Well, that's settled then...

Sare and I are now officially land owners! Settlement day has now come and gone. Admittedly, it kind of snuck up on me, as I was expecting it to be tomorrow. There were no hold-ups at all and as a bonus the bank also settled on my Coburg refinance at the same time. Love the work NAB have done so far(okay, there's the product placement out of the way. I've been watching too much Masterchef). Now all we have to do is turn it into a farm and make it productive until our build begins. Anyone got any sheep or cows?

In a slightly less exciting news, Jamie from Metricon called to let us know that the design of our house that we've wanted isn't quite possible without a couple of small changes. Either we lose the 3m ceilings in the living area or we take up the option of a verandah on the back to support the raised roof. As there is an extra cost involved and we weren't advised of it at any stage of the quote/design stage, Metricon have kindly advised that they'd be willing to halve the cost of the change. I kindly advised him to let me know the outcome after he speaks to his manager tomorrow! Worst case scenario is that we get an extra al-fresco area at half the price that it would have been had we known from the start. Looking forward to hearing back from him tomorrow!

The other bit of work I've had to do is contact the Casey City Council to apply for approval to move the driveway from the right side of the block to the left to allow us to get the floor-plan as we want it. I called the Planning department at 5:30, half expecting them to be closed and was lucky to speak to someone who was actually very helpful (shock, horror!). He said that they'd send an inspector out tomorrow to advise whether it would be possible before I spent any money in applying for a permit. This is the kind of service that other councils (I'm looking at you Monash City!) could learn from. Fingers crossed for the outcome we're looking for.

No. No. I said there. Not There!

Well, having taken another week to consider everything we wanted included on the structural side of things (admittedly, this wasn't exactly a lot over the week, as I was in Adelaide and Sare had many more important things to take care of at work!) we met with Jamie on Saturday morning to finalise our floor-plan requirements.

Firstly, we've chosen the facade we want. We've gone with the classic, which isn't to ostentatious. We won't initially be rendering or adding a stacked stone feature, so have decided to upgrade the bricks to the facade a little.

With a minimum of fuss, the kitchen has been changed to almost match the display version, with the island extended to the wall, the fridge moved into the pantry and extra cupboards incorporated. The window in bedroom four has been moved to the rear of the house, and some doors have been modified. Nothing too significant from the original plan, but some nice touches that will give us what we really want.

Now it's up to Metricon to complete the soil tests and draft the plans. Apparently it's then off to Studio M again, this time for our real life appointment to customise the decor of the house. Fingers crossed that one won't cost us too much more money!!!