Hooooorayyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Benj got an email from Kate Bennie today... they've begun!!!!  Earthmoving started today! Yay!

Brushcutting

Benji went like a machine and brushcut the bejesus out of the block yesterday.  I hacked a few trees down, sussed out the pram walk situation, took in the views from the lookout at the top of the National Park, discovered a rogue rooster at the NP campground, got Budi to sleep, met the next door neighbours (Mary and her granddaughter Trinity), took Budi for a special treat - an icecream in town, where we went for a walk and patted a couple of horses, drove back and Benji was STILL brushcutting.  He's a machine that man. 

I am excited about moving out to the block but do admit that I feel nervous too... are we limitting Budi's opportunities by moving away from Brissy?  What I hope is that we can give him experiences and opportunities that we couldn't in a city. 

And then....on the way home we stopped into The Story Tree Cafe and chanced upon a book launch they were hosting - Thornwood House by Anna Romer.  (I am going to have to get a copy!)

I stole this image of Anna from The Story Tree's FB page because we were too filthy and looking like members of a chain gang to actually go in... but yay!  Stuff happens in Boonah!

Wildflowers

The wild flowers are stunning at the moment. I'm still trying to work out what the pink flowers are... [Edit 09/09/2013: I've discovered they are Stylidium laricifolium.]

... these little white flowers are Ozothamnus diosmifolius. (Sago flower)

This one is a Swainsona of some type I think.  (Poor photo - the camera batteries died so I only got a few shots.)

EDIT: Definitely not a Swainsona!  Actually a Bossiaea rupicola.

We've signed the contract!

Hooray!  On friday (two days ago) my two lovely boys and I drove to our home-town-to-be and met with Scott and Kate to sign the building contract!  So that's it...  According to the contract, we will be living in our new house in 12 months or less!!!  Scott even gave us cycling jerseys to mark the occasion. After the contract was signed we went up to the block just to wallow in the excitement a little more.  There has been a wildflower explosion so it looks amazing up there, albeit a little overgrown.  Benj is keen on investing in a brushcutter and maybe even a bobcat (S will be in his element!!!) so we can do a bit of grooming before building begins.... which should be really, really soon!  Yipee. 

Scott Bennie is Back!

So much has happened since that last post of mine... I really should blog more often... it's only for us anyway and it's interesting thinking back on our (very slow) progress...I should have kept this up to date... but hey... I am blogging again now, and it's because...there is momentum building in our little project and it sort of feels like something might, dare I even think it?, happen soon!!! I'm really excited because Kate and Scott Bennie are back on the project.

I was so nervous back then, when we got the quotes back and we decided not to use Scott as our builder.  He just seems so professional and switched on. He seems smart and passionate about building interesting buildings.  But when the quotes came in so vastly different we thought it would be foolish on our part not to go with the cheaper guy.  So we had to ditch Scott.  When we met with him (the cheaper guy) I was still nervous.  Nice guy. Nice family.  But he just didn't seem to have his head around everything. Our place is not a normal build and I was just worried he'd underestimated the complexity and under quoted... and would discover that halfway through and end up cutting corners and skimping on professionalism and quality as needed to keep his costs down. I just don't think he really got us or what we are trying to achieve (unlike Scott and Kate with whom we just seemed to click right from the start). 

Anyway, Benji (the champion) was so so thorough in going through all the details of the quotes and found a number of holes in the cheap quote and other various issues... finally we decided to go back to Scott and Kate and go through everything again with them both and asked them to have us back!  They agreed and we've just been working through a few details and we'll soon have some sort of concrete evidence that yes, we are indeed building our home!!!!!  I am just so relieved to have Scott and Kate back on board.  I'm so excited to start.  Buuuuuut, I need to calm down.  I feel like we've been saying things like this for so long now.  AUUUGHghghghhhh surely soon?!!!!  It feels close!

 

We've actually even started collecting light shades.  We bought this awesome vintage candle lantern  from a second hand store in Wooloongabba and are going to convert it to a pendant light shade. (I am actually quite proud of the lighting plan which became my baby - poor Benji has done almost everything else...). And last night we took a look at the final kitchen cabinetry drawings... so things are becoming more real. 

Meeting with the builder on Good Friday

...feeling a bit nervous... apparently he was abusive to one of the waste water treatment system providers... i hope he's not a bastard!