I took possession of the house on 30 November which just happened to be my 43rd birthday (no smart remarks about the age thank you). I could not have asked for a better birthday present and I started moving in that night.
I had a mad three days of moving into the new house while cleaning the old house ready for hand over to the new owners, my thanks to June, Mark and Leanne for all their help with the move, I would not have been able to do it without you.
While the new house had been professionally cleaned it needed another one as dust had settled everywhere. I have since discovered that when living in a new estate with trucks going up and down each day it's hard to keep the place clean however it's funny how you love house work when it's a new house.
I had a blind company come out during the week to measure and quote on blinds. While plantation shutters are a little out of budget at the moment I have ordered Shutter blinds for all of the bedrooms and the bathrooms and roller blinds for all the other windows and doors. I don't expect to have them until after Christmas so am living with sheets at the moment.
So what about these dramas that I speak of, well where to begin?
As some of you who have been reading my blog will know I was installing my Kitchen appliances myself however the builder was installing the microwave. I was quite happy to live on frozen meals for a week or so. The first Saturday of the move it was 9:00pm, I was dead tired and had not eaten since the bag of jelly beans I had the night before. I take a frozen meal from the freezer, place it in the microwave press 'start' and nothing, not a thing! Call customer care on Monday morning and they say they will have to get a technician out, first day free is Wednesday. Technician comes out and says 'It's dead' we will have to replace it. Can't do that until the following Thursday so it looks like toasted sandwiches and salads for a week.
Sunday, after finding my TV cables I hook up the TV to the antenna only to get a mass of snow on the screen. So it's a call to my SS Monday morning and another one to the Antenna company who have installed the antenna but not hooked it up. It seems the antenna was installed before the star system and no-one connected the two.
Monday the Foxtel guy comes to install my satellite dish. I put some carpet off cuts down on the floor where he is going to work so it does not get scratched. Low and behold he still manages to scratch it. He offers to pay for it but I'm thinking I can polish them out. He is kind enough to give me a digi path for my trouble.
Tuesday morning I open my beautiful Bi-part doors to the alfresco area and one of the doors falls out of it's track. I catch it in time, put it back in place but cannot slide it. I call the SS and he is there within 30 minutes to fix it himself. Seems that the painters took the door off to paint and put the guides back in the wrong place.
Wednesday the guys come to install the oven only to find that the cavity is 5mm too small, yes the oven fits in but the door cannot be opened, another call to the SS who is yet to rectify this problem. The electricians remove the top trim so that I can have an oven and all is well.
The dishwasher is also installed on Wednesday but alas there's a leak, the gas fitter who installs my cook top fixes this and I am happy.
Thursday my phone is to be installed, I get to 4:00pm and still no technician so I call Telstra only to find that they installed my telephone (and the new number I gave to all my friends) to another house in the estate. I'm not happy as it was such an easy number to remember. They re-schedule for the next day, give me a new number and true to their word the technician is there at 10:00am to install it (takes less than 5 minutes)
Lastly Saturday morning I decide to do some washing. My friends husband kindly hooked up my washing machine for me when I moved. A lot of people warned me not to be surprised if after moving the washing machine I go to do a load of washing and the thing wont start. I put a load on start her up and it goes, I breath a sigh of relief and go off to continue unpacking. Twenty minutes later I think that the washing machine has been a little quiet. I go to check it and sure enough, not going, pumps gone. So it's off to buy a new washing machine, something I did not budget for but thanks to 'The Good Guys' I got a good deal.
So to sum up. While it has been a drama filled week I would expect nothing less. All new houses have teething problems and mine have not been anything major, just a number of them one after the other. I love my house and will love it even more when the 100 odd boxes are unpack, I have some more money to visit ikea and get my scrapbook room set up and my brother-in-law pays a visit and helps me get my garden set up. Once I have a couple of months to put my stamp on things it will start to feel like home.
Will update with photos once it starts to feel like home.
