A change is well overdue

Source BHG

I don't know about you, but even though the Zebra rug has been done to death over the past couple of years, I still love it!!!

I think by the time I get my dream house the trend will have well & truly passed me by & I will miss out on having one for myself,

BUMMER!!!

I'm sure there will be an equally divine new trend to sooth my decorating soul!!

 After 2yrs of having 4 properties listed for sale in the one town, all with good tenants and priced competitively for the local market, you would think at least something would have sold by now.

But we haven't managed to sell a single house.....

I think we need to change our real estate agent.

 Property data tells us that the average time a house is on the market in Lithgow is FIVE MONTHS. Its a small town & we have had FOUR on the market for TWO years.

WHAT THE.......

What do you think, are we trusting fools that should have swapped agents at least a year ago?

CHEERS

Trish xxx

Building update

Well there has been some building going on alright, just not in the form of a house.....

Its a fence

It's progress...

We still haven't had any luck selling our old house, so no start date for the dream house yet. That's ok cause there is still plenty of work to go on the fence,

 & there are more retaining walls to build,

as well as more driveway to concrete.

Now I am linking this post up to week 2 at

Life with my 3 boybarians

This weeks theme is

"Made with love"

Now technically the fence did start out being made with love, but.... now I think its been thought more of as back breaking, time consuming & never ending!!!!

Have a fantastic weekend everyone!!

CHEERS

Trish xxx



News Update

So much to tell & its all good!!!



The local council have approved our development application to build our house

YAHOOOO!!!

Now we just need to sell a house to raise some cash...I am sending many positive sale thoughts into the universe, hopefully some good news on that front soon!

My little guy turned 9 last week. We had a great pool party as well as a few games of Laser Tag.

I completely forgot to take photos of the yummy treats & this was all that was left of the cake. This is a wheat free, dairy free butter cake with vienna cream frosting. It was a huge hit. I also made jelly cups with 4 different coloured layers & they looked fantastic. I wish I had taken a few pics, oh well!!!

 

We got into the spirit of Halloween, only after my kids guilted me into it.

These 3 terrors had a blast, my sons friend just had everyone in hysterics. Nobody expects to see a 9yr old boy in pink fairy wings & a tutu. He is a real hoot, this kid, our whole family just loves him to death, tutu & all!!!

I recently did a post about dream child No1 graduating from high school & her plans for the future. You can read about it here if you missed it & I am leaving you confused.

 

She went for a portfolio interview at Billie Blue Design College & has been accepted to study a Bachelor of design in branded fashion. She is still in the running for their scholarship, she now needs to submit a second lot of her work & wait for the final result.

Fingers & toes crossed she wins the scholarship!!!

She is really excited for this opportunity & has decided this will definitely be the path she follows.

 

I have still have more news but I think I will save that for another post, I don't want to bombard you with useless tidbits of my life.

 

Do you have those times where life just feels great?

 

I hope everyone is having a fantastic week :))

 

CHEERS

Trish xxx

 

 

Pottery Barn mirror & dream house update

In my last post, as you know, I was dreaming about this fabulous mirror from Pottery Barn & wondering had anybody seen something like this available here in Australia

or

would I have to go to the expense of having it sent out from the US, if I really really wanted it in my dream home.

Well, the wonderful land of blogging truly is a valuable resource & the very helpful & ultra stylish Melinda from

Georgica Pond

Melinda is mid way thru a major renovation of her own home & I really love her style. She has some really great ideas & always gives me lots of inspiration.

 She is also a super sleuth when it comes to researching & finding just the right decorator items to get the finish she is after.

 If you haven't seen her lovely blog you really should pop over & take a peek!!!

Any way Melinda  found a similar mirror at

 Recollections

for a mere $59.

Now I am fortunate enough that Recollections have a Newcastle store which is only a 40 minute drive from my home so I will be able to go check this baby out in person. What a great excuse for a little shopping trip.

I don't know about you but I am always a little fearful of ordering something online....will it look as good in real life as it does in the image.

Image via Rehkamp Larson Architecture

Image via Alamode

These are my ensuite inspiration images, the second one is my all time favourite & is from a movie scene, I just don't recall which movie!

Now  the dream house plans are still slowly progressing thru the council building approval department, we had to give them some more information this week, so at least we know our plans are actually being looked at.

Unfortunately we still haven't managed to sell our old house, we have four interested buyers, the only hic cup being that they have to sell their own homes first & the market seems to be at a stand still in Lithgow...

Oh the frustration!!

Mind you there is lots that we can still do leading up to building the actual house. We still need to build a fence down one side & across the front, we have some more retaining walls to go in & we can also continue on with concreting the drive way. When I say "we" I really mean the dream guy, he he he!!

So fingers crossed for council approval on our development application, a house sale in the Blue Mountains.

In the meantime I think I need to take a little trip to Recollections to investigate some mirrors!!

Have a fantastic week everyone & thank you for all of your lovely comments & wonderful, I really do love & appreciate every one of them.

Do you love seeing new comments on your latest post?

I am a little like a small child getting a letter in the post, I can't wait to see what it says!!!

CHEERS

Trish xxx



Simplifying life for future dreams

contemporary bedroom design by 4.bp.blogspot.com

Well life has certainly been a little crazy & emotional here on the dream house front. If you missed the progress update a while back you can read the whole story HERE

Vt Interiors

We got a quote from a second builder for our dream house & it was actually more expensive than our quote from the first builder, with lesser quality fixtures & fittings.

WOW!

Doesn't the truth hurt or in our case disappoint :o(

Water leaf Interiors

We have had further discussions with builder No.1 & there are ways we can bring our price down a bit.

He also apologised for the actions of the kitchen & tile guys who both thought we would up our budget dramatically, so recommended more than was affordable for us.

These are some of the things we can change.

contemporary bathroom design by San Francisco interior designer Amoroso Design

In order to build our house to our liking we have opted to wait a bit & work towards ridding ourselves of  all debt.

We have several investment properties in The Blue Mountains we can sell, which will leave us owning our land, vehicles & be debt free, ready to build with a slightly bigger budget, not to mention ridding us of the stresses you sometimes face as a landlord.

I know it has taken me a while to update you all on this house building story, but we have really had to do a lot of thinking, planning & research before we could make any decisions.

This included going back on the project home search.

 As it turns out we just really love the home we designed & felt we would be better to make some sacrifices in other areas to achieve our goal. So, farewell investments & hope our dream home turns out to be a great retirement plan instead!

Wish me speedy house sales!!

CHEERS

Trish xxx

A dream house Update

contemporary family room design by Toronto interior designer Jennifer Brouwer

Those that read my blog regularly would know that recently we suffered a devastating blow from our builder, where after months of telling us he could build to our budget, he came back to us with a quote

 ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS OVER BUDGET!!

After much thought & discussion we have decided to do some research & planning toward becoming owner builders. The only part of building this house my dream guy can't do is the slab,brick work & plumbing. He is very clever like that. 

traditional living room design by new york architect Austin Patterson Disston Architects

The savings we could make would mean we wouldn't need to sacrifice those beautiful timber floors that I covet. My dream guy has laid timber floors before using the hidden nail method, Perfect!!!!

In order to do this we  will be spending the next 12months working towards ridding ourselves of any debt, we will also use this time to plan & research & we are allowing a 12 month time period to build.

Well, that is the plan at this point, things could change, but there is nothing to lose by looking into these things & taking time to save a little more.

Our neighbor is a draftsmen who went owner builder on his home, except he acted as more of a project manager. He didn't do any hands on labour & says he still saved money. His house took 9mths to build. My dream guy helped him out with a lot of things on the house site so he is more than happy to sit down with us & walk us through  the process, as well as draw up our plans. This is great!

Any advice or website recommendations on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry I haven't been around much this past week, my family & myself have been taken over by a monster virus & we are all very unwell, not much fun for the kids as it is school holidays here in OZ.

Have a lovely week everyone!

CHEERS

Trish xxx

All images via houzz