I know it's been a while, but it's so worth the wait! Innit! First, I'll alleviate your suffering with some updated progress pics. Here's how she's looking today....
I know, right? So purty! The cedar screens you can see are for shading indoors during the height of summer. And as for the inside, it has ACTUAL WALLS!! And doors and stuff. Shut UP!!
Visited the site on the weekend, and while the boys were busy eating and watching cartoons, we took our 5 painted gib off-cuts from room to room to decide on our colours. Half Merino! No, Black White! No, Half Merino! No, Black White! Goddamn it, just choose one!!! We've gone with Black White everywhere. Like, evvvvvvrywhere - walls, skirting, doors, ceiling, all of it. No halves or quarters, no trims. That's right baby boomer at Resene who tried to talk me out of it, we ain't listening! I did do some extensive consulting with people before commiting tho (thank you Home Decor Tips, Tricks and Advice Facebook group peeps, you know who you are!!). It'll be fine, RELAX!
In terms of the nitty gritty, we've spent the last 3 weeks debating door handle pricing with our builders, trying to clarify what they had priced, and what we need, and why is your pricing missing 3 door stops, and can we swap out some roller latches for magnetic latches? If you come and visit me after we've finished, you'd better admire my magnetic latched internal cedar doors! Speaking of which.... we had only specified trusty old pine doors, but they made and installed some cedar ones instead. As you do. So now the door people are freaking. Watch this space..... Unfortch we quite like the cedar doors, tempted to pay a bit more to keep them. But what about the *gulp* budget!?
Shhhhhh, there there, let's distract ourselves from that nasty word by focusing on pretties. Did I mention I found *the one*? THE artwork I've been looking for for the living? It's 1m by 1m of perfection, just the thing to distract me from our crappy old couches which we will be keeping for a long long time because we are broke. You ready for dis?
In terms of the nitty gritty, we've spent the last 3 weeks debating door handle pricing with our builders, trying to clarify what they had priced, and what we need, and why is your pricing missing 3 door stops, and can we swap out some roller latches for magnetic latches? If you come and visit me after we've finished, you'd better admire my magnetic latched internal cedar doors! Speaking of which.... we had only specified trusty old pine doors, but they made and installed some cedar ones instead. As you do. So now the door people are freaking. Watch this space..... Unfortch we quite like the cedar doors, tempted to pay a bit more to keep them. But what about the *gulp* budget!?
Shhhhhh, there there, let's distract ourselves from that nasty word by focusing on pretties. Did I mention I found *the one*? THE artwork I've been looking for for the living? It's 1m by 1m of perfection, just the thing to distract me from our crappy old couches which we will be keeping for a long long time because we are broke. You ready for dis?
It will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.
I lied about us doing Black White everywhere before. We are doing the wall behind our bed a "strong slate blue, moody and malevolent." Since we have a pale grey upholstered headboard, and will have my DREAM bedside pendants (hand-beaten copper, seriously amazing. Must. Stop. Nico. From swinging on them once we move in.) We need the "malevolent" blue to make it pop. Oh, and I secretly got pale pale blush pink linen bedding too. Fingers crossed this next baby isn't a power chucker, or s/he'll be relegated to the nursery only!
I lied about us doing Black White everywhere before. We are doing the wall behind our bed a "strong slate blue, moody and malevolent." Since we have a pale grey upholstered headboard, and will have my DREAM bedside pendants (hand-beaten copper, seriously amazing. Must. Stop. Nico. From swinging on them once we move in.) We need the "malevolent" blue to make it pop. Oh, and I secretly got pale pale blush pink linen bedding too. Fingers crossed this next baby isn't a power chucker, or s/he'll be relegated to the nursery only!
*sigh* that should be enough prettiness to keep us going!
So advice? We are at the "getting one million small bills for one million small things" stage. It sucks. If I could go back in time, I would have sat down and looked at the tiny details a while ago, like at pricing stage. We should have gone through the door handles and latches, for example, so we would already have a price firmly in place by now. Instead, we have the handles priced by our building company (seriously?? You saw our house design and you thought brass knobs would be a go-er??), which we are not going to go with, so we are pricing up what we do want.... and will have a variation to cover the difference :( I also would have liked a rough guide from the outset (maybe I'll write one at the end of this whole thing?) of what we needed to think of at each stage, e.g. plumbing at the pour-the-foundation stage - where do you want your sinks (see: laundry drama last post), and where do you want your mixers? Would be good to know what was coming next so we could have a good look before you get the "you need to decide so we can order them tomorrow" emails. Sure! I'll just finish up my full day at work, pick up the kids, do dinner, negotiate with the 5 year old for 5 more minutes reading time, tell the 2 year old he can NOT have a muesli bar for dessert, tidy up the kitchen, prep for the school run tomorrow, put on some washing, and sit down and price up the tiling options and email around for a couple of quotes to check the prices and get back to you with our final decision TONIGHT!! No worries!
Living the dream, folks, living the dream.... Xx
So advice? We are at the "getting one million small bills for one million small things" stage. It sucks. If I could go back in time, I would have sat down and looked at the tiny details a while ago, like at pricing stage. We should have gone through the door handles and latches, for example, so we would already have a price firmly in place by now. Instead, we have the handles priced by our building company (seriously?? You saw our house design and you thought brass knobs would be a go-er??), which we are not going to go with, so we are pricing up what we do want.... and will have a variation to cover the difference :( I also would have liked a rough guide from the outset (maybe I'll write one at the end of this whole thing?) of what we needed to think of at each stage, e.g. plumbing at the pour-the-foundation stage - where do you want your sinks (see: laundry drama last post), and where do you want your mixers? Would be good to know what was coming next so we could have a good look before you get the "you need to decide so we can order them tomorrow" emails. Sure! I'll just finish up my full day at work, pick up the kids, do dinner, negotiate with the 5 year old for 5 more minutes reading time, tell the 2 year old he can NOT have a muesli bar for dessert, tidy up the kitchen, prep for the school run tomorrow, put on some washing, and sit down and price up the tiling options and email around for a couple of quotes to check the prices and get back to you with our final decision TONIGHT!! No worries!
Living the dream, folks, living the dream.... Xx