Mcdonald jones sent someone out to do our final block inspection and we were sent an email saying we failed the inspection due to several reasons
(firstly, MacJones didnt tell us they were going out there but as we would have told them it still had a tree to be removed)
- There was a gum tree that had to be removed (I contacted the developers and had words with them over this as we were promised a clear block. They paid $2000 for removal which was good)
- Cement truck and bob cat parked on block (Neighbours were having their driveway removed and they decided our block was a good place to use)
- Blocks of cement from driveway dumped on block
- 1-2 Tonnes of road base dumped on our block
- Sewer pipe and water main run over and broken from people on our block.
(Concreters paid to fix the sewer pipe but refused to pay for the water one)
-Rubbish, bricks and cement on block from builders next door (metricon) When we called metricon we were basically told to get lost

Super frustrating as now MacJones wont send someone out for another 2 weeks.. back to the waiting game

So it has been a long time between posts but we finally have some movement. The land has registered and is settled in our name.
This process was time consuming and the bank made it quite stressful.
Because of the long weekend last weekend we had to drive our paperwork into the offices of the solicitors in the city and drop them off. If we didnt they wouldnt have made it on time and we could have potentially lost the land!
Now thats all sorted its a matter of giving our builder the last few things they need before we can go on the build list!

Today was our appointment to finalise our electrical aspects of the house. This is something I strongly suggest you thoroughly prepare for BEFORE you go. 
We took a copy of our plan and used an app called PHOTOEDITOR (Im sure there are hundreds of different ones) to plan out what we would need/want.

To start with we added everything we wanted, added up the price and then cut out the things we didn't REALLY need. 

Here is what our plan looked like before we got to our appointment:

We put in everything included as well as extras we wanted to add on. 
In our contracts we were also asked to put aside a budget for our electrical. Our budget was $10 000.


Upon arriving at McJ we were led through our appointment by a lady and I'm not going to lie we felt super rushed. Im not sure if they thought we were super organised or knew exactly what we wanted or whether thats just how the electrical appointments go, but I was so glad we came prepared. It didn't matter too much to us because we knew what we wanted, but I would suggest asking or letting them know if you feel like you would like longer in your appointment to discuss. 
The lady didn't really help us when we had questions, she just said "Whatever you think" which is a little frustrating, but it made us quickly make a decision I guess. 

We ended up adding a fan in the alfresco and a fan in the master bedroom, as well as an exhaust heat light in the two bathrooms. 

As we are super super keen to move in we decided to check out the new Ikea near our house (Marsden Park). Just to get an idea of furniture and different decorating ideas that might suit our home.

BEWARE: Don't visit IKEA without a list of what you need. Before we go back again we will be writing a detailed list of what we need along with any measurements of rooms etc. It wasn't too bad as we just went for a look, but you could definitely get overwhelmed and confused if you started buying things and didn't have a plan.

I was quite impressed with the quality. I always remember IKEA having poor quality furniture, but it really isn't! We found lots of great things that we will be buying for our house and even got some great styling ideas from their displays.


Planning:
The IKEA has some great tools to help plan out your house/storage/ wardrobes/measuring etc
http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_AU/customer_service/planning-tools.html?icid=au|iba|20140701|101

The sofas/ lounge suites aren't the lush sinking in type that you see in Domayne but they are practical and well priced. Not too sure about the lasting quality?

NOCKEBY - $1399
This they do in a left or right chaise as well to fit your living room

KALLAX shelving unit - $119
This comes in heaps of different shapes and sizes with different draws etc to put in the boxes. I even saw one with doors on some of the boxes

I have a bit of a storage solutions addiction - IKEA is the ultimate place for storage solutions. If you can think of it, they most likely have something very similar. This picture is of some of IKEA's kitchen storage ideas they have from bamboo cutlery liners to mix and match bin draw inserts they have everything.

The drawers that IKEA stocks range from standard three tier drawers all the way through to crazy mis-matched drawers, some of my favourites I found include:
Brown 6 drawers: $299
White 3 drawers: $129
White 15 drawers: $599

There are so many different sections in IKEA you need to stop for a rest and a drink half way through, don't think you can drop in for half an hour, this is almost a full day trip!!! 

The kid's items will blow your mind, seeing as we don't have any yet we tried to stay away from those sections to reduce time but there were some amazing items there. 

They also have plates, cups, lights, clocks, paintings, floor coverings, mats/rugs, books, office storage, gadgets etc

We haven't heard anything in a long time from our developer and we go out to the block every weekend to check on the progress. In the last 6-8 weeks..... nothing. 

I have tried contacting our developer several times and haven't heard a thing, so I went to the next step and rang the owner of the business who got in contact with me straight away.

Apparently we are waiting on Telstra and the water board to move come cables as well as the council to approve the plans...

We are now told registration will be mid to late August.I think this is the third date we have been told so hopefully this is the one!!!

On a second not so positive note, there is still a tree on our block, which is now apparently staying there and it is our responsibility to apply to council and get rid of it. Lesson learned: GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING. On our initial signing with the developer he said there would be no trees left on our block.. I guess he changed his mind and because we don't have it in writing we have no way of getting it changed until the block is ours.

We recieved an email from McDonald Jones my choice studio today with a colour pallete showing us a quick overview of our choices from our colours appointment. 

Very happy with the overall choices and look we have gone for.

Today was our colour selections day. We were booked in for 9:30am and were told to keep the whole day free. We were pretty organised and had done all our homework so we were out by about 2pm.
(Apparently they have had some people get there at 9:30am and still not be finished by 5pm) 

The day started with external, then kitchens, carpets and  tiles, then bathrooms, then putting it all together. Our consultant was Jessica. She was great, super friendly and had some good opinions. I did think she would have a bit more advice and made a few more suggestions but she really just left every decision to us. Because we were organised and knew what we wanted we were ok but I can see how it could be a nightmare for others who weren't organised. MJD says they have an 'interior designer' walk with you.. its not really like that. They basically just type into the computer what you say you want.

The one thing we went 100% on was the render and she kind of rushed us through that. But overall we were super happy, Jessica was more than happy to hold up samples and compare different colours etc

Our budget was about $20 000 for colours including Tiles and carpet throughout the whole house. The only thing we are doing ourselves is blinds and the laundry cupboards/benchtop.

By the end of the day we came in at $22 500 which we were pretty happy with. Some of the extras we decided to go with included:

Render to front of house: $2000 aprox - We got a $500 credit for removing the bag and paint so it only came to about $1500 to do the render. From looking around the older parts of Kellyville that were all bagged and painted they look pretty ratty now and they crack and peel so we decided it was worth just paying for the render.

Metallic splash back: $1200 (Didn't originally want to do this but it looked a million times better than any other option and mirror was even more expensive.)
It doesn't look that amazing in the photos. but it is super super sparkly in real life.

Tiles: $9200 - These are 600mm x 600mm and are called " G Pearl PP. They look AMAZING. They are definitely my favourite thing we picked the whole day. We are having these in front hall, kitchen, living/dining, theatre room. 
- In the pictures the one we chose is the lighter tile out of the two.
(We did hear if you don't get MJH to do the tiles they don't screet the floor and it ends up being a nightmare getting other tilers in and the tiles crack because the floor is uneven and they leave the skirting boards off or your tiler has to pull them off etc.. we didn't want the hassle so went with MJH and the tiles are breathtaking anyway so super happy)

Carpet: $3000 - This carpet has a 15 year warranty. There were not many options to choose from, there was one that suited us perfectly though so we just decided it was worth it to go with MJH and get the carpet. The lady really pushed us for the expensive carpet. It was the only thing the whole day that I felt like she was trying to sell, she didn't push any other product which was a little weird.

 Sheen top cupboards in kitchen: $500 - These are slightly shinier than the matt but not super high gloss, we figured they wouldn't show up the finger marks as much as the high gloss. Only problem we had with this was not all the colours were available in this "sheen" finish.

Pot drawers on right hand side of oven: $250 - Just to create nice storage space in the kitchen and to break up the doors of the cupboards.

High front door: $560 - Hated this one but because we got high ceilings we had to get the high wooden front door and the extra cost to go with it....

Wood stained front door (Caoba)  $475 - Again not happy but thats the price

Wood stained pole at the front entrance  $230 - this is a tiny pole holding the front veranda roof up that joins to a pole down the bottom. Its tiny but Blake wanted it stained...

Caoba coloured garage door: $675 - Cost for the in colour I think... This is for the dark wood coloured garage door to match the front door.

Semi Framed shower screens: $250 - We wanted to go semi frameless but it was $860 ea so we just decided to go the semi framed, which basically means the frame is silver instead of white and looks a little more contemporary.

Bricks: $500 - We upgraded our bricks to the Austral "Wilderness Blackbutt" The Austral people gave us a sample brick to take home and although we are having render out the front, we thought it would be really nice to have a nice brick out the back when you are sitting in the alfresco area. Apparently the smooth finish bricks are about $10 000 to upgrade to, so $500 seemed ok!!!

Wardrobe: $730 - We added 2 x 4 drawer/4shelf cupboards into the WIR ($350 ea)  and a double hanger ($30) It will only be us two living there so we didn't worry about the other cupboards.

Melamine shelving: $700 - This was to upgrade he wire shelves in all the wardrobes and in the pantry changed to white melamine which looks cleaner.

Glass panelled door for pantry and ensuite (Lincon door): $1520 - This was something we think will make the kitchen look amazing and will make our bedroom classy and not look like its joined to another room. Definitely the one thing I would take out if we went too far over budget.

Door handles: $400 - This is the cost for the whole house to have nice long handles on every door. Definitely worth it as the standard ones are shocking. This was the first thing we decided we wanted.

Tri-lock front door handle: $280 - a long lever handle instead of the round one that comes standard.

Fly screens: $430 - We had 14 windows and one sliding door to be fly screened. 

The services to our blocks are all finished. Except for gas =[
The dirt has been pushed over and looks like they are flattening out all the blocks which is awesome because it means we are getting closer to completion!!!

• Note the trees in the picture that are still on the land..... Pretty confused as to why these are still here as the developer said he would get rid of every tree on the block. By looking over the plans it looks like he might have been fibbing and is leaving a big gumtree on our block. Not happy. One of the trees from the front of the block is gone but there is still a large one at the back.
• The road is still not finished as well and there is a strange drain at the front of our block, we are assuming this is here as a precaution and will be changed before we get to start building.
• Overall our block is looking nice and flat which is a great thing. Hopefully that decides some of the land fees from MADJ.

Our land has finally started to move! The developers have started digging trenches for all our electricity, water etc. 
They still have not got back to us about whether they are putting gas into our blocks. The developer said he didn't know if we could get it.. 
All the blocks around us have gas so I rang the natural gas company for our area Jemena gas. They said yes it is in our street and told me to find out how much it would cost by getting a plummer to make an application on our behalf to get the gas. Luckily my dad has lots of plumbers who work for him so he has asked one to put the application in... I guess we will soon find out.

Its looking like we won't have any pipes or taps in strange places on our block which is awesome.

It was pouring rain so the photos aren't great!.. just good to see dirt finally being moved around!

McDonald Jones homes are great in that they gave us a list of unfinished Nova's to have a look at. Obviously they can't give us finished ones because people would be living there but it was great to see some of the ones that are being built. 
Just by driving around through The ponds we also found a finished Nova house and the house next door was rendered a great colour so we snapped some pictures to show our colour consultant on our big colour day.
 The top picture is a nova being build one street down from us
The rendered house is the render colour we like
The bottom house is the finished Nova.

Austral bricks also printed us out a list of houses that were being built using the specific brick that we liked. They can do this for more than one brick so we can compare.