Of late, I've been considering the ideal streetscape - or as council puts it, a frontage that promotes neighbourly interaction, has an agreeable aspect...
Some nakedness is acceptable, other nakedness is not. My windows have been naked for so long that I almost take it for granted. Now it is time to do something about it.
Though sustainable is as buzz as a word can get, not all building companies, including ours, are especially proactive on this front.
The state of limbo continues. But we have finally, thankfully, fantastically, moved upstairs.
People ask me how I manage to stay calm. 'I have no idea,' I reply. It feels a little as though I am watching it on TV, or about to be the subject of a gotcha call. Neither is true, and the gruelling process of working through a contracting problem lingers unresolved as I write.
Dawn rises on 2010 and we continue to paint. My shorts supply is dwindling, sacrificed to the Paint Goddess in a lavaesque mass of reed green, vivid white and Russian toffee. I vaguely remember really wanting to do this...
There is only so long that you can live and breathe a build. Then it needs to end. It's like having a carrot dangled in front of you for so long that when you finally get to eat it, it's lost some of its crunch.
I had a feeling that this would happen... Christmas is looming, the rental is popping its buttons, the house isn't really ready but we are scheduling handover this week so that our tradies can move in and have the house ready for Christmas. Or not...
I got to bed on the late side last night, drowning in a sea of Megaman GU10 energy saving globes - 9 watt, 11 watt, cool white, warm white, daylight and quite possibly other whites - and came to the conclusion that lighting is not for the layman.
No sooner had I decided that tiles would look great downstairs than I changed my mind. What was I thinking? I freeze in winter. I needed something else.
I wondered as I drove my tile-laden car home from a tiling spree last week how many tiles a car could take before the boot fell through. Each delivery to the car had been made by an industrial forklift and my mental calculations told me that I had 'a lot'. Given that I could only comfortably carry a couple of tiles at a time, I wasn't super keen on my odds.
7.30am this morning saw me trying to leave the house, Vegemite-smeared 2 year old in tow, for a site meeting. Under question: downpipes and portico. The colour, the design, the look.
Those that haven't built a house may be under the illusion that lock-up is the time that a new house is finished and handed over to the client. Nope! Lock-up indicates that the shell is complete and weatherproof; walls are built, roofs on, windows and doors in and, as the title suggests, you can lock up the house.
Wildflowers enchant me. Living directly across from an area of bushland that is as dramatic as it is beautiful in the September wildflower season, I feel a shiver of excitement about the launch of Jude Taylor’s Fabric and Wallpaper Collection
I found my Garden to Go. A living, breathing incarnation of what I had been searching for. A soulful, inspirational, kid-friendly nursery with native plants and gardens and friendly knowledgeable staff.
The pan-faced newsreader on the ABC last night delivered mostly bad news to Australian property owners. National house prices in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane have tumbled.
An idea came to me the other day as I was pondering dejectedly over our sandy, brick-strewn, cement-stained patch of garden to be. What if you could order a pre-designed ready to go garden in the same way that you could order a Happy Meal?
To me, refrigerated air conditioning means the cinema, an Indian restaurant or a supermarket (where supposedly the feeling of cold encourages us to buy more). It means planes, trains and airports. It is not my house.
My mum asked me recently what I would like put aside for me in her will. I replied instinctively. “Um, maybe the rug I love by the fire”. She laughed. “Why on earth do you want that old thing?” she said. “For the memories I suppose” I replied.
I normally do the right thing. I accompany my daughter to school on my bike. I fill my kettle to the exact level of water required. I put two kids in a soupcon of bath water every night. But how sustainable will my new house be?
Kevin Rudd has just announced his help Australia package for these troubled economic times. Money may be thinner on the ground but with interest rates still dropping and builders desperate for work, isn’t this the perfect time to build?
I dreamt last night that I was lying in a bedroom with no ceiling. I call this a build dream. Our ground floor walls are up, the form workers are in and the progress payment bill is burning a hole in the table next to me.
The phone call from our builders came unexpectedly. “ I’m really sorry but I have some bad news. The brick we have been using is apparently undersize.”
Most of our building choices were made in the balmy warm breezes of New Caledonia. Now, in the bleak immediacy of our treeless sandy block, time is up. We can only sit and watch the show.
Yet another term that meant zilcho to me a year ago is popping up everywhere. For those of you that are ignorant of the term parget, or more topically, rough parget, it is a type of mortar joint used in brick laying.
In an excitement rating factor of 1-10, I would give concrete mix a 9. Like the ultimate mud pie, it is dirty, it can be made to move at speed and if you decided to eat it it could end in tears.
Perth friends have told me that house talk can be boring. Fortunately,having just returned, we have a period of grace, after which I suspect that we will be taped up and packaged back to Noumea.
So it’s au revoir. As we pack up our last bits and prepare to say goodbye to Noumea for good, I think about one of the houses that I spent time in that was meaningful to me … and why.
I had a 'moment' lately when it occurred to me that we started moving on the build idea over a year ago. And what do we have to show for it?
It’s called a survival kit: two wine glasses (one with a crack), four dodgy forks, beds, iron etc. “Etcetera” sadly doesn’t include a laptop.
It’s official. We’re leaving New Caledonia to return to Australia. And as I saw our beloved boat disappearing off down the street I couldn’t help but wonder if we were doing the right thing.
An architect friend of mine, Barbara Bell, told me yesterday that building a house was as stressful as having a baby.
We all know about wish lists. In fact a clever Australian company has coined the term for a huge internet shopping business. But what about housewishlist.com.au? Or even better housebuildwishlist.com.au?
If a house front is a face, then the windows must be the eyes and the door, the mouth.
I was gutted. No other words for it. The Silver Princess, Grasstree and Tahitian lime were gone. As was the long established Bottlebrush that had sat on the council’s land.
Though I make the most of this exotic island I call home, sadly my office is a desk at the end of the bed
A contract price is a contract price, but really, does it have to be that big? Those scary pre-build conversations of costs escalating and budgets blowing out… Well we’re there.
Not sure if you have heard of the ugli doll, but it somehow succeeds in beautifying ugliness. I should know. My toddler takes one to bed with her every night.
Have you watched Spy Kids? Do you have a pair of dark glasses, a camera on your phone, and a casual air? Can you subtly drive past a stunning house and unobtrusively get a photo of it…?
I’m glad that I’m not in Australia this week. Word comes back that the house demolition is finally going ahead. It is somewhat overdue.
Opening a magazine the other day, I was confronted with a photo of a kitchen sink and the caption, ‘This is where you spend most of your time in the kitchen.’
Yesterday, on an uninhabited island in the lagoon in New Caledonia, we were besieged by ants, the brown ones that bite.
Life is sweet. We’re out of bed at 6.30 and down at the beach by 7. Usual stuff in the car – masks, snorkels, floaties, croissants, H & G mags, bucket and spade, 2 kids. It’s a 2 minute drive to the ocean where we set up.