update on our new home...

[Chayote]

We drove out to the block today and were happy to see so much progress. It was fun to walk from room to room. It will be such a privilege to live in such a beautiful home.

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[Vera]

Glad there is some progress on your new home. Now if they can get the roof on and windows in you won't have to worry about rain getting inside. I wonder what was holding up the progress. Glad it is finally getting some attention. I know you and John will be excited to move into a NEW house. I see another house behind yours. Is there room for you to have a garden? I hope so since I know you enjoy planting. I can just see Andrew and Hannah running around inside. You may have to give us a progress report each time you go by. Congratulations.

[Chayote]

G'day, Vera... it was mainly delayed by COVID. The building company had many contracts signed when the industry was shut down by the government, not allowing work to even start and those rules went on for over a year. When the workers were permitted to go back, the houses that were contracted had to be worked on in the order of when the contract was signed. Unfortunately for us, the contract was signed just one week before COVID shut everything down. It's been challenging to wait for the house to start, mainly because of the number of people who were asking us when it was going to start... the answer was always simply, "we don't know". When the slab was laid it sat for another month because building contractors in Australia close from two weeks before Christmas until early February, but this year they decided to go back to work last Monday.

We will have plenty of room for a garden front and back, a couple of fruit trees and a swing for the children. There is 4 metres between the back of the house to the boundary fence and 5 metres from the side of the house to "cranky man's" boundary.

[mellon]

What a nice feeling to see your house taking shape.
Is the brick going to stay? I like it

[rosie]

YOU HAVE WALLS (well, sorta ) so exciting. So glad things are moving along. It will be beautiful. I love the floor plan. CONGRATS

[CharleneG]

Yay! Progress! How exciting!

[midwestguy]

It's going to be an awesome new home Chayote. Very happy for you....

[Chayote]

What a nice feeling to see your house taking shape.
Is the brick going to stay? I like it

The pavers will stay, mellon. They form the public footpath. We will have about 6m of garden at the front of the house along with a path leading to the front door and driveway leading to the double garage. The dead grass on the right side of the house is also public land... in Australia it's call the "nature strip". I need to check out the rest of the street to see if anyone personalises that strip of grass. I can't plant anything tall on there because it would take away visibility turning into that road. It's a court so that road will only carry vehicles accessing the houses down there. I'd be happy enough to at least water the nature strip to avoid the dead look...

[Chayote]

YOU HAVE WALLS (well, sorta ) so exciting. So glad things are moving along. It will be beautiful. I love the floor plan. CONGRATS

The children had fun yesterday walking from room to room without needing to go through the doorways... *LOL* Andrew gave us the guided tour with such detail:

"this is your bedroom, Granddad and your bed will go here and your clothes will hang here and this is your toilet (currently just a pipe sticking up) but don't worry... there will be a seat for you to sit on but until then, you can have a wee into the pipe" ...will never, ever happen!!

"this is your Lego room... you might need to buy some more Lego because it's a big Lego room" ...not happening

"this is your toy room, Grandma so you don't have to have dolls and bears in Granddad's den" ...as is the temporary arrangement in our rental home

"and this is the kitchen where Grandma will cook all of Granddad's dinners" ...apparently I will go hungry, just catering for Granddad.

[Bean]

His exciting! Thank you for sharing the progress.

Love Andrew’s detailed tour! LOL

You have a cranky neighbor already?

[Chayote]

You have a cranky neighbor already?

G'day, Bean... Yes, we have a cranky neighbour. He and his wife are older than us and have lived in their house for about 25 years. He said that he would prefer us not to build a house on that block... that he quite liked it as a vacant block of land. He was informed that if he wanted it to stay as is, he should have bought the land and left it empty. Apparently he was offered the land before it went on sale but he declined. He threatened to take us to court to stop the build but must have received legal advice to not go down that track or he will lose. He can't legally do anything to stop the build and we don't need to get to know either of them. We do know their names but prefer to refer to him as "cranky man".

[Sabine]

The pavers will stay, mellon. They form the public footpath. We will have about 6m of garden at the front of the house along with a path leading to the front door and driveway leading to the double garage. The dead grass on the right side of the house is also public land... in Australia it's call the "nature strip". I need to check out the rest of the street to see if anyone personalises that strip of grass. I can't plant anything tall on there because it would take away visibility turning into that road. It's a court so that road will only carry vehicles accessing the houses down there. I'd be happy enough to at least water the nature strip to avoid the dead look...

So " public footpath " is another word for sidewalk I assume ? Looks like that sidewalk is very close to your house.

[Bean]

G'day, Bean... Yes, we have a cranky neighbour. He and his wife are older than us and have lived in their house for about 25 years. He said that he would prefer us not to build a house on that block... that he quite liked it as a vacant block of land. He was informed that if he wanted it to stay as is, he should have bought the land and left it empty. Apparently he was offered the land before it went on sale but he declined. He threatened to take us to court to stop the build but must have received legal advice to not go down that track or he will lose. He can't legally do anything to stop the build and we don't need to get to know either of them. We do know their names but prefer to refer to him as "cranky man".

I agree they should have purchased the land for themselves. They have no reason to complain. I’m happy we’ll be building on 70 acres. NO crankys allowed! LOL

[Chayote]

I agree they should have purchased the land for themselves. They have no reason to complain. I’m happy we’ll be building on 70 acres. NO crankys allowed! LOL

When we were much younger we would have loved to have some land around us. John spent a lot of his childhood with his uncle and aunt who had a farm. It's too late for us to have more than a house garden to care for now.

[Bean]

When we were much younger we would have loved to have some land around us. John spent a lot of his childhood with his uncle and aunt who had a farm. It's too late for us to have more than a house garden to care for now.

We’ll enjoy the peacefulness up there. We don’t want a huge home, one level most likely. We’ve already made a bunch of friends up there, which is nice. The land needs no care unless we choose to. Win win.