Detailing – The Girls’ Bedrooms

So, I’ve always had a love affair with building and renovating shows. Grand Designs, Property Ladder, Selling Houses, The Block, House Rules…you name it. I love ’em all! I’ve even harboured a secret desire to try out for one of these shows but being the least DIY person in the world, I know I just won’t cut it. So, better to settle for being an armchair critic or better yet focus on concept designing the interiors for our own build!

And that’s exactly what’s been keeping me up late at night. I have a growing collection of images and designs that inspire me and keep my enthusiasm for the project burning. Understandably our little darlings’ excitement for the build is well and truly over. So, lately I’ve tried to get our girls more involved with the build by sharing my ideas and vision for their bedrooms.

Our twelvie is a budding fashionista and already has an impressive shoe collection to make Imelda Marcos proud! One of the modifications we made at contract stage was to convert a massive void in her bedroom into a shoe closet. Suffice it to say she gave that mod a royal thumb’s up! Here’s a couple of our ideas for her room…a mural of palm trees as a bed head and a custom made window seat to soak in the glorious northern sun.

Little miss C would love to have a cool hanging egg chair like the one Candy and Ryan used in their games room on House Rules. She’s super excited about having a walk-in-robe and she just loves reminding her big sis that she only has a built-in-robe. Of course, twelvie’s room is much bigger and she’s definitely not lacking in closet space! I’m in two minds on the colour scheme for her bedroom. I think she may have outgrown the girly pink stage and a more subdued colour palette may be more appropriate. First world problems I know!

And here are some of my vision for little miss A…I’d love for her bedroom to be fun with a splash of colour and one wall painted in chalkboard paint for her to unleash her creative flair as she loves to paint!

No rest for the home builders

So, now that we have given Metricon the green light to progress to the next all-important council approval stage it has all suddenly become more real and the sense of urgency is back in force. If the stars align perfectly, we hope to have council approval for the new house by October with the construction phase starting in November. Fingers and toes crossed!

In the next few weeks, we need to meet with our landscape designer to discuss and finalize the landscape plan to be lodged with the DA for the new house. We haven’t really given the garden much thought so we will be shifting our focus from the house to the outdoors. We may also need an arborist report for the lone tree that is located inside the building footprint and is unfortunately over the 5m height exception rule. What we really need is a big, fat money tree!

We have already received a few quotes for demolition and they have all come in at the same price level so we just need to pick one. We were lucky we found a tenant straight after settlement who only wanted a short-term lease so we will keep him in the property for as long as possible before giving the go ahead to knock the place down.

Of course, we also have our Studio M and electrical appointments to prepare for. We have a whole house of fixtures and fittings, paint colours, cabinetry finishes, lighting and sooooo much more to choose.

Now where is that money tree again?

It’s a GO!

Four frustrating weeks after contract presentation, we finally signed the contracts and handed over the first substantial wad of cash to big M. It has been quite an ordeal but we are so happy with all the modifications we decided for our dream home. Bring on the next stage!

Pimping our Hudson

It feels like a lifetime away since we had any real progress on the pre-construction front. We (or rather I) have obsessively and meticulously spent countless sleepless nights reviewing the floor plans and elevation drawings and proceeded to raise variations upon variations in a never-ending attempt at custom designing the Hudson to our own personal taste. Our poor Metricon contract presenter has painstakingly responded to a million emails and telephone enquiries in such a timely fashion. We definitely lucked out in having Mary look after us. What a godsend!

Suffice it to say, it has been quite a tedious process but we are now 99.9% stoked with the overall design. So, nearly a month after being presented with the contract, we are finally happy to sign on the dotted line and handover 5% deposit to progress to council submission. Happy days!!!

Some of the mods we have made thus far…

• Added an outdoor room and balcony
• Added corner bifold doors and sliding stacker doors to give us an amazing indoor-outdoor room
• Enclosed the study to give us the flexibility of using it as a guest bedroom
• Changed the ‘coat cupboard’ into a shower effectively turning the powder room into a full bathroom
• Redesigned the kitchen and butler’s pantry (more on this in a separate blog post)
• Added windows and changed window profiles
• Added alcove and wall niches to display some of our Balinese treasures
• Redesigned the facade by extending the eaves and portico and added side walk-through piers

Wall Street

I’m loving the new Metricon website. It’s a great source of inspiration as we get ready for our all important interior colour selections.

After browsing through the Lookbook gallery, I think the ‘Wall Street’ design is the one closest to our hearts. Lots of decisions to make as we customise the Hudson to suit our own personal style. Fun times ahead!