Tuesday 26 February 2013

An inside update

I finally got around to taking some photos inside!  We've been in for about (maybe even exactly) 4 months now, and the house is well and truly lived in.  I haven't taken pictures specifically of the alfresco, because we are having it tiled soon, so hopefully I'll update with a picture of the finished alfresco (complete with amazing retractable flyscreens) in the not-too-distant future.  We've upsized considerably with this house, so it is still sparsely furnished and no doubt will be for a while.  The furniture that suited our old home well is a little underwhelming now, but we're not in a position to upgrade and even if we were, there's no real reason to.  We have empty rooms galore!  Two bedrooms and the theatre room are currently being used as storage.  But we are loving all the space, inside and out, and we're very happy with how our colour selections have turned out.  There are a few little things around the place that I'd change if we had our time again, but nothing major.  Perhaps one day I'll detail those in a separate post.

Entry

The entry, with its extra high ceiling and extra large door is wonderful and light and grand.

Entry/Front Door

Master Bedroom

The master bedroom is very spacious and light.  We have a privacy lock on the master bedroom door, which is great for keeping the little guy out on my designated sleep-in morning, and for that reason has worked out better than a lock on the ensuite door which we were considering.  We have double roller blinds on the windows in the bedroom, one privacy and one blockout.  The privacy ones are great.  We didn't realise that the bedroom windows look right into the shower and toilet.  Although we added the door to the ensuite, nothing is guaranteed with a toddler with no sense of privacy (in this sense a lock on the ensuite might have been handy, but for various reasons it isn't for us).  During construction we were able to change the window in the WIR to obscure glass, as it also looks into the shower, and although we also have a blind on the window it's nice to have the extra natural light in the WIR and ensuite.

Master Bedroom
Master Bedroom - to ensuite
Ensuite
Ensuite
WIR

Study

The open study is nice, although desks and bookshelves can tend towards messy (well, at least they do for me) and I wouldn't mind the option of shutting the door on it.  But it is nice to be connected to the family when sitting at the desk, and things have never gotten too out of control in there, mess-wise. 

Study
Study

 

Kitchen 

The kitchen is a delight to cook in.   I've never had so much space to cook and prepare.  It might have been nice to offset the sink to one side, as sometimes I feel like I would like one really long section of bench, but the flipside is that no matter how messy it gets in there there's always a clear space to do something else.  Appliances (oven and rangehood) have been good, and the under-cabinet lights are fantastic.  We had our pendant lights installed shortly after we moved in, and while I love them, I'm not sure they're a great fit for the kitchen (but feel free to tell me otherwise; we're not changing them ;) ).

Kitchen
Kitchen

Dining/Living

The living and dining areas are lovely and bright.  With the bifolds open there is an abundance of fresh air, and we love the flow from the entry into the living area and out into the alfresco.  We have heaps of space, as our furniture was bought for a much smaller house, but it's great how open the whole area feels.

Dining
Kitchen/Living/Dining
Living
Living/Dining
Living/Dining/Study

 

Rumpus

Having a rumpus room with a toddler is such a luxury!  The layout is working exactly as we'd hoped, and for the most part toys, bright plastic and 'kid stuff' all stays out of the main living area.  Of course, we spend a lot more time sitting on the floor of the rumpus room than on the couch in the living room ;)

We have utilised the odd recess in the rumpus room as a book wall, which is a fantastic feature in the room, and takes up much less room than a conventional bookcase.  Of course, it doesn't hold anywhere near as many books either.  But I love it and think it was a fantastic use of a strange space.

Rumpus Room
Rumpus Room - Book Wall

 

Bathroom

The large mirror in the bathroom creates so much light.  It's a small bathroom, but functional and adequate for our needs.

Bathroom

 

Laundry 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record - oh, the space!  There's nothing spectacular about the laundry, but it's functional which is all I'm after in a laundry.  We opted for a vegie-sprayer tap in the laundry which has been really handy for cleaning the little guy's cloth nappies.

Laundry

 

Wednesday 20 February 2013

4 months on

I have a couple of posts saved as drafts that go through some of the things that have happened since my last post (PCI).  But it's looking like I might never finish them!  I intend to, but in case I don't, the short story is "we love it!" and here is an almost complete picture for completeness of the blog.



Last week, after some dramas, our front landscaping was finally completed!  It has made a huge difference to the look of the facade, which I had been thinking was looking a little too monotone.  But the garden has injected some colour and it looks wonderful!  On a whim I unilaterally completely changed our plant selections, but fortunately I'm still married.  The original plan was mostly for structured grasses, but instead I went for some dwarf magnolias, gardenias and some flowering shrubs.

All that's left to do now is the tiling of the portico and alfresco!  And obviously the nature strip, but that's out of our hands - hopefully it's not too far away.  At the moment I'm not sure we'll ever own enough furniture to fill the house, but I'm sure in time we will figure something out!

If I don't get on to finishing the mystery posts in my drafts folder, thanks to everyone for reading along, and I hope that our little corner of the internet has helped others starting out on their own building journey!