Building Sami’s House

Part 3
"So should I buy the stubbies or the cans?" I found myself asking a total stranger in the cold room of Dan Murphys.  I was treading new ground here but had it on good authority from many people that it was imperative I shout a carton of beer to celebrate the very exciting factor my slab had been poured.  Who would have thought grey concrete could excite a woman so much! But actually seeing the base of what will very shortly be home to myself and my two dogs makes the reality so much more real that yes 2009 will be the year that I finally have my own house.

My little pad is being built as you read this in the new estate called Brightwater, behind Kawana Island.  I am building with locally owned company Adenbrook and it has been amazing to witness the creation and birth of something that will be around long after I croak this earth (well unless it is bulldozed to make way for a mansion one day). I secretly carved a love heart into the concrete water tank slab at the back of the block as I just couldn't resist marking the auspicious day. Immature: yes!  Am I alone in carving things into concrete: no! The house is fairly small with three bedrooms and a study.  Best of all it has a walk in wardrobe and an ensuite, proving I really am an adult.  It is hard for me to imagine exactly how big the rooms are etc and so in my mind I am still trying to work out what piece of furniture will go where.  I am told this gets much easier to visualise once the frame is complete.

By the way Mr Anonymous-tradie-in-the-cold-room, I did take your advice and bought the cans!

Real estate and fishing have much more in common than you may think.  It sems we all have a story of the 'one that got away'. As for my story that is a coulda,shoulda, woulda tale well it involves a piece of dirt and a house in Buderim that is now worth a small fortune and no doubt if I had gone ahead and bought it years ago I would now have a daily routine that revolved around sipping mojitos on the deck and grooming my dogs while watching Oprah and now and again taking in sweeping views of the Coast from my massive deck.  This full time work thing would be thrown out the window! The house in Panorama Crescent (one of the best streets in Buderim I think) was on the market back in 2001 for $342 thousand dollars.  I ummed and ahhed.  I finally decided that despite being blue chip real estate it was simply too close to Buderim Molooloolaba Road and it was on the wrong side of the street as the homes on the lower side of the cul de sac have no neighbours and directly front bushland.  This means you can swan around the deck all day in your pyjamas without a worry in the world.  Big mistake on my behalf! Big, big, big! Using the website onthehouse.com.au (check it out if you want to know the sale price of a house owned by your boss/best friend/brother etc) showed it sold one year later for $475 thousand dollars.  Current market value would have to be very close to one million dollars.   Perhaps missing out on the Buderim house stopped me from turning into an alcoholic crazy dog lady!

Radio realestate.com.au continues to grow.  I honestly believe it's a really good thing for buyers, sellers, industry professionals and all locals who own or rent a home to have a free service they can tune into to find out what is happening in their own backyard.  The show is one hundred per cent local.  Dan Sowden of Ray White Maroochydore  and I started the show 18 months ago before the man behind the golden microphone, Rob Douglas of Adenbrook,  joined us.  Erle from the Property section of the Daily rounds out our show to hopefully bring an overall expert look at what is happening in the Coast and national market.  Suburb focus has proved to be one of the most popular segments we do each week.

Part 2
So my home plans are still bubbling along.  It's all a bit confusing but the guys (and girls) at Adenbrook are being super helpful and leading me through contracts and colour charts and other important decisions such as the colour of the front door. Colours are curly.  Stained natural wood for the entrance door or super sleek and modern grey? Well of course it's not called grey - colours are like that aren't they? They are always given far more exotic names that seem compulsory such as Slate, Marble, Crushed Concrete, Charcoal and my personal favourite, Arsenic!

However contracts have been signed and I am still making some final decisions on important things such as just how many power points does one person and their two dogs need in a four bedroom home! Being a Libran decision making is a painful process!

I have never in my life coveted something for a kitchen.  This is the girl afterall who owns one saucepan! Truly! When the last serious ex boyfriend moved out he took with him his set of Baccarat beauties and I continued to live in bliss eating take away and fish fingers.  My big sister intervened one weekend and brought over one single sad little saucepan as she was convinced I would die if I didn't eat some form of vegetables some time soon that wasn't courtesy of Red Rooster! How the tide has turned.  Now I lie awake at night dreaming of a gleaming white splashback in snow white kitchen that will somehow transform me into Nigella Lawson! Nigella surrounded by a blanket of artic snow! The snag is the splashback costs three thousand dollars more than kitchen tiles.  But can you really put a price on beauty? Beauty is pain and clearly that means a form of some financial pain! I mean the tiles look so daggy compared to the gleaming glittery glamour of the glass. I am justifying the splashback in my mind by telling myself I saved a lot of money eating fish fingers during the past twelve months so I can rightfully splurge in my new home!
 
So the week has been spent trying to decide what 'extras' one needs in a house!

It's time to be an adult and commit to something.  It's the biggest laybye I have ever taken upon myself and I can't simply return this to Target if it doesn't fit!
Yes despite years of living without having to pay rates I have finally decided to bite the bullet and buy a piece of dirt to call my very own.  I am living the Great Aussie Dream even though it seems at the moment many experts are saying nightmare times are ahead of us all.  I figure as long as I have a job I can

Finally I will be able to nail as many screws into the walls as I so wish! That is my idea of heaven and a big motivator for wanting to buy my own house.  I have collected art for decades and am sick of stacking painting after painting under the stairs because I am not game to whack holes into rental property walls.  It's funny what motivates us all to buy.

So here goes my blog on building a house that will hopefully become a home for myself and my two dogs Louis and Hugo.

So I have a block at Stockwater's Brightwater - it's small but close to a park and a nice flat little slice of paradise.

Now the fun of picking the colours and layout of the pad begins!

Part 1
It's time to be an adult and commit to something.  It's the biggest layby I have ever taken upon myself and I can't simply return this to Target if it doesn't fit!
Yes despite years of living without having to pay rates I have finally decided to bite the bullet and buy a piece of dirt to call my very own.  I am living the Great Aussie Dream even though it seems at the moment many experts are saying nightmare times are ahead of us all.  I figure as long as I have a job I can


Finally I will be able to nail as many screws into the walls as I so wish! That is my idea of heaven and a big motivator for wanting to buy my own house.  I have collected art for decades and am sick of stacking painting after painting under the stairs because I am not game to whack holes into rental property walls.  It's funny what motivates us all to buy.

So here goes my blog on building a house that will hopefully become a home for myself and my two dogs Louis and Hugo.

So I have a block at Stockland's Brightwater - it's small but close to a park and a nice flat little slice of paradise.

Now the fun of picking the colours and layout of the pad begins!