Bits n Pieces....

Well Saturday was busy, the skip finally arrived...wasn't as big as i thought it would be, hmmm...can we fit all the boxes etc into it?....was going to be a tight fit....so, when Tony got home he started on filling it...in the mean time Adee, Ash and Esther along with Lincoln, Esthers baby and the dogs arrived to watch the Grand Final...
The Lounge, Rumpus, Study and Hallways were blocked off with large sheets of cardboard, not a good idea to have 7 dogs running rampart through the house...and yes, all except one were Berners...the exception was a pug ( who thinks he's a Berner).
Watched the first quarter of the Grand Final, whilst eating lunch, then went outside to help Tony fill the skip.....he jumped and jumped on the skip trying to fit everything in...didn't quite make it, so for the next few recycle days, we will have to cut the cardboard down and get rid of it in the bins.
Sunday.... we got rid of some more boxes..yay!! and Marion collected the brass bed, mattress and base and two side tables.......boy!, we now have some space in the alfresco.   :)

Monday.
Tony was on two days off, so we decided to put up the lights in the Master bedroom, WIR and Hallway...that took nearly half a day....as we had to assemble the darn things first.....did the two in the Master bedroom and when we got to the Hallway light, it came half assembled did we then realise that we had put the first two up with the rim on upside down....so poor Tony had to undo some of the light so he could turn the rim up the other way...it does look so much better now.
Finally, we are able to put the chair we bought into the niche in the ensuite...at this stage there are only the fans for the Alfresco left sitting in there.

Tuesday.
Busy day today.....doing what, i hear you ask....it was one of those days when you barely get time to sit down but in the end when you look back, it looks like you haven't done much at all.
We organised with Telstra to get the phone connected today...2 hours he told us...yeah! right!....8 hours later we get a call to organise for someone to come out on Friday to connect us.
Our fireplace has been acting up, it is taking me at least 4 goes to get it to ignite, so we rang Jetmaster, who tell us that apparently at one stage water got into the pipes...oh? nice of someone to let us know this.....so now we have left a message with our SS to get something done about it.
Yesterday Tony organised a plumber to come out to have a look at our recycle tap out the front as it looks like it is leaking underground...the bobcat has run over the meters on several occassions, so they can fix it....he was supposed to come out today, but we didn't see anybody.
Today we moved our outdoor table from the garage into the Alfresco...once we get the courtyard grassed it will go out there but for the moment it can live under the alfresco.
Moved all the boxes from the craft room into the garage where the table used to sit.
Then we started putting the outdoor lounge setting together...this was done late in the afternoon...it got a bit cold and then the rain started, so we decided to go down the street and get food for dinner.

Our puppy is improving each day...but she still runs on full power....she does learn quickly tho, which is a blessing, still have the occassional accidents when she doesn't quuite make it onto the pet loo.  We love her to death.
Found all of Mia's soft toys that had been in storage, so Nikki thinks it is Christmas, Mia get rather possessive of Patch, which is a large soft puppy that we got for her before we picked her up...Nikki rather likes him...and as Mia did, shakes the living hell out of it...he is also good to cuddle upto when you sleep...Mia tonight was holding patch down with her paws and snapping at Nikki so she couldn't get to it..."My Patch, get your own"

Hallway light

Hallway

Light above the bed in master bedroom

Light in the retreat in the Master bedroom

Nikki playing with all the toys

Cuddled up to Patch to sleep

Update...

Not alot worth mentioning has happened during the week as to be expected.

We finally got around to putting up the mirrors in the house as well as my horse pic in the lounge....we had to change the placement of the horse pic and the big mirror as the mirror was way too big and heavy to go over the mantle, at the moment we have a smallish rectangular mirror above the games table in the lounge niche, but I'm not sure if it will stay there, will wait until the wall sconeces go up before deciding.
Talking of lighting, finally heard back from Beacon in regards to the different colours for my Grosvenors lights...I am going to return the wall lights and they are going to give me different coloured ones still in the same range...the sconces were way too creamey....the other lights were all in different colours but they all blend in so they aren't too bad, they were ordered last night so hopefully by next week or the week after. This means that Tony can now get the lights up in the Lounge, Hallway and the Master bedroom.

Currently i am waiting for the skip to arrive so we can finally get rid of all the cardboard and rubbish sitting in the Alfresco, then i can get my outdoor lounge set up and the outdoor table can come out of the garage.

On a different topic....my new baby puppy arrived yesterday....I had to go to Narre Warren to get her...took me 2hrs as i went cross country to miss the city traffic, she is settling in well, Mia is still not quite sure what to think of her....new house....new puppy...OMG....damage control, she's a chewer, so nothing is safe not even the cats....for those who don't know I have two 10yr old persians, a black one and a blue (gray) one...and they are just the same size as the puppy, so she thinks they are puppies and treats them like one, poor Rex has been pounced on, attacked, barked at...he is NOT impressed......oh yeah, puppy's name is Nikki, or Zaanz Cherry Bomb.
Added some pics of Mia taken on Thursday at the Royal Melbourne Show

Mirrors in the Entrance way

I put this one in the toilet....why?...cos i could

This is the mirror i'm not sure about

Lounge

lounge

Mia and Nikki

This was after being told off for peeing on the carpet

Nikki

Zollikon Oh Me Oh Mi.......Mia at the Royal Show

Mia with Emma (her breeder) before entering the ring

Hanging....

Today was a day for hanging things.....Tony finally got around to putting up the floating shelf in the study, also did the towel ladders in the ensuite and the bathroom.
Our sheds were delivered today.....about 3 weeks too early, silly saleswoman didn't write down that we wanted them in mid October...we can't put them up until the spa has been installed as the big shed is going behind the spa fence.
Now that the robes have been installed in our bedroom, I finally got around to putting the clothes into their homes...mind you I did alot of culling....still to finish yet, now i have to find places for the shoes and handbags, but that can wait until tomorrow.....at least the ensuite isn't as crowded now that i have unpacked all the boxes from the robes.

Yay...now we have somewhere to hang the towels.

The Rumpus or Ruckkus room

Front end of the rumpus room

Pics...

Some catch up pics...

Mostly of the Kitchen as it is completed.

Wall sconce in the Rumpus Room...the feature wall behind it is in Dulux Sea Elephant

Leaf plates on the coffee table in the Rumpus Roon...originally these were going in the Family room until i change the accent colours.

Dancing figurines on the buffet in the Dining room...carrying on the red. black & white theme through the Dining, Family rooms and Kitchen.

An old wine cabinet we had...the original knobs are on the right, I changed them to the ones on the left which really gave it a new lease of life, also put the same knobs on the new buffet so everything matches.

My beautiful panel glides over the alfresco door, love the way they let in the light.

Kitchen

More kitchen.

And again...

All 3 items were bought at different shops, uncanny how they all match....different brands too.

Red clock..

Another view of the panel glides

Wardrobes....

Finally the robe inserts have been finished in our WIR...it was a nightmare.....told you in a previous post that i got the measurements wrong, at least Tony was able to get around that by cutting off the ends to the appropriate lengths....so, we did the hanging wall first....came up really well, started on the shelving/drawer section....this wall has shelving on both ends and two sets of 4 drawers with two shelves above in the middle sections.  Did the first shelving section easily enough, then we started on the first of the drawers....with no instructions we were going off the "what screws, went with what" to try and build it.....after scratching our heads for awhile we finally figured it out.....made up the first of our drawers...easy...yay!!, went in to put the tracks on.....first on fitted...the second one wanted to sit out at the end.....much too-ing and fro-ing and head scratching....so Tony measured the distances of the pre-drilled holes...yep, the RHS holes had been drilled wrong...some how they had transposed the measurements, I am so lucky that i have a handy and resourceful husband....he just drilled some more  holes in the right spots....works like a charm :)
Started the second unit....god damm it!! the silly morrons had totally mucked up one of the side panels....they had put the melamine on the edges on the wrong side, so the part that faces us was pure chipboard, while the back wall got to look at the melamine.......fixed it.....looked at the same pieces in the inserts for the Craft room robes...even here they had mucked up by giving us two left hand sides and no right side....so we nicked one of them and put the holes where they were supposed to be......making this unit was a cinch as we now knew what we were doing.....
Next came the hard side, the last lot of shelving which had to be cut down.....but Tony managed to get everything under control, just alot of fiddleing around.
The end product was worth it...they really look great, just as i had imagined them.

The Craft room inserts are now going to go into the garage, we will put a backing board on them to hold them together.....we have to order new ones for the craft room as i had once again badly miscalculated...it is such a bother getting old....but this time I had made the mistake almost 18months ago when designing them...with a wall of just under 1.8m, I wanted shelves on both ends (so they'd fit into the robe) and two lots of drawers....what did i order?.....two shelving units and only 1 set of drawers, only realised it when we went to check out the drawer units and i could only find one not two.....I was so angry with myself....I hate making simple mistakes like that.  I suppose we are lucky that we can reuse what i did order.  Now the thought is that we won't order the new arrangement until after Adee n Ash have moved into their own place, this way they can bring their tall boy with them to keep their clothes in.

Waiting to start Kellys, well, we are waiting for the painter to come back and paint the internals of both her robe and the craft room robes.

See...just like a bought one...

Catching Up....

Am about a week behind in the blog, so I will do one blog today catching up on the last week.

Most of the time has been spent unpacking....now at least it has been a lazy unpack not the frenzy of the first few days.

Tony has been busy putting up the lights in the rooms that require them, all that is left are the Grosvenors in the Master, lounge and hallway, but they can't be done until Beacon sort out the colour fiasco.....when i first saw the  light at the begining of last year they had pale pink shades, and rustic look crackle, in April (09) when i ordered them they had changed to white shades and a cream coloured crackle....not as nice as the original colours but still nice, so we put them on layby, we ordered them in June this year....after Beacon checked that we could still get everything that i wanted....most of the Grosvenors came in in the white colours but we had a delay on two of them which, when they finally came in had a coffee coloured crackle.....much prefer the coffee.....now they are trying to see if anything else comes in the coffee colour, trouble is that the two with the coffee colour go into rooms where there will also be white crackle, so at this stage it is a waiting game, should hear back tomorrow (friday) as the manager will be back on duty and she had a meeting on Tuesday to try and sort it out.

Still haven't got the wardrobe inserts in yet, this time it is my fault....i measured on numerous occasions to get the sizing of the robes, and still got it wrong.....so now we have to cut a small piece off the ends to make them fit....also ordered a wrong section for Kellys robe, ordered shelves instead of a full hanging arrrrgggghhhh.

Warren and Jeanette came over during the week, so Warren helped Tony put his back speakers up in the rumpus room while Jeanette and I put together the two desks and returns in the study.

Finally finished unpacking the kitchen so i now have bench space and....spare cupboards...how long will that last...not long i'm guessing.
Family room is also finished....
Dining room is nearly done, just got a few items sitting on the buffet looking for a place to live.
Rumpus is finished
Study only needs to have some shelving put up and then its finished.

Kellys new bedroom suite and mattress are now here, so she is putting her room together, would help if she had a wardrobe....we are actually waiting for the plasterers to turn up today to sand the internal part of the robes in Kells and the craft room....they made a huge mess of the internal walls when they pulled out the shelving and hanging rods.

Our bedroom is upside down...most of it is clothing still in boxes, again waiting for the wardrobe to be finished.

Pantry is next to be done.....there are only a few boxes in there to be unpacked then i can organise the shelving.

Craft room is being used as a storage room at the moment.....not going to umpack the majority of the boxes unitl after Adee and Ash move into their new home, so it will probably go live in the garage while they are here.

All the rooms still have pics etc to go onto the walls, but we will do that when everything is in order.

Ordered a skip for today, just waiting for it to arrive so we can clear out the alfresco.

Our driveway should be dug out ready for pouring next week...progress, this means that the spa slab will also be poured.

Still waiting for the fencing guy to come back and do the long side fence, then we can let the dog out into the back yard instead of keeping her inside 24/7.

Austar came out on Friday and installed our unit, so we can finally watch TV again....yay!!

Curtains....

Wednesday, September 8th

Was very excited today, as this was the day that my blinds and curtains arrived, yay...no more looking at the tradies next door.

Potted around doing more boxes....tony's been flattening the boxes out and stacking them in the alfresco...knew there was a reason why we had such a big alfesco, on one side he has been putting all the rubbish which will require a skip, while on the other side are all the boxes.

The curtain installer arrived around 11ish.....he had an offsider turn up around 2ish, they finally finished around 5.30...big job.  Had a few problems, Luxaflex forgot to do the header and channelling for the blind in the rumpus room, and the factory had made up the blind for the dining room inside out. Besides that they are very very gorgeous....promise i will get some pics of them sooooonnnnnnish.

Amidst all this Adrian arrived with Mia and the cats, boy! did we have one super excited puppy on our hands.....the cats went exploring as they do and have settled in extremly well, but then they are super relaxed cats, they were very happy to find their scatching posts in the garage, the poor things have been without them for 12 months.

Still without the use of my cooker but had pulled out my George Forman steamer unit today, so at least we could have vegies now.

All Hands on Deck...

Tuesday, Spetember 7th

By all hands i mean just Tony and I.......what did we do all day?....unpack, unpack and then unpack some more.....very tiring work....

....amid all this we had the antenna guy return to finish off the antenna's, also due were the deliveries of the desks for the study, theatre seating, washing machine and split cycle air con.....naturally they were spread out throughout the day making it impossible to even go down the street for food.

By the end of the day I was standing there swaying and not really taking anything on board...it was like a 2yr old fighting to stay awake in case they missed something....went to bed around 10ish which is unheard of for me...

Tony started putting up our lights....so now the family room looks pretty, he and Kell decieded to make up the entertainment unit for her sitting room...'Houston, we have a problem', we cannot find the rods to join it all together...so, for the moment she is using the small glass computer table we had.

Pet update:  All are still at Adrians.

Moving Day

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH

Up early with the sparrows as the removilists were going to be there at 7.30.....where they on time, not on your nelly, it was closer to 8 when they arrived...hmm they said they would have a big truck...what turned up was not quite what we were expecting...yes, it was big but we were expecting the long soft sided truck similar to what they used to take our furniture into storage, and we knew we were getting two trucks, oh well!  We went with Allied Pickford as they did such a good job last time, these guys were not upto the same standard....thank god we had already taken Tony's equip up.
Kelly called by and dropped Mia off, so we took the opportunity to load her car up with the remaining stuff from her room, off she went to get her Aunt, we then loaded up Tony's car and mine as well.  Tony then headed off the the storage units to await the second truck, the first truck arrived just at Tony was getting ready to go, the second truck turned up at Roxburgh Park about half an hour later...poor Tony sitting down there waiting for them.
After they left Adrians, I headed up to our house...."our house" doesn't that have a nice ring to it....lol
Did a few bits and pieces and sat down waiting for everyone to arrive, Kelly and Jeanette arrived first around 10ish.....made a cuppa and waited, and waited.....and waited.....they were soooooo slow, thank god we weren't paying them by the hour.
While we were waiting the man arrived to commission my fireplace....its soooo nice.
Once they did arrive it was full on.....
Adrian came up as well, he had worked in the morning.
I had itemised everything in everybox this time...especially as most of the boxes were going into storage......it made it alot easier, as i had also given every room a different colour bit of paper....eg  master bedroom was bright yellow, dining room was red......in my masterbook i had seperate pages for each room and wrote down each box number and what was in it.....this would have really worked if the removalists had put the boxes into the correct rooms....there was one guy who was particulary lazy and just shoved them anywhere.
But, where this system comes into its own is when you are unpacking....Jeanette and I were looking for the crockery to use for lunch, according to my book they were in box 17, 18 & 19 for the kitchen.....and so they were!  much better than opening every box looking for them.

Jeanette and Adrian unpacked all the new furniture and set them up....Thank you guys, it really did help.
I spent most of my time out with the truck directing them into which rooms the furniture and the boxes had to go to. Kelly took over for a while when mum and Reg arrived to have a look.  To be honest i couldn't tell you what Tony did, but for the first time he didn't have to move furniture and really stuff up his back.

Adee went back home and picked up Ash after she finished work.

Went out for dinner, then Tony took Jeanette back to Melton, while Adee and Ash went home as they both had early starts the next day.  Kell and I stayed at home and put a few more things away.

What was the best part of the day....my bed!!!  boy have i missed it.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH (Father's Day)

Adrian suprised everyone by getting up and making scrambled eggs and toast for Tony for Fathers Day...see, good things do happen to those who WAIT.
Adrian helped us bring us all the equipment for the rumpus room from the storage units, it took 3 cars to get it all here.....definately needed Adee as most of the stuff is heavy...really heavy, Tony did not want the removalists touching them. Also bought up the rugs and floating shelf from storage.

Went back to Adee's for lunch...we decided to have Chinese as a fathers day lunch, cos we knew we'd have another long night ahead of us.
After lunch we came back this time Kell came up too...used her car to put the TV's into, she also started bringing her stuff up.

The feature wall DID need another paint, bugger!! While Tony painted, we unpacked his equipment, well, sorta unpacked it.

Kell was staying the night along with Mia for company, she (Kell) was heading off to Melton in the morning to collect her Aunt who was going to help us.

Back to Adee's for the last night....washed Kells sheet off her bed, then we both had a shower so i could clean the bathroom, then wash the towels.....trying to make sure we had everything in readiness for tomorrow..

It is actually harder to move out of a house with someone else still living there than it is moving lock stock and barrel.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4TH

Saturday bucketed down with rain...great...we had an early start today to return the trailer to Reg as my brother needed it to move the final bits and pieces from his house prior to moving.
Called in at DFO in Essendon to talk to the Manager of Beacon lighting to work out what to do about my missed matched crackle colours....while in Beacon, Tony sat in the car with Mia....I got back to the car....oops, Reg's lights don't automatically turn off...flat battery...bugger!....rang Kelly to come down in the Excell as it has jumper leads in the boot....got the car started....so Kell took Mia home with her.
Quick flying visit at mums and said a quick hello to Paul (my step brother) and his partner Stacey who we hand not meet before....

Back to Adrians to change cars, as Reg had had the Getz while we had his car, swapped to the Santa Fe and bought up our Amp, blueray player and speakers to have some noise.

Tony had ordered some stone for the driveway and paths, to make things a bit easier for Monday for moving....it was still raining when we arrived...hmmm...can see why they said it used to be a flood plain around the area, there was water lying everywhere in the paddocks...

A work colleague of Tony's has horses out here, so she called in and started moving the stones as she was already wet, help that was muchly appreciated....we had planned to do it on the Sunday but you don't knock back help.  We had planned to do the robes...hah!  what a laugh, tried to sort out what was what...okay, where are all the joiners?, the hangers?.....only half the hardware was here....there went that idea.

After Marion left, we set up the music, Tony made a start on the feature wall in the rumpus room, we choose to do it in a Dulux colour called Sea Elephant, a chocolate brown not too dissimilar to a mint slice biscuit., we gave it two coats and hoped it didn't need another.

Once again we had take away due to the lateness of the day.

Friday, September 3rd

Tony left early in the morning to go to Blackburn to pick up Reg's car and trailer so he could drive all the way to Warrnambool to pick up the wardrobe inserts that we had ordered....this was going to be a loooonnnnnggggggg trip.
While he went there, i went to the storage units and loaded up the car with the lights and boxes from Adrian's, it was strange to arrive here and actually own the place.
Placed all the lights into the garage and bought the boxes inside.....most of the stuff was for the pantry...you know...kettle, tea, groceries etc...swept the floors...oh boy, is my vac pan sensational...if you don't have one,get one!.  Washed the entry floor and discovered that my new mop left smear marks all over the tiles...yuk!
Went back to Adrians and loaded  more stuff into the car before heading back up to the house, since Kelly was going to the football we decieded to have dinner there.
By the time Tony arrived with the inserts and we unloaded it into the master bedroom it was getting late, decieded to have tea in Craigieburn at La Porchetta, cos tony knew that once he stopped he was going to haave trouble getting going again.

It's been seven days since my last blog......

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER  2ND

We again spent the day at the house waiting for the heating to be commissioned...oh joy! oh joy!....the warmth was divine, mind you it took absolutely ages for the house to heat up...had to laught tho...since we have insulfluff in the roof, when the heating came on, every room had fluff on the floor......the only thing that has to be changed will be in the kitchen area, here we have a large duct, which just happens to be the first port of call off the unit, it is so loud...sounds like we've left the rangehood on, so they are going to extend the duct work to make the pipe longer so eleminate the noise.
Tony had been in communication with our Broker all week trying to get our cheque organised......we had a call.....from our bank.....yes!...our cheque would be ready around 2ish...NO!!...REALLY!!!  OH,  MY GOD!!!!!!!
Rang Porter Davis and left a message for our CSC...and blow me down if she didn't actually return the call, arranged to have handover at 3pm.  I tell you there was much excitement...did we let the kids know...nope, thought we would suprise them.
Got back to Adrians, so we could get changed out of the grubby clothes etc....the bank rang, there would be a delay with the cheque as they had a nationwide computer shut down.....they would ring us when the cheque was ready...bugger...rang our CSC to let her know, she said to just come in when we got the cheque, so it was no set time....so we filled our time by going down to the storage units and packing bits and pieces into the back of the car to take to 'OUR' house.
We decided to go to the bank to enquire as to how long they thought they would be out of action for....WHAT!!! everything was working, so much for the phone call.
Got the cheque, got a bit nervous now........drove to Porter Davis.....our CSC was free......got the keys....signed some paperwork, joined the PD Rewards scheme....while talking to her the Regional Manager just happened to walk by..hmmmm........Tony had previously sent an email to the Admin Manager telling him we didn't want her to do handover...think they were waiting for us to explode at her....she was really nervous, it was fun watching her squirm...

WE HAVE A HOME!!!!!!   We are no longer homeless.

Appliances........

Early start this morning so we could be here when the plumbers arrived to put our stove and dishwasher in, Tony rang them yesterday to find out what time they were going to be here...they were getting to the warehouse at 6.30am in Craigieburn so they would be here between 7.00 - 7.30......so, up with the sparrows we were.....
....got here to find the ducted vacuuming installer doing his thing, yay, he had a key so we could get in.  Its been a few years since i've had the ducted vac and the last one i had i had had for a few years, the changes in the unit were astounding, this one is so much smaller and is now bagless, thank god!  After installing it he ran a check on all the points to find that one wasn't working, not a prob, a quick fix and  off it went, he then showed us how to operate the unit and left us to it. Of course Tony had to have a play...it has a very strong suction, also the hose is so much lighter than the last one we had.
Just as he was leaving the plumbers turned up, without any appliances...okay...whats going on here, apparently they made a trip to the warehouse for nothing, the stove and dishwasher were going to be delivered.  Lucky for us we had brought up our dishwasher that we wanted installed...the younger of the two men  had never seen a double drawer dishwasher before, so it was all a new experience for him....the job was a mongrel one, it took them nearly three quaters of an hour longer to install it than a regular one...ooops, sorry :(   but it does look good in, they gave us their number so we could give them a call when the stuff arrived.
While they were working the hot water service turned up, so it too has gone in.

Got our plumbers back after the delivery of the appliances...it didn't take them very long to install the cooker, only trouble is that it is too short for the benches....we had asked for the island bench to be raised to 950mm, this they did but they also took it upon themselves to raise the height of the other benches, so now even with its legs lengthened the cooker is still too short...lets see what they come up with to fix the problem.
The other problem with our cooker is that someone didn't think when they installed the power point for it, they have put it behind the pot drawer...so, i hear you ask, what is the problem?....once the cooker was plugged in, we couldn't close the drawer properly...oh dear, oh dear....

We put up our redi shades in the ensuite and bathroom today, makes a difference to the rooms, they look warmer, silly i know, the rest of our curtains / blinds should be installed either Sat or Monday...hope its sat as it will be too chaotic on monday with us moving in.
Also measured up the pantry to install an extra shelf to run the whole pantry and also to put in some shelving where they didin't put any.

Ducted Vacuum unit and its hose and stuffs

Redi shade in the ensuite

Bathroom redi shade

our lovely dishwasher, showing off her marvelous two drawers

cooker...if you look closely you can see that the benchtop is higher than the cooker top

the huge internals of the oven

Will get a pic of the hot water service tomorrow as it wouldn't stop raining and i was not going out there in my slippers  :)