Inspiration

I am inspired by lots of aesthetics that I see, people's gardens, architecture. I can trawl other people's blogs for hours, I have a few favourites spanning my areas of interest.

One of my favourite house design ones is this blog. Amazingly this one blog gets 43,000 visitors every day. It has some really excellent sections, but mostly I just love the images. Like these:

I love the danish chair, red rug and the owners made the little table out of their accumulated newspapers, tape, string and a glass plate. Cute.



Love this space, so retro yet so contemporary, the timber floor and ceiling, the bookcase, the room is arranged so well into areas.

And kooky things like this next one are so appealing too.


And this next photo makes me think we could possibly keep the exposed beams in our living room, if we stripped them back or alternatively painted the beams and recessed parts.

busy mind

That's how I've felt about our house in the last little while. No blogging but plenty of thinking. But as I created this blog to get things out of my head, it's time to start posting.

Mostly I've been thinking about the fence, garden and exterior of the house. I have been stopping and taking photos when I notice something I like.

There are three interconnected aspects that need to be sorted out in the short term:


The type of fence to erect around the front and side of the house comes first. As that's predominantly where our garden is and where we will be spending time outdoors it makes sense to me to put up a tall fence, probably 2 metres. This will provide privacy and keep the dog contained. The challenge is using the right materials, and how to create a fence which might look good with the type of house it surrounds. It isn't going to be consistent with the era of the house but nevertheless it needs to work aesthetically. I have been thinking of a colorbond fence with timber posts and tops to break up the boxiness of the panels, like this

without the contrasting post tops. But am now thinking maybe all timber might be good. Like this

Hard to really tell the difference with these photos - I was taking them for the fence but also because I like the plantings between the fence and the footpath - softens the line and ideally stops the weeds. I like these native iris plants and I really like the native grasses on this next one



Anyway back to the fence. It occurs to me to consider what colour we plan to paint the exterior of the house in the next few years and incorporate those ideas into the fence. This is where it gets tricky. The house has existing colorbond guttering and fascias which are in good condition and probably won't need to be replaced for some time. The gutters are a dark grey and compliment the roof tiles well. So it makes sense to incorporate the colour of those when considering the house exterior and fence. More research required.

Building Inspection

I really wasn't sure how the building inspection would go, knowing that most of the house is more than 50 years old. The news was mostly very good. Quick run down of report:

• Structurally sound, has been restumped onto concrete stumps. Floor has slight undulation, the bloke thought that might be because the stumps were not exactly level when re-done. There are a couple of doors that are not square as a result.
• Roof has original concrete tiles, they have been re-sealed in recent years. Roof space is clear and has a good covering of insulation.
• Also relatively new colourbond guttering, needs clean out but in good condition.
• Fairly new hot water system.
• Ensuite bathroom has a leak around the shower. Immediate maintenance needed to seal around shower base where it meets the tiles. Longer term need to pull out shower and assess water damage to floor.
• No leaks of water in kitchen, good water pressure.
• Electricals have been upgraded, new switch, has circuit breaker and safety switch.
• Back deck handrailing needs replacing, there are a couple of holes in weatherboards (cut out) that need filling, otherwise the boards are in good shape. Broken tiles in entrance.

The thing he said at the end is that we're buying it in "as is" condition which means the vendor is not trying to hide anything or tart it up. What you see is what you get. With a good clean up and bits of maintenance here and there it will be good. More renos later on will make it lovely (not his words). Great outcome really, I was prepared to take advantage of the cooling off period to pull out of the deal if there were major structural issues with the house - that would have ended at 5pm today. Much relieved.

Amazing Grace

We bought the house in Nelson Rd on Friday. There were two other offers, we increased our price and now it's ours! Or it will be after we attend to our finance and the building inspection. As soon as we had signed on the dotted line I started to have doubts - what have we got ourselves into, will we be able to manage the necessary improvements and preferred changes, is it too old, is the extension too ugly etc etc etc etc. I think there's a term for it, something like mortgagee's cold feet or something.

Claire and I spent today at Tarsha and Peter's strawbale house build. What they have accomplished as complete novices is nothing short of miraculous, except that there has not been divine intervention - it's been their combined commitment, passions and willingness that is inspirational. It's not complete yet but it's well on the way. What I took from today (apart from some aches and sore hands) is that really, if they can do that, we can manage some relatively minor renovations and landscaping.

So here's my list of things I'd like to do to our new house, in relative priority from high to low.

• Fence the whole block. Yet to research materials.


• Investigate need for cooling/heating in the house, including insulation options.


• Replace floor in kitchen/dining and laundry with recycled boards and polish them.


• Line ceiling in lounge room to be rid of the 1970's exposed beams, insulating at the same time.


• Repaint entire interior of house.


• Replace window coverings through whole house.


• Landscape and redesign the outdoor spaces, porch/deck, paths and plant drought-tolerant, bird attracting garden.


• Renovate the bathrooms, one at a time!


• Repaint exterior of house.


• Possibly knock out wall to WIR in master bedroom to make room bigger, build BIR along that wall and remodel bathroom putting door to bathroom nearer to bedroom door.

I had thought that writing down that list would help, but actually it's just made me feel overwhelmed! Think I'll stop now and go back to watching DIY videos on utube, they make it look really easy!

decisions

Called the agent yesterday and offered $363k. Went in to the office and he proceeded to tell me there would probably be 2 more offers by the end of the day. So today I expect to get another call asking for our best, walk-away offer. The settlement period we proposed was 60 days.

It's horrible being in this limbo and trying to work out what we think it's worth to us. And that incorporates the cost of the work that needs to be done as well as our budget. So while our buying power is significantly higher than $363k we don't want to overspend. However as the agent said (I know it's in his interest to say it) if you put in offers based on the work you think the house needs you'll never have a house to do anything to!

Amazingly, the agent who Mum used to work for remembered her! Without prompting he remembered the years that she worked there (1969-71), that she was from the country - he had a funny story about her and he remembered her big sunglasses. He sends his regards Mum!

Nelson Street

We inspected Nelson St last night, quite like it, a bit disappointed that the 1970's brought so many poor extensions including this one. There are still a number of lovely 1950's touches, some original windows, the fireplace and cornices/cupboards/built in shelves. And there is plenty of room, a good functioning kitchen, 2 toilets (very important!).

Anyway I just have to call the council and clarify what is meant by the "owners corporation" which is included in the s32 between no 20 and the house which is on the subdivided part, facing into Acacia Crt. There is a grate over a storm water drain in the driveway which is what the owners corporation seems to cover.

There are currently tenants living in the house, their lease does not end until December. This means that we may not be able to move in until then. However the agent said what often happens in these circumstances is that as soon as the tenants find something they like they will move and the new landlord could waive the get-out-of-lease-early fee.

Then the question is what should we offer? And what about the terms? The agent talked a lot last night, there are no other offers at this point and he implied the following:

• a buyer could purchase this house for $365k if there was no competition.


• the vendor would prefer a short settlement (no surprises there)


• it would be a good idea to make the sale before the weekend as the buyer would cut out further competition which may emerge at the OFI (also good for agent of course)

My feeling, having an idea of what properties are selling for that this place would be a very good buy at $365k. And it could easily sell for $390k or even more. So I'm not sure if it would be wise to offer much less than $365k, subject to building inspection.

hhhmm

Well I was kind of in despair last week. Spoke to the agent about the block in Blackburn Sth, he said that there's alot of interest in the block, still waiting for the title and he will then call all interested parties. He implied that the block could sell for more than it's advertised price of $329k and I went into a tunnel, having doubts about whether we'll ever be able to do this house buying thing. Part of it is not knowing the costs and time frame of moving a house onto the land. Talking to Tarsh I started to worry about our ability to pay the rent and mortgage repayments on the land while we waited for the house to be ready to move into. We would need to borrow extra to cover those costs but without knowing exactly how long it would take. Bottom line is I'm not sure we have the funds and financial flexibility to manage a relocation if we buy land for $300,000+. It might be possible but need more info. Couldn't go to see the relocator on Friday as Claire was sick and needed to be at home.

In the mean time I saw this house in Ringwood. It's in a great location near the station and buses that go to Mitcham Primary School and Blackburn High School (one of the prime choices of secondary schools for the kids). It has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and what looks like plenty of living space. Downside is it is on a small block (450 sqm) and I'm not sure if this block might feel like too little land. The upside is it's on a corner of a court which would mean safe cycling and playing in the street for the kids. We will go and see it on Tuesday afternoon. An amazing coincidence is that this is the street that my parents lived in when they were first married and moved to Melbourne. Just a few houses from number 20. Also, all those years ago, 1969-1970, my Mum worked for the agent who is still operating and is selling this house!