Some photos of our purchases for the house

Since the land was registered things seem to be chugging away in the background with Plantation Homes. Last Thursday we received our final Post Contract Variation but it had a few things missing. We pointed out the missing items to our rep and received a revised PCV from her on Friday which we checked over the weekend and returned by email yesterday.  We also sent the PCV off to our Mortgage Broker, and now that he has all of the paperwork he has ordered the valuation on the house. Fingers crossed the bank approve it, and that they don't take too long to let us know!

Our final costings indicate we went over budget by just under 1%, which we are rapt about considering the price includes all of the bells and whistles that we hoped to have, but weren't sure we could justify. 

We have spent some time working out where our existing furniture will go and also browsing online and in some homeware shops for things we would like to buy for the new house. We have both had a tendency to choose large timber furniture in the past, and we have decided we'd like to mix things up and include a lot more colour in the new place. 

Our first mission was to source a long table for the hallway. The wall is about 5m long so we needed something substantial, and we were hoping to find something with some colour in it. We didn't plan on buying anything yet but when we chanced upon this one-off piece in a homewares shop we couldn't resist! 

We think it will go perfectly with the timber floors in the entry hall, and it's about 1m high and 2.1m long so I plan on getting together a good collection of black and white family photos to create a gallery above it.

We have sourced all but 3 or 4 of our light fittings. The living areas and stairwell seem to be the hardest for us to visualise. We found one that we loved for the Family Room but it has been discontinued, so the search goes on.

We've chosen the Satori pendant below for our master bedroom, plus a funky green industrial pendant which will look great in the home office. 

The downstairs Powder Room will have the Mechanics Cage Pendant shown below. It will illuminate "Bruno" as he stands guard over the loo! Bruno was sitting in the front doorway of a home wares shop on Long Island when Andy photographed him during our New York trip last September. We're not sure of his real name, but Bruno seem's to suit him perfectly. I'm wondering if he is expecting royalties once we display him on the wall!

  

Needless to say, the spare room is quickly filling with boxes of light fittings. One large order is being stored at a lighting shop. When we have to pick those lights up in December it will be standing room only in that room until it's time to move in. But I have to say, that feels like all part of the fun and lead up to our build, so I don't mind in the least. 

Land registered!

Well, lo and behold, less than 48 hours in to our Palm Cove holiday we received an email advising that our land has registered! We promptly forwarded the details on to the builder and they will submit the build plan to council very soon, probably this week. 

The land will settle on 4th November. It is anticipated that council approval will take about 6 weeks, so by the time the land settles we will be several weeks closer to council approval. 
From council approval to the build commencing is about 3 weeks, so we may in fact have a slab down by Christmas. That would be pretty cool, although we will consider that a bonus, and not an expectation. 

On a completely different note, our friend's wedding in Palm Cove last night was beautiful. The reception was under the stars and included a fireworks display. It was pretty amazing, as was the 1.5m long Brown Snake which slithered behind the bridal table during the speeches! Quite memorable!

We get home late this Wednesday night and will chase up everything to do with the block. Loan papers have needed to be reissued as they got my date of birth wrong, but that is now well along the way to being fixed thankfully. 

For now we will relax and enjoy the last few days of our holiday.