It’s taken over 2-years and 5-months for this home to finish – from the day we purchased our block of land and waited for it to be registered, to now settling and being given the keys to our new home. The house build alone took approximately 11-months including all the building administration formalities and public holidays (Christmas, New Year and Easter breaks). A dance on the new driveway is the first of our celebrations, singing along to an ad-lib version of Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” at the top of our lungs – followed by a big burst of laughter as it’s finally our day to turn the keys and walk right in.  This is one of our biggest life milestones achieved #framedbysight.

These small changes are getting me excited. With carpet now installed, it means our home is nearing completion – I actually can’t believe this is all finally happening. Our Plantation Shutters have also been installed by Abbey Blinds and they look amazing. We’re very happy with having these in before the big move. We’ve seen a few homes with bed sheets, newspaper or large objects blocking the windows (which is completely fine if that’s what you want). For us, it’s going to be much easier with blinds already installed so our organised chaos will be hidden from the rest of the world from the day we move in.

As the days are nearing to own our home, we popped by over the weekend and noticed the driveway is down. Just as an FYI, your open space at the front of your home can become an automatic dumping ground from strangers. Yes, it’s true. We had random rubbish magically appear (not related to our build). That said, Eden Brae Homes removed all of this before handover, however it did concern us that we’d find non-related materials on our site. People are opportunistic, as they know no one is officially residing at the address just yet and not bothered to take their own rubbish to the tip. The only way to prevent this if you’re not moving in straight away is to hire fencing.

Take all the time you want on this. It took us four hours. Yes I’m serious. Ridiculous I know, but we both have OCD tendencies and you’re just about to sign your life away on a very expensive mortgage. Trust me, don’t feel rushed what-ever you do.. in which case, we took our time. So what took you that long you ask? We checked over absolutely everything. You’re given a bunch of sticky tabs to tag all the visible imperfections, marks or items for review that you feel are required.  When you arrive, your site supervisor should have already reviewed the house accordingly and you’ll more than likely already seeing tabs all over the house.  That said, you’ll be adding more to it. What to bring? My suggestions only: Request for a copy of the Tyrrells inspection report prior to your final inspection Request for a copy of the site plans that depict the location of where the storm water and sewer is on site.  This is for reference only if you’re keen to know where this is. …

The remainder of this month has been floor tiling completion. Today, we’ve also been served with the final invoice – wowsers, it’s certainly near and this home will soon be ours. This part of the process is to finalise settlement and final inspection. What a year it has been, anxiously waiting for our Christmas present to arrive, and clearly it’s now on the way. Reflecting on how long this journey has taken, it’s actually consumed the last two years of our lives. Weekends spent at different display homes driving all around Sydney, sleepless nights wondering if we made the right decision that we signed off. And then the drives to visit our home on most weekends to inspect the progress. We actually had an elaborate honeymoon planned prior to us working on this house build and funnily enough, we forgoed the epic Trans-Siberian Railway adventure to deposit on land two months before we got married.  No regrets to this day, making me think that life was meant to happen the way it did.  I hope one …