2013 A year in review

Like everyone, I can't believe how quickly the year has flown by.

2013 was a busy year for us as a family. A year of indecision.

Thankfully we have finished  2013 organised & with a plan.

We almost gave up hope of ever building the dream home, we even listed our block For Sale with a real estate agent for 3 months. 

Thankfully it didn't sell in that time because after looking at an extraordinary amount of homes, nothing ticked all of the right boxes & we realised we loved our little plot of land, its location & the house we spent hours designing. Nothing else was going to fulfill that need.

We are so happy we have made that decision to build the dream house. We put in a veggie garden, installed a bird feeder & started organising to construct our house.

 So let the build begin!!!

Career wise it has been a big year but change is under way in that department as well.

I work for a modular building company as a sales consultant. The best part of my job, I get to help people design their dream home.

Unfortunately my husbands employer changed his roster which completely destroyed the fine tuned balancing act we had going to make the two jobs work with our kids. This has made it pretty much impossible for me to continue in my position, My employers really have worked hard to keep me & have tried flexible working hours but unfortunately its making everyone elses jobs harder. They will be looking for a replacement Trish in the new year, leaving me unemployed.

Never fear.....I have a plan!!!!

I am currently in the process of setting up my own little online homewares store, it should kick off in January sometime.

I am EXTREMELY excited about this but will of course be calling on you all for ideas & opinions.

I would love to find a few US wholesalers  & see if I can get some fabulous goodies imported that we just don't have here in Australia, as well as using local suppliers.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Feel free to come & like us on 

Facebook

for regular updates. Our website is almost ready to go as well!!!

Dream child No 4 had a great year. She turned 6, completed Year 1 being able to read at a year 3 level, lost teeth & grew nice new big kid teeth, She over came her biggest fear & joined in on a school performance.

Dream child No3 also had a good year. He was elected house captain & thoroughly enjoyed the job.

He played in the schools touch football & futsal(indoor soccer) teams & just had an all round great year.

he will have his last year in primary school in 2014 & is planning on working very hard to ensure he gets a place in a good high school for 2015. 

Dream child No 2 had an enormous year.

She completed a Certificate 3 Business admin traineeship. The company she worked for loved her so much they have offered her a second traineeship doing her certificate 4. She has jumped at that offer as she had planned on continuing with her studies in that area.

She got her drivers license & saved up for her first car. She turned 18. I had a Chanel handbag cake made for the occasion as she is handbag obsessed.

She also kicked a lot of personal goals which has bought her a lot of self confidence & happiness. Her strength & determination in this area brings me a tear of happiness & makes my heart skip a beat when I think of how far she has come.

Dream child No 1 has led the charge for her siblings. She has worked very hard in her job to put a roof over her head & pay for her studies. She works at Recollections & Early settler in Leichhardt, one of my all time favourite stores.

She has also completed her first year of studies in fashion design, gaining some distinction's & credits along the way.

Its safe to say I am a very proud mummy this year & I know they all have lots of personal goals to achieve next year.

We did a Roar & Snore at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. I highly recommend everyone do this.

The best 'Glamping' you will ever experience!!!

We had a couple of weekends in Sydney exploring the sights of the city.

We did the Aquarium, the Zoo, Sydney Tower, the Rocks, Lunar Park & Sydney vivid.

I love Sydney!!

A couple of weekends in Lithgow in The Blue Mountains.

 & of course many fun times in our local area.

So that was 2013 for our little family.

Happy New Year everyone & thanks for following my little blog, especially when I got so slack with my posts for a while there.

CHEERS

Trish xxx

Another step forward

We have made another exciting step forward & have finally been able to submit a development application to our local council & are now eagerly awaiting for approval to build.

This step could take a few weeks OR a few months depending on their work load & this area is currently experiencing a housing boom, so we don't envision that it will be a speedy process!!!

This is an old photo & those shipping containers are no longer there, but basically in the middle of this lovely green patch of grass is where the dream house will go!

These are the sketches of the exterior, the first one is the back of the house the second one is the front & then each side.A little on the small side for decent viewing, I know!!

This  is the front  of our house, in the centre the door on the left is our  entrance & the door on the right is a set of french doors into the formal lounge, there is a blank section of wall between the two that we don't feel is quite right but couldn't find any way around it. We wanted the windows and doors to not sit behind veranda posts. The three posts in the centre section are very large as they support a lot of weight. We will have to put some sort of feature there, like a seat and a nice plant, or something, any  suggestions greatly appreciated!

This is the back view

Im not sure if you can see, but only two thirds of the house are double story as it is a sloping block, although the veranda on the left side is still reasonably high.

This is the upstairs floor plan.

We have 3 bedrooms on the left side, 2 bedrooms on the right & living ares in the middle with a large alfresco area off the back.

This is the downstairs area, it is only the garage & one large room with a toilet in the corner . It opens onto a large veranda that sits directly under the upstairs alfresco.

Our plans where done by a  guy named Neil Finney & he was really fantastic to deal with. Having recently designed & built his own home, he definitely knows the process of being an owner builder well. Neil has been very helpful with his advice & although we actually designed our own floor plan, he was able to tweak it & offer up a few ideas to make things more efficient or less costly to build, which was great!!

If you are planning a house in the Newcastle, Hunter Valley area of Australia then I would highly recommend you look him up.

ARGUS BUILDING DESIGN

0403 392 484

Let me know what you think !

CHEERS

Trish xxx 





P.S I do apologise if some of these plans are a little hard to read, I had to scan them to get them to upload to blogger. I will do close up veiws of some of the rooms as we progress as I will be needing some advice along the way & who better to ask them my clever & oh so stylish bloggy friends!!!