It's been 1 year today since we moved into the new, improved Janet Street. Hard to believe we've been here a year (and only in the past week or two got the garden sorted out!). Both Steph and I were just saying last night what a wonderful house it is and how lucky we are to have it. I couldn't agree more. I love this place.

Labels: House

After weeks of looking I finally found some suitable wall mounts for my guitars this morning. Anyway, after a lot of pencil marks and spirit levelling, I managed to get all 4 up on the wall. I think it looks pretty great and marks the "just about complete" stage of the Music Room.




You can see more photos by clicking here


The only thing left now is to get my signed Dream Theater t-shirt/photo/ticket from earlier this year mounted and above the CD collection.

Labels: House

Took some photo's of Aurora and the decking on Saturday morning - as I had copped some flack from people for not putting photo's up of my sterling work on the decking :D

So, here's some images to keep you pictorially informed about the Neumann household;

The deck (completed)

and

Aurora in the "garden"

Enjoy!

Labels: Aurora, House

Well, the updates have been coming thick and fast - this is probably the last of them for a while I think. We went for a peek today to see how the floors look, and it's amazing what a difference they make to the place - it really ties it all together now and gives it a finished look (even though it isn't quite finished yet). Check out some more shots here. We've got pre-handover this coming week (to go through with a fine-toothed comb and work out what we need fixed prior to handover). Exciting stuff.

We've also been talking to a lot of landscaping / driveway people in the past week. I've got to say, my darling wife is doing a sterling job of meeting people, going through requirements and getting quotes organised. Onya Steph!

Labels: House

We went to Janet St yesterday to meet someone to go through blinds and curtains. As a result, we got to actually GO INSIDE the house! (yes, this is the first time officially we got to walk through). On top of that, the house is pretty much done; all we've got to go now is the flooring and appliances. Next week we meet for pre-handover, then handover when I get back from my trip. How exciting! Anyway, check out the new photos here

Labels: House

So, I've been a bit lazy on the Janet St update front. Here's a new batch of photo's that were actually taken in 2 visits; one set on the 1st June, then a week later on the 8th June. As you can see, there's been a fait bit of progress, and even more since the last set of photos. Hopefully I'll get over there tomorrow to take some more shots. All is well on track - they expect to finish sometime in the next 2 weeks - it's very exciting :)

Labels: House

Here's another update from Janet St, taken last weekend. Bricks at this point, and the house itself was locked up! (not with the real doors mind you). It's coming along very quickly...

See the photo's here

Labels: House

This morning we went for a visit to Janet St to see how the house progress is doing... and were pretty pleased all round actually. The frame is now finished, windows are in, and the house moves full steam ahead. Here's some pictures of it.

Labels: House

Well, the process on rebuilding our house "really" begun a few weeks ago with the knockdown of our existing house. Having lived there for just over 8 years, it seems quite odd to now see a vacant block of land there, but overwhelmingly, I get a real feel of excitement in seeing the potential ahead of us. I managed to take a few photo's along the way during the demolition - you can see them here.

Labels: House

Today we signed the final contract for the new house. A relatively long and drawn out process of signing every page, in triplicate, and reading page after page, but nonetheless a somewhat daunting experience. Signing up for a project this large is rather scary, and requires a large leap of faith. But boy am I excited about the potential and the (expected) final result.

Labels: House

Well, I've just had 5 days off, and I feel much better for it. Saturday was a busy one; we went to 2 auctions (more on those in a minute), and then I went in and watched Collingwood put up 3/4 of a fight against Port Adelaide at the MCG. The trip to the footy was courtesy of Connex, and their corporate box - and it was an excellent experience (well, except for the final scores obviously).

We did go to 2 auctions that pretty much blew our socks off. Both places were within 3 minutes walk of our place. THe first auction was for a place we'd had our eye on for a little while - pretty much THE candidate if we were ever to pack up and move. Basically a nicer, slightly bigger (had a living room) version of our house. Originally it was listed at $550K+ (which to begin with was out of our price range). Then it was revised to $570K+. There was virtually a mob at the auction, and the agent said that they had shown 200 groups through in the past 4 weeks (he also said 30 to 40 groups was a successful campaign). Opening bid was $570K... and from there just went up. Ended up selling for $726K. We spoke to "the locals" afterwards, who said that the vendor was hoping for $600K. I'm sure they slept well on Saturday night... The next auction was, to put it simply, for a the land + a token house on top of it. The house was abysmal. It would've been better if they hadn't have tried to renovate it (but they did, badly). It was a tiny place, it was terribly laid out, it just looked DODGY. Anyway, a lot of people walking through prior to the auction with raised eyebrows and looks of horror. It was listed for $370K. Even the auctioneer knew it wasn't the best and tried a few tricks, such as "NORTH FACING... (on the side)". Anyway, it took a good 3 or 4 minutes to get the opening bid, which was $350K. I figured that this auction might be a bit more like reality compared to the earlier events of the morning... but it turns out I was wrong. After a slow start, the bids started coming in. The auctioneer probably spent a good 6 or 7 minutes taking $500 increments. The property ended up going for... wait for it... $474K. Ridiculous. Had you seen this property, you would be as amazed as I was (and still am). Anyway, hasn't helped any in thinking what we might do with our place (that's another blog entry for later).

The rest of the weekend was spent well; a 21st lunch for my cousin, walks around Blackburn lake, an attempt at clothes shopping at Chadstone, a lot of guitar playing yesterday, and of course my birthday on Tuesday (a reasonably subdued event this year). Anyway, was good to have some time off - now back into it BIG TIME!

Labels: House