Sold our Wisdom Impression

We sold our beautiful Wisdom home a couple of weeks ago and this Saturday we bought a new 565sq sloping block in the same area, different suburb. Split Level house designs here we come.

I'm going to start a new blog but first I thought I'd post some exit feedback !

1. Loved Wisdom's customer service after lock up. Before we sold we had to get a couple of things checked out and they came out asap and fixed a parapet issue on the garage and also followed up on some missing sewer plans for us.

2. We should have thought more about our landscaping. We didn't really ever finish it to the standard of those gorgeous Show Homes and it ultimately let the house down. This was partly budget related and party to do with how we had sited the house. On the same note we should have realised a side garden is not useful when you have young kids.

3. Our modified plan worked really well for us. The only slight regret was that the downstairs loo in the Impression (we had) opens into the living area and you could hear everything. I always told guests it was the kids loo and they should go upstairs!

4. Never regretted the 2k spend on the laundry fitout. Mummy mates loved it and it was a strong selling point. Should have fitted an extractor though and also have measured our washing machine and let the carpenter know. The work-surface was too low to fit our machine under.

Next time I am not having a glass door to the outside though , it gives you the creeps.

5. We didn't add any more cross beams to the frame for pictures, mirror and curtain frame fixtures. The plasterboard won't hold weight and overtime we ended up filling and sanding holes when bag hooks fell down or just doing without.

6. Loved our understairs cupboard.. It held the hoover, pram, and 100pairs of shoes, and a load of other crap. most used cupboard in the house.

7. Wished we'd upgraded our flyscreens. We took out flyscreens on all windows apart from the sliding doors. I thought they looked ugly and I wouldn't be able to clean them. Bad mistake, hello Huntsman. The flyscreen on the patio doors is just that flimsy fabric which comes out of its rubber holdings and gets ripped easily.

8. Tiles. Our floor tiles (std range) chipped in 3 or 4 places. I don't remember any of the events that caused the chips so next time I'm going to check the quality of the tiles with a few of my own tests!

9. Colours - Wish we'd taken a painted piece of A3 card with Moonglow to the tile place. May have stopped me selecting floor tiles with a pinkish tinge.

10. More tiles - Never regretted full height tiling in bathrooms, and the nib wall between the shower and bath.

11. Elephants upstairs.. even small feet sound like elephants so sound proofing between walls and floors is a good option.

12. Fittings and appliances.. all rocking 2.5 years on. A few bits of general wear but no tear and everything still looks as new apart from an overly helpful friend who took a pan scrubber to our stovetop :-(((. Wish I'd upgraded the sink to something bigger or not stainless.

13. Cracks.. never had cracks between skirting and walls and coving and walls or on the walls themselves. I've seen and heard about this in other builds and I think its testament to the quality of the workmanship.

14 Electrical.. Should have organised driveway lighting and electricity at/for a gate during construction. Was too laid back.. and we never did.

15 We spent 6k on bricking the second storey at the back instead of having the painted blueboard look...and to do this needed an RJ(?) Beam. Probs didn't need this given that we sold.. but that board look is not a good one.

16 Custom Alfresco.. it was too small at 4m wide. Should have measured a table barbecues and casual seating !

17 Tiling Sealing - why oh why didn't I fully seal every bit of grout. I did the bathrooms and kitchen and then promised I'd get back to the 200 other bits of grout. This never happened and it showed!

18 Paint - paint that is sprayed on comes off if you stick ANYTHING to it. Kids stick things and we stick stuff for the kids. Dreading move out day as we have bald patches... Tester pots required!

19 Things we modified or upgraded that made a difference to the sale price and look

• Facade
• 5th bedroom created from rumpus
• extended living area in line with kitchen
• oversize bedroom created from moving wardrobe to over stairs
• Doors and door furniture
• Laundry
• Kettle toaster sliding cupboard
• Poly kitchen
• Oversize bathrooms, full height tiling to wet areas with bath in ensuite
• Nib walls in bathrooms separating shower and bath - integrated toilet with nib wall between
• silver balcony rails

Rant complete, time for bed and time to dream about project home No.2

Landscaping

We've decided its time to tidy up the garden.

When we moved in we made the mistake of hurriedly turfing to get the occupation certificate. In fact I'm pretty sure council wouldn

't have cared if we lived in a pile of rubble for a few years. As a consequence the land and lawn were uneven because we didn't have the time to tools to roller it flat before our overseas trip.

So 2 years later it was time to get paving.

(Before with some great looking weeds courtesy of the vacant plot next door )

After

Still got a bit of work to do but looking like a more usable entertaining space..!

Work done by Chad Williams, Cronulla, 040920487.

Pavers and retaining blocks are courtesy of Amber tiles. If anyone wants 30 we have some left over!

Sexy wallpaper

So we all love Taubman's Manhattan and Moonglow but - what to do to create a bit of excitement?

Got a load of samples from http://www.lancashirewallpaper.co.uk/ and ended up opting for this one Arthouse Couture Black Damask'. Its really worth getting the samples which took 7 days as some of them look very different in the flesh. The free samples are about 50cm x 52cm. Postage of 4 rolls was just over $100a and they took 10 days, BUT one roll of similar wallpaper in AUS is $140.. so all things considered a steal.

Wallpapering itself is relatively pain free (if your pasting on your nice new home smooth walls) if there are two of you and once you get over the stress of hanging the first piece.

Key tools are:

• a plomb line or spirit level to get the first piece straight
• a large brush to brush it on to the wall
• a damp sponge to wipe off any paste that gets onto the front of the paper before it drys

The edges of the paper overlap the cornice and skirting and handy hubby used a ruler and knife to score them once dry. We pasted with a roller using our outside table (indoors) and folding the pieces in on themselves to transport them upstairs.

One feature wall took about 4 hours and total cost was around $300.

This looks very silvery - but its less so in real life.

Creating an impression at the front

Continuing with the landscaping Graham and I braved the weekend downpours to work on the front yard. Got all our plants from Rockdale Community nursery. The Box were only $10.95 for a 30cm plant, which was good seeing as we needed so many of them. Grow babies grow! Pebbles are Menai's river pebbles.

Still got to decide to do with the naf bit in the background against the fence. Currently has all the old plants we pulled out for the paving. Any ideas welcome.

Where did that come from

Someone built in front of us.. it looks better than a vacant rubbish dump. This photo is couple of months old now and its all finished. Our lovely new neighbours move in in a few weeks.

Few Photos

Here's a few photos from the walk through.

For some reason the main floor tiles come out looking a bit pinkish in the photos, but they don't look like that in the flesh/ceramic.

Walk through complete

So we had the walk through this morning. Everything looked good. Went round and looked at everything in detail and put purple sticky tape where the paintwork needed touching up, and made notes of a couple of downlights not working - presumably just need new bulbs.

The driveway is still not finished because of the rain we've had this week, but that's scheduled for early next week wether permitting. So we'll obviously have to check that before making final payment. Also found out the appliances go in after handover which is fine with us - less chance of them being nicked if the place is occupied.

I tried to take a few photos, but the batteries in my SLR packed in after two shots. :(

Looking forward to getting the keys and moving in.