Curtains for Kyndylan...

As I had to make a trip to Geelong today, I took the opportunity to have a look around at a few shops-and scored the best bargain yet for the house! Harris Scarfe had Wilson pinch pleat blockout curtains for less than $80/window! They had enough colours that I liked to cover 7 of our windows and we have saved over $1000!

Above: Mocha weave for husband's study.

Below: The Latte for Living, family and guest bedroom

Above: The ivory/gold weave for daughter's bedroomAbove: The warm white for the Master bedroom

Next instalment....

Let's see..what has happened in one week? Well, that depends on how you look at it! There is nothing different at the block, but- we have our building permit-sans the shed!

I met with Kev from Your Backyard on Friday about where our shed & chookshed are going to be sited and all went well! I can't praise these guys enough-they have been storing our sheds whilst the septic saga dragged on!

So I then took the setback measurements into the builder's office-all good thus far! Later that afternoon I received a call from the office to tell me that we can have our building permit now-if we don't have the shed on it-because the shed wasn't included when they calculated everything for the insurance etc-so we would have to start the building permit from scratch! We can't live in the shed...so, Your Backyard are now organising a seperate permit for the shed (which is how we were going to do it originally.....).

This means with any luck and weather permitting, we can have a start on the site this week!

On another topic-I received a parcel today from Buyster containing the free product that I said I would review for them (a 2l vacuum food jar). It's a solid looking stainless steel number with a great capacity. I decided that I would fill it with boiling water and see how long it keeps it hot-issue number one-it's not water tight-so transporting hot soup would be out of the question! I'll see if the water is still hot enough to make cup of tea at lunchtime-if so it should be OK to take hot pasta or casseroles in. But I wouldn't be paying anymore than $15/$20 for something that has the capacity of leaking hot fluid on me...ah well- I got it for free-it may make a nice utensil holder without it's lid!

Lost in the abyss.....

I've found myself hooked on the abyss that is the Home One Builders Forum....it's been a fantastic and supportive way of getting through the frustrations of the past few weeks!

We do have a minute amount of progress though! I am meeting with the people from Your Backyard (our shed & chook shed suppliers) on Friday morning. The 6m x 3m garden shed is under the same building permit as the house so the slab needs to be ready at the same time as that of the house.

Which means........that maybe by the end of next week we will have some sort of construction activity on our block! YAY! Not bad-it's only been 4 months since we settled the land........

Totally left field.....

Well, the blog world can throw up some interesting connections! I received an email from http://www.buyster.com.au/ asking if I would like to review an item for them from their catalogue. I have selected Lins Homeware Trading Pty Ltd - 2L Stainless Steel Vacuum Lunch Jar-we do a fair amount of travel, so I will be able to see if the lunch jar lives up to it's claims!

They have a lot of products on their site, including entertainment units and mounts for TV's etc

Permit me....

Yesterday morning found me ringing our friendly shire worker again...to inform him that if our BUILDING permit wasn't passed by Monday our contract would be null and void (true)-resulting in a price rise of between 10 and 20%. I pointed out that as we required our SEPTIC permit in order to get our BUILDING permit that we would be sueing the Shire in the event of our contract being voided.

His immediate reply was "Well, here's what I can do: I'll personally sign off on your septic permit today for you." Oh, really? He could have done that 4 weeks ago-pratt!

My response: "Ï'll be there at lunchtime to collect it myself." Which I did and then hand delivered it to the builder......Building permit may be received as early as tomorrow.

Cows and codswollup........

Another phone conversation with the gentleman at the local council today who is "processing" our septic permit and it went something like this:

Me: "Hi $%^*, Just wondering if you have confirmed that our plans do show that our house is being built across the allotment boundaries?"

HIm:" Yes, but I have referred it to our legal department because of the other blocks in the subdivision. I can see that your house would have to be cut in half for you to sell off one of the crown allotments and will recommend that your permit is fine but if the legal department decide that they are processing all of the blocks in the one process yours will be included."

Me:" So you are saying that our permit meets all of the requirements but because other prospective building projects do not that we may not be able to get ours?"

Him: "Yes, I can only go on what our legal department recommend. I am waiting on a call now from them."

Me: "Please tell your legal department that should they decide to process our application in a "job lot" despite it meeting all of the requirements, then we will be initiating legal action ourselves!"

To cheer me up I have included some photos from yesterday, when we went out and planted my Mothers Day present-a Prima Donna Tree! And also a photo of our friendly neighbours...

Frustration,frustration,frustration....

Ok, two weeks ago it all looked good. Our builder was ready to go, he had been advised by the Health Department at council that our Crown allotments which make up our land needed to be on one title for the septic permit to be approved. This is because of the EPA requirment ensuring that the land to be utilised is of an adequate size to support the septic system and contain the overflow run off. No problem for us because the land is on one title (since our settlement in January).

Imagine our surprise and dismay over the past couple of days to discover that the permit had not in fact been issued! After a few phone calls I ended up speaking to the person in charge at the local Council and pointed out to him that we had no intention of trying to sell off one of the existing Crown allotments (especially since our house will be built ACROSS both allotments....)and that in fact the single title which we hold actually meets his requirements for permit issue......the couple down the road are in for a battle though because their house is to be built fully within one of their specified alotments in their title!

On a brighter note, we have received a quote from a local business to build our Colorbond alfresco off our meals area and semi enclosed pergola near our ensuite and we are happy with the price-so will be able to pay a deposit of $4000 for them to order and store the materials required intil we are ready for them to erect it at the house.