April Fools - NOT!

Being April Fools Day today, I wasn't sure how much I was trusting our slab supervisor on his word that we would be scraped today. lol Sure enough, I checked the block today and we have scraping action!! Boo-Yah! 

And to top off my Friday afternoon vibes, I was just informed that we have piers put in on Monday! Another Boo-Yah!!  

Much love,
                    A x

WE HAVE MOVEMENT!!!

Well a little bit of movement...but still movement. And hey, I'll take anything at this point! So we have been on the construction list for 18 days. McDonald Jones told us that they would commence construction within 20 days of being on the construction list. 

On day 4 we had a pile of gravel delivered which we were so excited about! I know how silly to be excited about a pile of gravel! But we were.

Then we didn't get any action until 2 days ago, on day 16. That day, we were pegged.

And then yesterday, on day 17, we got a construction fence so you can imagine our disappointment when we went to check the land today and there was no more progress. We thought the ball was rolling. I'm thinking that construction must not be too far away if they stuck a fence around the block. So fingers crossed for tomorrow! The only crap thing is that it is forecast to rain! Fiddlesticks! 

I guess they have started which is a plus, but I feel that ACTUAL construction should commence within the 20 days. Surely pegging and a fence doesn't classify as construction. Does it? Lol. Here's hoping it doesn't count!

*Crossing Fingers*

Much love,

                   A x

Colour Palettes

Exterior Colour Choices

We took a long time deciding on external colours. What ended up determining the colour palette was the fact that every door colour was an additional cost except white (or Surfmist. It's a colorbond colour). We had decided between a 'wood look' garage door or a white garage door and when we realised that it was going to cost an extra $500 to have a 'wood look' garage door, we went with the white instead. It wasn't worth that much to us. Plus we wanted to have the front door matching the garage door and to have a stained wooden front door was going to be an extra cost as well. 

The Surfmist colour swatch above is not very accurate. It looks more grey here but in real life it looks like an off-white. The photo is a more accurate representation of the Surfmist colour. Have a look at the colorbond website for Surfmist.

Internal Colour Choices

The only thing more difficult than choosing the exterior colour palette, was choosing the internal colour palette :) I really really wanted to pick Statuario Nuvo from the Caesarstone range for the bench tops in the kitchen and bathrooms but it was from the most expensive range. Of course! Always the way. 

So we picked a neutral colour that came as standard for the kitchen bench top called White Shimmer from Caesarstone and went from there. Once again the colour swatches aren't very accurate but I've included them because it lists the colours below each and where the colour will be. The photo is more accurate. The sample with the green dot is White Shimmer for the kitchen bench tops and the sample with the red dot is Frosty Carina for the bathroom and ensuite vanity bench tops. We decided to splash out a bit of extra cost on the bathroom bench tops and go for the marble look in those rooms because it was a fraction of the cost compared to doing it to the kitchen. Only because you obviously need more of the stone in the kitchen.  

The small white tile sitting on top of the sample with the green dot is the tile that we are having on the kitchen splash back. We could have gone for the glass spash back at no extra cost because it was included in our 'Impressions' package, however, I didn't really like the glass. Only because we chose satin (a semi gloss finish) kitchen cupboards and I felt the glass would make it look too clinical. The tiles will be layed in a brick pattern and they are texture so I'm hoping it will look smashing :)

Originally, we chose formica silver Strata for the bar back in the kitchen. But I ended up changing it to the same white as the cupboards a few months after we had our appointment which cost extra to change it. We decided that we wanted the kitchen to be really neutral just incase we got over grey. 

Hopefully everything else is self explanatory! Hope I've helped someone :)

Much love,

                   A x

In the beginning...

My partner and I decided to buy our very first home about 3 years ago. We knew that we wanted to build and after vigorous saving we finally put our name to a block of land. We then began the search for a house design to put on our pretty piece of dirt. It didn't take long until we decided that we had to go with McDonald Jones. We loved there open plan living style homes and thought that their finishes looked beautiful. The next task was to figure out which McDonald Jones house to put on our block. Now I am a really indecisive person so you can imagine how long it would take this personality type to consider ALL factors :) Factors like cost (obviously a big consideration), arrangement of kitchen/living/dining area, what direction the main living areas faced (we ideally wanted kitchen/living/dining to face North) the number of bedrooms, whether to get a media room, whether to extend the alfresco outdoor area. So many questions. It did my head in and probably more so, did my partners head in because of my indecisiveness (If thats a word lol). When I was a kid my parents renovated and I'm a huge fan of 'The Block,' 'Reno Rumble' and other renovation and interior design shows so I was right in my element and really enjoyed making sure we considered EVERYTHING. lol 

After many sketches, planning and thought we settled on the Nova because it had four bedrooms and a media room, an open plan kitchen/living/dining area that accessed the alfresco area. We chose it because the kitchen/living/dining area and alfresco faced North and because it gave us the opportunity to extend the alfresco. We also chose a Gen One Collection home (the lower price range McDonald Jones Homes) because we wanted to have a bit of money left over to extend the height of the ceilings to 9 ft, extend the height of all internal and external doors, add an extra stacker door to the living/dining area, change window configurations in the bedrooms and of course have some money to splash out on finishes like flooring, kitchen colour and lighting not to mention we wanted to be able to furnish the house when we finally moved in.

We also went with the classic facade to save some cashola :) So these are the final plans...

Position of the house on the block

(You'll notice we have a road at the front of us and a road at the back of us. What a 'hoo-haa' it has been to work out a house plan to suit that!)

Floor Plan

Major Changes to Original Nova

Master Suite

*Added set of stacker doors to north side to maximise North facing aspect and make the room feel more open.

* Added high long skinny sliding window to West wall. As a result of adding the stacker door, we had to remove the original three windows that were on the west facing wall because we would not have had a wall to put the bed on. The window is centred on that wall so it will be above the bed.

Ensuite

* Added Shampoo nook to shower.

* Added a set of draws to ensuite vanity.

Garage 

* Added a long skinny sliding window to the South facing wall.

Dining and Family/Living Areas

* Added TV pop out.

*Swapped original positioning of TV pop out and window.

* Changed original window to a stacker door to make the space to feel more open.

Alfresco

* Added alfresco dining area. Then extended standard alfresco area.

Media Room

* Changed position of media room window to face East (We didn't want to do this but council would not allow us to have an exterior front facing wall that did not have a window. So we had to move it.)
* Added internal cavity slider door to media room and extended the height of the door.

Kitchen

* Upgraded all kitchen appliances to Miele
* Added two sets of draws to the kitchen

Bedrooms

* Extended the length of built in cupboards in bedroom 2 and 4 because, let's face it, who ever said that they didn't want more storage?!?
* Changed windows of bedroom 2, 3 and 4 so that they had two small windows in each. We did this to enable us to centre a double bed in the middle of the two windows in each bedroom. And I thought it looked much nicer. McDonald Jones does this a lot in their display homes.

Bathroom

* Removed walls that made the separate toilet to make the bathroom feel bigger. We didn't care to have a separate toilet anyway.
* Added Shampoo nook to shower.

* Enlarged bathroom window.

* Changed position of bathroom window and bath so that the bath was above the window.

Laundry

* Changed position of laundry door to the East. (We needed to have a door that looked like a front door to allow council to pass the plans.)

* Changed sliding door to hinged door.

Other changes

* Added patio over laundry door. We needed to do this to be approved by council. We had to have a gable over the laundry door so that it looked like a front entrance door.

* Extended the height of Entry door and Laundry door.

* Extended ceiling height to 9 ft.

* Extended all window heights and stacker door heights to match the front Entry door and rear Laundry door.

Front View

Rear View

Left Side View

Right Side View

So I think I've covered most major changes. I don't think I've left anything out. I just wanted to include all the detail because I looked at A LOT of blogs when designing this house and I found these little details super helpful. Hopefully, I've helped design someone's home.

Much love, 

                 A x