Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Window Furnishings


To  drape or not to drape - that is the question.  We have been stressing ourselves in the last couple of weeks regarding window furnishings.  There are so many options but we wanted our choice to be cost-effective, practical and of course pretty to the eyes!  Our first preference is to have timber eco-blinds in as many rooms as we could.  Bedrooms will have block out curtains or roman blinds.  Cinema and kitchen will have roller blinds.  Both sliding doors will have vertical blinds. Blinds on-line has a fantastic website where you can actually get instant quote of whatever type of blind or drape you are looking to buy  They also have a showroom in Narre Warren  (southeast of Melbourne) where you can view their product range and query face-to-face their friendly staff. If you are not confident about taking measurements yourself, then they can come out to your house for a fee of $80 to measure all your windows.  DIY will definitely save us some money and is the way for us to go. We bought our eco-blinds while they were on half-price sale at Freedom store and will just have them cut by a company that offers the service at reasonable price.  We did our maths, comparing this method vs having custom-made blinds and we came up saving around 40% choosing to buy the sale items and then have them cut. Freedom was also running a promo of getting $50 worth of items of your choice for every $500 purchased, with so many blinds we bought, we surely qualified for the promo.

Freedom ™
http://freedom.com.au/Homewares/windows/




Blindsonline.com.au http://www.blindsonline.com.au/

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Chasing the Finish Line


Almost there....  Our Practical Completion Inspection (PCI) is booked for the 16th of June.  The tiling has been completed on Friday when the garage door has been installed as well.  This Saturday, we found the electricians putting our lights and shower exhaust fans. We have added a few extra batten lights which we will be converting to downlights after hand-over.







Batten lights in the activity room upstairs

The tiled ensuite shower


The tiled laundry splashback

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Tiling



We're on to the next step in the finishing stage of our house - TILING. The guys started Tuesday of this week and are scheduled to complete early next week.   I called in on Thursday morning where one of the tilers confirmed with me our colour choices. Here are our colours all from the standard range: 

Ground Floor
Floor Tiles -  City Beige gloss 400x400 with French Vanilla grout
Wall Tiles -   Gloss Latte 100x300 with Alabaster grout  (Powder Room)
                     Gloss Ice Cream 100x300 with French Vanilla grout (Laundry)

First Floor
Floor Tiles - Still Beige 400x400 with Alabaster grout (Ensuite & Bathroom)
                    Vibe Latte 400x400 with Caramel grout (Balcony)
Vanity Wall Tiles -   Linea Sand 200x300 with Alabaster grout (Ensuite & Bathroom)
Bath Tiles -  Gloss Latte with Alabaster grout
Shower Wall Tiles - Linea Sand with feature tiles Gloss Latte (Ensuite & Bathroom)

We will have tiled shower niches on both the ensuite and bathroom.  We also will have tile trim in silver.

Hallway

Family Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Tiling prep for the ensuite shower floor


Monday, May 02, 2011

Happiness


I felt like singing Alexis Jordan's song "Happiness" when we went to visit the house on the Easter long weekend.  "Hurry, hurry, quick, quick, quick... just step on the gas coz I don't wanna miss this".  We got lucky the house was open on Easter Tuesday because the painters were in and started painting our ceiling and walls.  They estimated that painting will be completed in a week's time.  As I write this blog, the painting is almost completed. The house looks sparkling with the Dulux's Hog Bristle and  Antique White USA  paint colours on.  We  went back end of last week to take some photos of the painters in action.