Organic Garden - work in progess

Vege Patch in proges,.

Must be tomatoes.

Our Pumpkin Patch.

Kale

Goji Berrry

Hubby still in the midst of planting - there are so many things in there, cos lettuce, watermelon, raspberries, grapes, cirtrus trees, I lost track!

Concreting Done!

front of house

Concreting all complete - still pending colour situation from Simonds.

We got our concrete done with a supplier - they were great and this is the end result!

Front side - no more yucky mud!

Back of house

Side of house

The other side - where the laundry room leads.

Now, its another project trying to work around this and getting the other bits of the garden together... building a new home is really taxing!

Not a pleasent update - wrong concrete colours being dismissed

This on-going saga with Simonds is driving me mad!  Simonds have given me the wrong colour sealant and claimed that they have fufiled their contract. 

Driveway in wrong colour

Driveway - right colour

My intial driveway was done in the right colour - which is desert sand. ( orange in colour)
It peeled after 3 months and Simonds had to reseal it - this time, they gave us a whitish cream colour. We emailed them with many pictures and colour swabs from the internet and despite these many attempts to rectified it, we have been ignored.

Receipt given to us to prove that they have given us the right colour

 Here is the receipt given to us stating that the right colour is given - whatever that is on the invoice does not prove much especailly I have no ABN number and cannot trace this company on yellow pages.  Simonds has to provide the colour sold to us at the Simonds Gallery and this did not happen. As far as I know - this is deceptive advertising if it really is the case.


i cannot even match the product used as I had concrete done on other parts of the land and needed to know what product / brand is used.

So far, every brand that I have researched has shown the colour to be brown / orange, it is sad that this blog has to be turned into another Simonds saga.

There are also many cases in the house when tradesman had came to fix items only to change colours on there because the stain on the items weren't right.

Go to product review.com.au and you will see for yourself the plight of other people who built with Simonds. 

All we want is to quickly resolve this issue.  Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thank you.

Baby Steps

I know it's been a long time since I did the last update, it is tiring trying to get things up while working full time, leaving us only the weekends to complete massive tasks. Plantation Shutters up and lights up in the front room - notice that my bookcase that I wanted is still not there ( not as cashed up as I would like to be!)

This is the family room - was bare with only the couch and table, newly added carpet, lights and my old bookcase did the trick.

This has been finally stained - u would see a cherry timber coloured dresser in my 1st few blogs. Good ole daddy did it for me and added some vinyl cloth at the top to hide the horrible top.

Mesh patio blinds are better than the smelly plastic ones that go yellow after some time, so this one's for the dogs! ( make them feel like they are in a room)

We had to hire our own scafolding and set this up and then the pain of putting all the crystals up from tangled up wires.... up to 400 pcs all hung up.

at last!

Some works done...

We have recently added plantation shutters to the front room which really changes the ambience of the house- we loved it.

Also added some Laura Ashley wallpaper that my very capable parents did as a joint effort. Now, we have to change the lighting - got a pendant crystal light from Bunnings that had to be put up - and with the warm yellow light, things might look much better.

Nightmare hasn't ended

Only been here for 3 months and a bit, and here are more problems from what would not have happened if the house is done properly in the first place.

Leaks at the front door.

Leaks inside the house

Again, the list goes on from cracked skirtings through the house and render to bowed staircase and paint brush hairs stuck in the varnish.

Window frame twisted. Excess concrete in shower drains, and the list goes on and on.... about 40 so far.

Does get draining after a while.  

Bits and Pieces.. making it livable - Stage 1

Here is a glimpse of our first 6 days living here, we havent had the dough for the furniture that I would love, so we are making do with whatever we had in our other home.. Looks a little sparse, but its going to be this way for a while... would love to have a rug, our coffee table ( wished I had a new one) is still in storage somewhere. and also, a plant at the corner with a ornamental ladder shelf. hmm, wishlist 1.

Hubby calls this junk, but am loving the white ceremic.

Study with no bookshelf or table. Wishlist 2. Saw a french provincial one but my accounting books dont agree to it at the moment.  Bookshelf to be around 3 meters along the wall that you can see, and study table to go along window on the right.

This wall panel was ( if you see my eailer posts) was bought Dec last year, but the order came through in Easter.... finally up!

After many attempts, hubby is happy with this clock. Everything looks too distressed to him, but he'll settle for this.

Dining area, overlooking backyard. Cant' wait for clothes line to be up!

Backyard needing a LOT of love!

Media Room with no media! I am glad we are not TV addicts, so its not a bad thing, having more book time with kiddo!

Little bits, at the top of kitchen cabinet ( on the right)

Little bits, at the top of kitchen cabinet ( on the left)

This also has been bought for a while, now under the stairs in the hallway, handy for wearing shoes.

Realised that it was a good thing getting things beforehand, as now there are so many other little things that we need to get, and like the saying goes, too many things, too little cash :)

Am going to blog my wishlist sometime soon!