like you, I have some awesome friends that I could move in with, if being with the parentals gets a bit much (it will be fore at least 7 months!!)

Can you ask the guy with the (apparently full) in-tray, to maybe give your application to the person who gets through them a bit quicker? Maybe he'll surprise you and have it done a lot quicker

Any news, JJ's? I have my fingers crossed for a whole week now for your council approval...am starting to get blisters....

No good news yet, unfortunately. Called them up today, the officer handling our application is on leave until Wednesday next week. His work schedule shows that he's currently processing applications received on the 13 March...ours was received on the 16th, so I was kindly reassured that it could still be two weeks away before it gets looked at!!! Arrrghhh!! Not impressed. The surveying officer I spoke to said that she'd been fielding quite a few calls today for jobs allocated to our guy and that even though it didn't feel like it, we were almost at the front of the queue.

Not only have we been assigned a seemingly dawdling surveying officer, we now have to deal with being under the 'old' system which means applications lodged prior to April 2 (when the provisions in the new Building Act came into effect) are pretty much being given lower priority whilst they try to manage the time restrictions being placed applications coming in under the 'new' system.

I almost wish that we'd had more delays getting our contracts etc sorted, coz at least then we'd be under the new system and probably already approved by now. Oh well....it's been six weeks, what's another two or three?!

I'm also not very good at being mean on the phone either. I really need to learn how to be a bit scary, hahah.

We've been in scheduling now for 4 weeks..not that that really means anything without a building licence

Awh that sucks that's it's going to take longer! Silly poo poo heads (wish I could use swear words on here). I say make a note and call back in exactly two weeks and ask for your finished plans. Be demanding!!



Haha, oh you will learn to be mean by the end of this process, I promise you! I'm a total cow on the phone when I'm trying to sort something out and I know I'm right mostly to the Aus Tax Office (I work in an accountants office and I am on the phone to them daily) but then again....the ATO deserve it.

Know what you want and stick with it!

Also, I have a query....I was bored at work today and I'm ashamed to admit I have been playing the pic of your front elevation and 'colouring' in the various surfmist/bricks/shale gray tones to post it for you as a surprise however....the elevation has the two shades, grey above and nothing below. Where is your paperbark render going? The grey part or the light part? Will you be seeing any of your bricks once the render is done, or is the render covering all of it?

I'm not crazy, I promise It was going to be a surprise but now I'm stuck!

Ohhh! What a great surprise! Thanks so much you're the bestest!

The top section (grey shading on the elevation) is the paperbark render, the bottom section is the geographe limestone face brick.

DP uses some program at home to create mock-ups of things...I think it might be something like 'my virtual home'...it looks too hard for me to use, so I didn't even try. It was very helpful though, when we were trying to choose all our colours.

We haven't done 'shopping' for house stuff for a while, so tomorrow we'll be hitting the tile shops to look for some sexy tiles for the kitchen splashback, which we're going to attempt to do ourselves.

So sorry if it's terrible work I just used Paint and was very rough... plus some of your colours (woodgrain, etc) I couldn't match online so I just left it and used the main colours you mentioned. Enjoy! Or, feel free to tell me to make it go away...

[ img ]

It's a much better job than I could do, it's pretty damn good...almost replicates the images I have floating around in my head all the time. I'm really liking how light and bright the exterior is going to be - will most likely need my sunnies on when I have my 'colorbond moment'.

Thanks Ally

No probs! It looks fantastic! Can't wait to see it in real life...

Oh jj's. I'm sorry for how long the building application has taken. We had similar with our plans (although it was the builder not the council not meeting the dates they said) and its so devastating to call and find out its delayed once again!

I will keep my fingers and toes crossed that you hear soon! It sounds like you may have got shafted by this new legislation which is not what it's meant to do. It also seems strange that they would separate the applications into separate piles then work through them. Why not have 2 people working from the same pile ?

We're you told about a rebate that can be claimed from Cockburn for having the crossover done? I think it has to be a certain way, the builder told us about it yesterday, thought I would let you know as well in case you weren't told! I'm hoping it's enough for a couch! I still have to look into it.

I love the kmixes!!! Anything they do in a variety of colours has me hooked! You should check out the lavazza modo mia coffee machines. They also come in "gelato" flavors as I like to say :p

However I have been strictly forbidden to buy anything for the new house and stockpile it

So for now I just have samples and pictures stockpiled!

Hi Jen,

Have you managed to get in touch with the Bushfire rating ppl? Frustrating, although we're all probably getting so used to the waiting around now, it feels strange and almost surreal when something is done instantly, hahah.

We're aware of the rebate for crossover, I think you just need to ensure that it's done with proper road base, and other requirements. I looked into it when we were getting our finance sorted, because for some reason, the bank wanted us to prove that we had enough money in savings to complete landscaping and crossover at the point of handover. We had to get quotes to show the bank how much it would cost to do our crossover. CoC provide a one off rebate of $300....not quite enough for a fancy sofa but every bit counts, I suppose.

I saw the LAvazza gelato colours over the weekend...very, very nice. Now I can't make up my mind. I also saw these too... http://www.delonghi.com.au/new/brillante/

So pretty and sparkly. Not sure DP would be impressed...but he didn't say no, so I guess that's promising.

Kitchen appliances have a new dimension??

For what they're priced at, you'd think that they must have a special button that does something astounding, other than boiling water or toasting bread!

Slow day at work today, I've been spending so much time on here. Pretty sure my colleagues are always walking past my desk wondering what geeky forum I'm on

Bahaha me too....I admit to spending my days browsing this site, or on the website Hyperbole And A Half. If you haven't seen this website, you MUST read it if you're into geeky humour
This post had me snorting with laughter during my morning tea break.
How A Fish Almost Destroyed My Childhood

Heheh, that was delightful! One of my faves is this one: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com.a ... thing.html

We obviously have the same sense of humour.

Well, tomorrow makes 53 days that our building application has been with council. 3 days shy of the 8 week mark. Time to find out if we've progressed from the In tray.

Things are starting to feel a little more real this weekend, as we began the horrible task of packing to move to our friends place in a few weeks time. We hired a ute and took a big load of stuff to the tip...was quite cathartic to finally get rid of the all the junky stuff we'd been meaning to throw out ages ago, but kept bringing it along to each rental we moved to.

There are boxes everywhere in the house at the moment, it's so hard to know where to start!!