Coming together

Long time, no post!

Our kind-of-custom Arden home is coming together beautifully.  In fact, final inspection date and handover are already booked.  FOR THIS MONTH!!!


Isn't she perfect??

The Limed White render came out a bit darker than we expected, but it's sitting nicely with our other selections.
Monument garage door went on today.  Love it.  Blends in with the Mt Eden columns.  And those cedar battens - drool - that tie in with the stained pivot door.  Love it, love it, love it.

Timber floors are absolutely beautiful.  We went for an expansion joint mid-way along the hallway, to allow for future movement.  They've done such a great job of fitting it.  Much better than last house.  And I'm loving the way you can see straight down the hallway and out the back sliding door.  We'll be able to make a feature of this when it comes to landscaping.

Same floor, different light.  This is in my treatment room on the South side of the house.  Surprisingly bright.  Loving the Dulux Gecko feature wall against Natural White everywhere else.

 Ensuite - so excited by the look of the bathrooms.  It's hard to see in this pic, but the stone has small grey pieces that are picked up on the grey of the tiles.  Sinks, taps and caulking to go.

Not far to go in the kitchen.  Island server bench, splash back and some finishing off.  Having a fridge INSIDE the house again is going to be a total treat.  GET ME IN THERE!!!

Arden have built us a sensational house.  Our supervisor calls us if he's not 100% sure of something, like the position of power points or light switches.  Meeting me on-site to open up for curtain measurements.  Very, very happy customers right about now!

House of sticks

Pinch me!  We've got the outline of a house.  Our home.

Can't wait to see our huge sliding doors that lead onto the sun court.  And that window on the left; that's where my desk will go.  From here I can see all the way over into the park.

If you look really closely you can see the elevated ceiling in the living area, and I hadn't realised that you could see allllll the way through the house from back door to front.

This is the really cool, albeit slightly scary, part of making so many modifications to the base plan.  Every little reveal is a surprise.  And so far we're loving the flow, the space and the light.  Hopefully we feel the same when it starts to become closed in with roof (this coming week) and external walls (maybe the following week).

Tomorrow we meet our site supervisor for a walk-through, just to make sure everything is as we'd imagined before they go any further.

Very positive experience with Arden so far.  It's going to be a great build!

I do believe...

...we're being framed!

True to their word, the chippies were onsite first thing Monday morning to kick off our frame.

The pencil marks on the slab where the frame will go make it all look really tiny.  Like, freak-out tiny.  But now that the walls are taking shape, it feels more spacious.

See the sun court in the middle?  I think it's going to be my favourite "room" in the house.

If all goes to plan, the frame will be finished by Friday.  How quickly are we moving??

It's raining, it's pouring

Springtime in Melbourne; warm days, wet days, magpie attacks, more wet days.

With the forecast showing 80% chance of rain until Thursday (which is predicted to be 26!  go figure), we weren't expecting any movement on the slab pour.

And yet I drove past a touch before 7am.  As you do.  To see...

The concrete pump stretching it's legs.

OMG.  Today is pour day.

Seriously?  Today is pour day?

That's not sunrise; that's a whopping storm and it's headed right for Balanced HQ.

Right on queue, our Site Supervisor gives me a call to share the exciting news that the concrete will be going down today.  His reaction to me already knowing gives me the impression that clients don't actually visit their site twice each day.  And definitely not before 7am.  

Mum pops into clinic for a treatment later in the day - complete with pics of a swarm of dudes knee deep in cement.  We ooh and ahh over them as though they're a newborn.

Ten hours later they're still on site trying to dry it out with the helicopter.

Doesn't it look beautiful?

Garage, porch, showers, suncourt; there it all is.

Can I move in yet??

Waffles for Breakfast

It's the strangest feeling.  You know nothing will have been done overnight, but yet you find yourself driving by anyway.

On a public holiday.

When you'd already been past the night before.

Total jaw-dropping moment when we came across a hive of activity on our block.



Our nice, neat framework and waffle pods with a reo topping.

The Melbourne weather has been a blessing, as it gives my Dad a chance to check their work pre-pour.  30 years in the concrete industry means that he'll be checking this inch by inch.


If it passes the Dad once-over,  all we need is a few rain-free Melbourne days, and we'll have this baby poured.

Finding a facade

There's a heck of a lot of choices to be made in this building caper.  One of our first was facade.

Last build, I remember agonising over choosing the face of our home.  Our builder gave us an address lists of other versions of our base house being built or recently finished, and off we'd go, taking photos, comparing, deciding, changing, deciding again.  Agonising.

Not so this time around.

Arden gave us 8 options to choose from, and in less than 2 minutes we were down to a choice of two.

We 100% knew we wanted a raised ceiling in the entry, which automatically ruled out the first 4 options.

Keeping within budget disqualified these two;

Which left the two contenders...

I like them both.  I like them boooooooth.  The portico makes the house look wider and definitely more welcoming.

Do we like the bottom one $1,500 more than the top?  Nope.  Done.  Arco it is!

Probably no coincidence that it's also the facade of our display.
I wonder what percentage of people stick with the displayed version.


Here's a very rough idea of our home's face.

Our roof is a touch darker, and that wall to the left of the column is narrower.  Thank goodness!  I would have LOVED a long, narrow window in here but I misunderstood the timeframes for changes.  The windows in this front room have given me a few nights of broken sleep.  But it is what it is.  And if we're smart with our plant placement, we can balance it up visually again.

The contrast Mt Eden (charcoal grey) render we originally chose for those front columns has changed.  We're keeping it all a consistent Limed White which should make it seem wider and give a cleaner look.  Fingers crossed.  Or the paintbrush will come out!!

The Underground

Every day this week there's been some form of action at Balanced HQ.

Yesterday's pile of gravel became todays trenches and the start of plumbing.  So.  Many.  Pipes.

It was pretty exciting to map out the rooms and start to get a feel for the space.

Now that things were sticking up from the ground, I could use these as landmarks to navigate my way through the whole house.  Room by room I could feel the flow of rooms; where the master bed will sit in relation to the sun court and ensuite.  The vacant space left between bathroom and kitchen for the theatre.  The width of the kitchen bench.

In my mind it all looks amazing.  Calm.  Balanced.  Contemporary.  With a touch of architectural edge.

I wonder what next week will bring?