Updates to our home...

We bought these day/night roman blinds to go into the bedrooms, office and lounge. They are two blinds in one, and can be worked individually.

The lounge and main bedroom are this gorgeous chocolate colour and the other rooms are a beautiful natural, sandy colour. During the day they have a sheer curtain that allows light to filter in but noone can see in, so you can still get dressed etc in the day without having to pull the main blind down. 

During the night, the heavier blind can be dropped, which stops all morning sunlight (and makes the rooms very dark - great for sleeping in).. These pictures definately don't do them justice, as they are just beautiful in real life, but you get the idea.. :)

here is a close up of the fabric. This is the chocolate one, but the colour is darker than this pic is showing due to the flash.

In the ensuite (shown below), bathroom and toilet, we installed these 50cm timber venetians. I love the smell of the timber (its a change from the smell of paint lol)

We upgraded our dining table to this one.. and of course we had to get the all important plasma, (state of origin is coming up! lol)

Our builder was generous and gave us a big pack of goodies.. there was a bottle of red wine and a few beers in there too... but they had already been 'enjoyed' when this pic was taken. 

-Sha

Pics, Pics, Pics

Not-very-happy pooches on their first night.. 

Camping out on the first night. Carpets were being laid in the morning, so we decided to sleep in the family room

Kids had had enough of the move by mid morning!

but found other ways to amuse themselves the next day! 

Here are some pic of our house, during the first week. We have now upgraded some of the furniture, but more pics of those later....

WE ARE IN!!!!

- but we have no internet :( ( I am posting this from works computer shh!!)
Hopefully we will have a little bit of internet to play with this week sometime, from a wireless usb modem, but permanent connection wont be until June~~

We are loving the house :) It is very cosy and homely.
We are in the process of buying and installing blinds for the whole house - For most of the house we went to spotlight (my fav store!) and bought day/night roman blinds. They are two blinds in one.. great idea! The bathrooms and toilet have timber 50cm venetians.. looks very country and modern.. Love them!!
Sorry guys you will have to wait for a while for pics, but I will post as soon as possible.
Missing your all!!
Hope you are all loving your new home, and having a ball!
-Sha

Tiling Finished!!!! Yayyy!!

Here is the hard working crew at the beginning of grouting.. Tim, with sons, Luke and Jack. Katelyn was also working hard, out of camera view.

All grouting complete and all it needs now is a good mopping tomorrow. Here is the entrance, in all its glory. We just love it!!  The mosaic tiles seem to match the chocolate tile a bit better now.. not sure why.. but doesn't it look great!! 

The kitchen , dining and family rooms..

Dining and family room again,  and then the hall way

Here is a picture looking from the family room toward the kitchen, study and entrance. Notice the darker tiles of the entrance feature in the picture :)

It is wonderful to have such a talented hubby! 

-Sha

Decision made....

Well, we HAD to make a decision.. and since Tim was really pushing for the darker tile, this is what we went with.. He went and bought them today (just these tiles cost a small fortune, as they werent on special.. glad all the others were!!) 

They arent grouted yet and still need a good clean, there is dust all over them from being cut, but I couldn't wait to show you all :) 

I will take a pic next weekend when I have the brown carpet etc in.. I am sure it will really blend in well in the house..

 

Thanks for your opinions everyone.. greatly appreciated. 

I am not sure why some of these pics let you open them up bigger and others wont.. it really is random. 

-Sha

oh! PS.. we got our flyscreens installed today :) 

tile choices..

Tim has almost finished the tiling, with only a few areas left to do.. then the grouting. 

One of the areas to complete is the front entrance. 

He has now installed the mosaic tiles - don't they look good! -  but we are a bit stuck with what to do in the middle. 

Here are the options

1) Lighter tile -laid square, same as main floor

2) Lighter tile  - laid diagonal, so it looks like a diamond

3) Darker tile - laid square

4) Darker tile - laid diagonal

5) a different tile all together (maybe a different brown , more similiar to the one in the mosaic.. not sure where I would find it though)

6) a star or something made from different coloured tiles in the middle like this one..

Any advice welcome!!!! 

The wall looking straight ahead will be painted as a feature wall, with a dark framed mirror on it (havent decided on colour for the wall yet). 

Rooms either side of the entrance (lounge room and study),will have carpet like this, but a bit darker in real life.. (notice tile colour is a bit lighter)..

These taken at same time, so not sure why they are different shades.. I believe the second one is the truer colour. 

What would you do??????

-Sha

More tiling and other updates..

Here is a closeup of our tiles.. (ungrouted)

I have taken both of these pics tonight, but they are close to the true colour of the tiles, firstly at night, then during the day.. big difference huh! - at night they a lovely warm yellow,  and during the day, they remind me of sand (maybe just slightly darker than this pic)

These are the mosaic tiles we have bought for the entrance. We are going to make a rectangle from them, and inside the rectangle we will use the same tiles as the main floor but on a 45 degree angle. (diamond instead of square) - (excuse the dirt ;))

They moved our rangehood up a bit higher, but we aren't sure why. Our SS says it was not needed, but we like it better this way.

Our flickmixers are installed throughout the house now... these are the ones we have in all of the showers and baths. 

thats all for now.. 

-Sha

Handover postponed...

We had a call from "B" today to say our handover is now confirmed for the 1st of May - one week after we were meant to.  This is really good news for us as I am so unprepared for moving, plus we couldn't get our carpets installed until that weekend.. which means now we wont have to move in without them! Yayyy! 

Tomorrow is Jack's birthday (Son number 4). He is turning 11 and we have promised him a trip to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary ( I have tickets that I need to use before June, so good excuse lol)

I am hoping we can get home early enough to go to the house and do some more tiling. Tim has had two really long and hard days at work so no tiling done after work lately.. 

We got our Rudd bonus today.. so like good little Aussies, we went and spent it lol 

We bought new innerspring mattresses for all of the kids (not sure if they are aussie made, but the kids needed them). 

Stay tuned for more tiling updates over the weekend.. Have a good one everyone!! 

-Sha

Tiling in progress..

A small update.. 

Tim is currently in the middle of tiling our new home. We spent half of the Easter break levelling the floor first. The slab was really uneven, and even though we bought more than we were advised, we actually ran out of the leveller!  My Dad and I drove to every hardware store in the area (and being out of town, and Easter holidays, there weren't many!, but we managed to get just enough. We didn't get to level the pantry or the fridge space, but those areas are pretty good anyway.

Now for some pics (of course!)

The first tile goes down -  Of course the kids wanted a go too! 

 

These pics are taken with the crappy camera on my phone . My batteries went flat in the camera but I did manage to get one which shows a more accurate colour. 

Kitchen and Pantry - Family room

Hallway(half tiled) - Another kitchen pic

Family room - (this is closer to the true colour at night.. during the day, the tiles look more like a beige. If you ignore the red flash above you can kind of see the colour in the pics above)

The cuts around the edges have not yet been glued in, so may look a little out of line at the moment.. and none of the grouting has been done yet... Grout colour is called 'Misty Grey'. 

More updates shortly.. 

-Sha