DAY 90 - Garage Roller Door

We love the splash of rich warm colour that is the garage door :)

 It is an automatic roller door that we upgraded to get a “timber-look”.  This was to add more colour (and interest) to the overall look of the house.

I really didn’t want to end up with a boring, monochrome home… I LOVE houses that have more character and colour.  I was happy that PJ Burns allowed us (even though an entry level budget) to make choices that added simple elements within the “project home plan”, additions that didn’t cost us the earth… 

Eventually the front door and timber post will be stained to match the garage door. Also we will have horizontal slats above the front portico area also matching.  

(The section above the front window is a "custom orb" infill - a colourbond like product - that is in "Woodland Grey" - see the colours / design page)

I like… what do you think?

 Oh... for those that may want to see the inside (not as colourful or as interesting but still a necessary part of a "roller door" blog post)... here you go:

Speaking of DOORS...
I'd like to share a hallway / front doorway pic taken on Day 90...
(titled "path to sunshine")

Thanks for stopping by :)
Many more photos of the progress are just around the corner... 

Here's to new doorways!!!

Day 72 - Walls take shape

Catch Up Post #13 - 
Day 72 (Sat 10th July) - Plastering continues :)

 

I reakon that you can tell what stage a build is up to by looking in the skip out the front... 

Well this is our skip at the moment ...

What do you think?  

Yes MORE plastering...

The build is getting another step closer to completion

and beginning to feel like a proper enclosed house...

We have the enclosed HALLWAY :)

The bedrooms, robes and ceilings have become solid...

 Here is the bathroom... 

(The purple is a layer to protect the bath from damage)

The laundry has always been an interesting space in this build... It got tucked away at the back of the garage as we tried to make every inch of our house count... Now that it is enclosed by the plaster I am spending lots of time just standing in it, figuring out how I will set it up...  I want to be clever with my set up... 

I believe that I CAN be organised - positive thinking yay!

(I assume the green plaster-board is for the wet areas)

Here are two different views of our niche #2... (the one at the end of the hallway - see previous post)

I like :) 

how about you?

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To finish this post - here is the few pics from Day 73 (Sunday 11th July) 

Due to being a sunday, there are no changes to report... except for this day being 

...the LAST DAY we said the kids could 

SCOOTER through the house...

Now that the walls have plaster we don't want to risk a scooter crash and plaster damage... much to the kids sadness... They have had such a ball wizzing around through the rooms :)

I am so glad that the kids are having this journey of building with us... they are experiencing the house evolving with each stage and have the opportunity to really OWN this new home together - as a family we are starting fresh in this new place... Sooo grateful :)

Dare Your Dream...

This is a little aside post - on the topic of

having COURAGE & daring DREAMS...

Building a house was a desire / dream for James and I for many many many years... The fact that we are now in the process of achieving this is due to many factors (many little and big "pushes"). A huge part of our journey was the action of stepping out or "opening the door" to this path... it was a very scary step to move forward and actually DARE our DREAM (complete with a sea-change).

Dream (noun)

a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal  

he realized his childhood dream 

[as adj. ] they built their dream home

ambition, aspiration, hope; goal, aim, objective, grail, 

intention, intent, target; desire, wish, yearning

Courage (noun)

bravery, courageousness, pluck, pluckiness, valour,
fearlessness, intrepidity, nerve, daring, audacity, boldness, 

grit, true grit, hardihood, heroism, gallantry; informal guts, 

spunk, moxie, cojones, balls 

So I have been thinking about this a fair bit lately... There are many other dreams I have swirling around in my head. Artistic dreams, personal hopes and family desires... Dreams/Hopes/Desires that I have not even fully acknowledged or written down, let alone shared with others... So many things hold me back from expressing or pursuing them. Its too much to go into much more here yet, but thought to simply share these thoughts briefly and see what response I get...

To explain a tiny bit further - I am currently doing an online course by artist Kelly Rae Roberts that it is very challenging to me personally. Its creating a whirlwind of sorts in my mind about my other dreams that I haven't dared to step out or explore further...  I am thinking about my fears and their effect on my stepping out... hmmm what if?

Below is a quick video of author kelly corrigan (who wrote The Middle Place) that Kelly Rae shared in her post today. It's called I dare you.  




Have you ever chosen to step out and pursue a particular dream inside of you???  have u ever dared to???  What if you did?

So, what I want to ask you / put out there in cyberspace is:  

What is your dream?

This is simply an invitation.... If you like...
Why not voice your "dream" by sharing it below...   
I wonder....

Day 42 - WALL FRAMES provide the 3D experience

Driving down our street today I was actually quite nervous about what I was about to see.

For soooo long we have poured over our plans on paper...  concerned with the feeling of space, the size of the rooms vs having enough of the different living areas in the overall house....  

We tried to be/ had to be clever - we couldn't afford to have a separate hallway wall that hid the bedroom doors from view, extra large bedrooms or a guest wing... especially if I really hoped for a 'study nook', the TV out of the main living area (media room), somewhere for guests at least and and very importantly - an inviting living space (to hang out in together). 

 

 So... the final floorplans had a media room but not too big so that we still had enough room elsewhere for a study nook (media room will double as the guest room) ...  The bedrooms were minimum sized (just big enough)... The laundry went into a space near the garage... The long hallway (which I would have normally maybe avoided) will simply lead out to the 'inviting' living area/kitchen/dining that all face the large stacker doors that open up wide to the Alfresco...

Again, for sooo long I have tried to imagine what these 2D decisions / plans would look like in 3D... what will our 'spaces' be like in reality???

With the wall frames being finally erected, I was about to get a glimpse of this...  the first tangible 3D taste of our new home... hmmm... excited nerves...

Walking around the block, my first impression was that the rooms appeared smaller than I expected. 

I let the kids run up and down the back yard's dirt piles (they were so happy lol!) as I tentatively stepped onto the green framed maze...

Once 'inside' I was impressed with the height of the walls. Thats good for a feeling of space... After walking through (only the rooms not occupied by the carpenters), I began to relax more...

 Just breathe

 

The house is definitely not huge... its not a double story mansion... 

Yet it deliberately planned, thought out and strived for... 

It is a achievement of a dream to build...  

This 'space' is gonna be OUR new home and
the location of our family's sanctuary. 

After work, James joined me on site and we got to explore the rooms together.  How surreal it felt to be standing within the frames of our future bedroom and ensuite... Can't wait :)

As we talked through each space... "here is where the kitchen island bench will be... oh and is the TV on this side or that wall?   Look at the study nook!  I can't wait to see the stacker doors in place...." 

This is the view from the back yard. 

The alfresco is being done towards the end of the build (we outsourced the external concrete as a cost-saving step).  

The area without a frame is for a sliding door from the dining room. 
Next to this is the Media Room wall.

As we looked around, our 6 yr old daughter came in and was calling out into the exposed pipes sticking out of the slab (as one does)... 

Then we realised something...

- in the middle of the Media Room was a pipe... 

...hmmm that's supposed to be in the laundry...  

Turns out the laundry plumbing is slightly out of place... After a stress, and a chat with our site supervisor we are told they will fix it... Whew!  Later, James of course made funny jokes about it not being pleasant if "builders have to fiddle with his plumbing"... Gotta Laugh :)))

So, here is a few more photos to finish up for tonight...  

Photos of the kids of course :) 

A Firm Foundation...

Hello to all the wonderful friends, family and visitors who are stopping by to read this blog... I want to start by saying how much it means to me to have your presence beside me (in the virtual world :) on this journey.
Building Sanctuary


The past week has seen the Building Sanctuary facebook page reach over 100 'fans'.  This is so encouraging.  Now I don't expect everyone to understand my facination with Social Media lol - but it goes hand-in-hand with gratitude for those who support me.   That said - a big THANK YOU to HG for officially being the momentus '100th fan' on facebook.

I've had quite a busy week.  Work and family commitments has meant that I am only just now uploading and sharing the exciting construction photos of the past several days.
So posts from here will be a 'feast of photos' to catch up... YAY!

To catch up -  
1st June 2010 was DAY 33 on the construction timeline. 

Up to then, our site had been continually rained on... The extremely wet soil and pooling of water around the plumbing meant that the construction work completely stalled. There were ditches of water everywhere...

By Day 33, our wonderful builders stepped in and dug trenches to help drain out the crazy pooling of water...  I think a pump was even involved to get rid of the water...

The result was the soil drying out enough for the next stage of the slab to happen...  What a relief!

DAY 36 (4th June 2010)
This Friday was one of the most exciting for a while.  I turned up early to visit the site and what do I see but trucks and men on site working away... Soooo good to see.  I walked around taking photo after photo - who knows what they thought? But I was not going to miss capturing this wonderful wonderful step :) Here is a few of the many I took...

They were digging the 2m deep holes for the piering and also trenches all across the house site.  The drilling machines were awesome to watch...



The other part they were digging out was the trenches. These trenches ran around the edge of the house plot and also across the site.  The long mesh pieces (that had been delivered to site way back on DAY 11) were placed in these trenches.



I will continue this story soon... can only do this post in bits and pieces ahhh...

Forgive this brief interlude :)))

Ok just one more photo :)))

Waiting for Construction - Photos

The latest news on the construction of our new home, as told to me by our site supervisor: 
Tomorrow, Monday 10th May 2010, the concrete tradies (I have no idea what to call them?) are arriving to begin pegging out the block, then on Tuesday the plumbers are doing their bit etc...  Then the concrete slab should be happening by the following Tuesday (18th May).

So while waiting for all this to begin, I thought I'd post some photos I've taken at our block of land in the past month...

Its all about NEW BEGINNINGS :)

Standing Strong While Waiting

This is my son's stick that he (with help - thanks Opa :) placed approx where we thought his room might be.  Every visit to our block (many many times) over the numerous months we were waiting - we just had to check if "the stick" was still there...

I was always astounded that, no matter the storms or such, the stick was still standing (although getting knocked around)... I like to think this stick was a little like us - still standing in trust for the dream house ~ no matter the storms that rose up... (even though at times getting very knocked about)

Other photos:
My son... and looking from the back fence over the block of land...

My Favourite Tree!

I call it my lighthouse tree. I love its pale colour and how it stands tall and strong amongst the rest of the trees. It is approx in the middle of our back fence line. This tree is one reason why I loved this block of land :)

Due to all the rain, the grass grew quite long in places. 

I had to take a photo.... Such great long grass texture :)

The flowers at the fence line have also grown wild.

The wild flowers of course bring the butterflies... On one visit to the block of land, we saw so many butterflies we lost count... 

Mainly small yellow butterflies and the larger black and white butterflies...

I hope they hang around after the house is built.

We'll wait and see...
Waiting for our new home...
Hopefully complete with butterflies :)

Peace :)

Dare the Dream - Our SeaChange Whirlwind

If you are reading this - you are either a supportive family member, friend or curious visitor. Thanks for stopping by :)

Our journey has been quite a whirlwind... and though it seems cliche to talk of seachange (or treechange) I hope you find this blog interesting and as amazing as we did experiencing it all unfold...hmmm - Where to begin?

How did we get here?

This is the question...

At the beginning of 2009, if anyone had told me that we would selling our house in Brisbane suburbia and relocating to the beautiful Australian coast - well I wouldn't have believed them.
There were too many reasons why this was not our path...
We were well settled into the suburb-scape with the kids at a really really great school, juggled health issues (please no extra stress!), our favourite shops nearby and our own house we fought hard for. We also had a very full community of friends and family all around us.... Why would we move from this? No-matter what dreams niggled deep down inside us - 'rational' won out. Besides, I didn't think we were even allowed to have more than this (our lot in life)...

Sure we talked about retiring to the coast 'one day' - usually with the sigh of "wouldn't it be nice... one day"... But I totally believed that we needed to remain as we were until we had slogged it through life, the kids were older (moved out even?) and we 'deserved' to go for the dream of coastal living.... It had taken us ten years to even get the deposit to buy our first home in suburbia (that's another whole story). Surely we needed to be wise and hold onto this first home for several more years before we even thought of upgrading...

Then it happened... A whirlwind hit us...

and our path well and truly changed direction :)

It began via the growing awareness that we were headed for a crisis of sorts... An evolving conviction over a couple of months (built up over years to be honest) that we needed to 'fight for our family' and that how we were living wasn't cutting it...

There is that saying
"If you keep doing what you've always done - 
you get the same results"....
 

Well when we were brutally honest with our current results, our relationship as a couple, with our kids and as a family as a whole - it was lacking...
And this lack was building up in intensity... We were busy in our lives (doing good things of course) and made choices that meant our family consistently took 2nd place...

I had a sudden realisation that if we were at war - I would do absolutely anything to protect my family... I was, in essence, by my lack of action, allowing my family relationships to be battered... slowly but surely... If I desired to protect and place them first - where is the action that showed this??? In my busyness running around - many projects, tiredness, unproductive or unhealthy habits, ... oh and really, where was the 'quality time' that is so essential to building relationships in positive ways...

Our marriage, our children - were not just a task on the list or to be taken for granted... They are precious relationships to be protected, placed first and nutured mind, body and spirit... I believed this... but did I live this? Not very well...


So, one week in June 2009, J & I had a confronting conversation. I finally agreed to be open to other paths no-matter where they led - open to other opportunities that would allow us to put each other and our family first.... Even if it took me away from my comfort zone in Brisbane.


My first step was to escape from Brisbane for a weekend away with my man... no kids :) We took a breath of fresh air, reconnected with each other and explored the coast... We remembered how much we loved certain places on the coast... Our first kiss was here... soooo many fond precious memories... each holiday we tried to escape this area... We began to look around with new eyes...Began to dream 'What If ?'... What if we slowed our lifestyle down? What if we lived somewhere we were outdoor more... emmersed ourselves in nature... family activities together more... lived a healthier lifestyle? What if we were away from all the distractions that were currently in our life?

Looking around we remembered our dream to build our own place - and we began to ask about prices of land... Most were as expected and too expensive... Then we drove down a different street... Past a sign that said "DARE THE DREAM".... What an incredible motto we said!!! Then as we keep driving we see beautiful australian bush and flora/forna of an eco-friendly estate... Wow! We loved this place - it had a peaceful environment and so many trees, but surely its too expensive...
Well it doesn't hurt to look around we thought...

As it turned out, the land prices had just been lowered (bringing them to the upper edge of a budget we could achieve)... We were able to explore the land and paths through the reserve. We totally fell in love with a particular block that backed onto the nature reserve (trees were the only neighbours at the rear of the block - never to be cut down... the outlook was straight into a nature sanctuary) hmmm Sanctuary....


There were walking paths all through the nature reserve.
The potential for leading a healthy lifestyle was right at the doorstep. These paths led past the lake and all the way to the nearby gorgeous river precinct...

AND there were schools nearby! Our minds began to dream... Imagine if J was able to get a JOB at the nearby high school... hmmmm... What a incredible thought! I could keep working from home for my job ... and if J got a job at that school then he could walk to work! Slower lifestyle... healthier lifestyle... space for the kids to play... if a job ever turned up nearby then relocating was actually possible!!! I actually got slightly scared about hoping such a thing...
Dare we dream it??? Well, this place seemed to tick all the boxes... and now we had seen a block of land to aspire to...

So, returning to Brisbane we decided that all we could do was 'open the door' to this potential change... We would take step at a time, keep our eyes open and if the 'doors' kept opening then we would keep moving forward... as scary and as exciting as it seemed... We didn't have to wait long at all...

Within 6 days (not even one week later) there was a job advertised in J's areas of teaching and at the exact school near the block of land!!!! OMG - I expected abit more time to adjust to the thought of this move... but no - J applied, went for the interview and then GOT THE JOB!!! The 'door' was not only staying open for us to walk through - we were speeding though it :))) How could we back out now?!

We then had a rushed few weeks to pack up, get a rental in the area up the coast and sell our existing house... Whew!!! It was a whirlwind... But looking back now - I suspect that if it didn't happen so quickly I may have chickened out from such an overwhelming task... You definitely need guts to go for change / dreams / more in life...

There were also many little inspiring events that helped me keep faith along the bumpy way... There were many practical needs to ensure we survived such a time of change/stress with three kids and limited budget. We needed to rent somewhere cheap! This was overwhelming but worked out. TICK

We needed to get the kids into a new school. The school we wanted was 'full' but due to J being a teacher at the connected high school - they made the exception and found the kids a spot. TICK

Step by step we kept walking forward...
Our eldest daughter was very very apprehensive about the new school. On a visit prior to starting we accidently bumped into a teacher - and what do you know - it was a familiar face from our Brisbane school - a teacher who had relocated the year before. It made all the difference to our daughter's anxiety levels.

Another practical example was our washing machine situation... Basically, I have a very large washing machine that would never have fit into the small space in the unit we were to rent until our house was built. We didnt' have the money to buy a new one.
A few days before the moving trucks came, a house across the road put out a washing machine onto the curb with a FREE sign attached...
It worked perfectly (was only missing one little hose - cost me $12 to replace) and it fit into the space in the unit!!!
I could now wash our clothes :) TICK

Then after our exhausting move to the unit (up 3 flights of stairs), my daughter runs in early morning to tell me there was a rainbow... Sure enough - we woke to a RAINBOW on our first morning at our new location on the coast!!!
It almost seemed too corny to be true... But there it was!!!


So there's the basic background story...
I will keep posting about the steps of our construction, particularly photo updates of the progress. So if you are interested in these - stay in touch.


I also hope to share more of the back stories from the past 10 months. Eg: the insane rollercoaster ride that was our finance application(s):
Deposit on Land! Yay!!! excitement... OMG is the house gonna sell??? Nup contract fell through... Get an extension for the land contract... House sold Yay! Now bank needs more paperwork... Yes you have the money, but not enough...

Are we crazy??? What are we doing again? Oh thats right - DARING THE DREAM!

Now we need house plans to do loan for both land and home together... Stress... hurry up and get house contract... not quick enough - need another extension on land contract... Take more out of house plans to bring cost down... Is that enough? Oh please please.... What if the bank doesn't value it enough? Is it all over?

Just Breathe.... more paperwork... and finally "Yes you have been approved!" You mean the land is ours??? Now we can't go back!

Next step: hang in tight for council approval....

Frequent survival tactic =
"I think I'll go for a walk on the beach"... waves... peace... calm...

Thank You God!

Then of course there is the adventure of living in a small 2 bedroom unit with 3 kids stacked in bunks (in one very small room)... Oh the stories... I think I will get my funnier half to tell those ones... stay tuned :)))

Anyway this post gives some background...
However my future blogs unfold - thank you for reading about this adventure we are on... and this journey towards "building sanctuary" for our family :)))


If our story, in some small way, encourages you to also give attention to your relationships, family, dreams and hopes - then it is double the blessing...

Please feel free to comment...
I'd love to hear from you!

Peace :)