Being content :)

Ever since we started out on this building our first home experience, i very quickly became engrossed with everything to do with real estate and home renovation. I would be reading the realestate sections everytime i pick up a newspaper and checking in on http://www.homeone.com.au/ a forum for home owners and builders.. so engrossed about realestate that i was already on the lookout for our future purchase! Crazy as it sounds, but its true.

The news yesterday on the Copenhagen Climate talks nearing collapse brought me back to earth. At that moment, i realised how lucky i already am, enjoying life as it is and taking so many things for granted. Victorians especially would understand the issues of climate change even better than others having just been through the Black Saturday bushfires last summer that killed 173 lives, burnt down many beautiful homes and destroyed many families and dreams. But the impact of climate change is far far greater if we all care to look deeper, but yet many of us conveniently ignore it and justify our actions with excuses. I know i do too.

Hence i would recommend anyone looking at purchasing their next home to seriously consider building a new home with high energy efficiency rating. You not just help the climate, you help yourself financially in reduced energy bills. That is why we chose to build at Aurora. The main attraction is definitely its environmental credentials, masterplan and affordability. So moral of this blog is that we should feel very fortunate to be building our first home at Aurora, and we are :) To find out more about this awesome development, look at my 1st post!

Juggling landscaping ideas..

This is one thing we definitely DID NOT budget for.. Landscaping! The surprises keep coming when you build... all part of the "fun" :/ As part of the deal building a house at Aurora is the "inclusion" of front landscaping, but to what extent we really don't know so we have to set aside a little bit of money for that as well as landscaping around the rest of the house which we will need to do ourselves. Anyhow, landscaping is a never ending money pit as you can spend close to nothing nothing and have just dirt and lawn as your landscape or as much as 30% of the home purchase price to have all the bells and whistles!! (Think massive water features)

Well, we decided we wanted practicality and contemparory, "low maintenance" landscaping but at what cost? We decided to set a budget and draw up something that we think we would like and see if we can fit it all in. What we saw at a display home earlier last year was something that we liked and would like to acheive if our budget allows. If not we can always break it down into a few stages. Look at the drawing and pictures below for a rough idea.

The look of the 1st outdoor living area we are after, minus water feature.

The look of the 2nd outdoor living area we are after, minus spa-bath.


















We may go with plain simple concrete with a small water feature and neat vegetation.


















Clean lines are what we are after and white pebbles+pavers look great.

A Balinese Thatch like this in the backyard will set us back approx $3000 without decking!

So there we go, some ideas of what we would like but it will all come down to cost.

Waiting for land development

So now we wait... patiently. Wait for land to be developed so it can be titled and registered in our name. And then we wait again for the builder to commence construction.. then we wait again for the various stages of the construction to be complete.

Anyway here are some pictures of our lot and the works around the development so far..

Thats our lot! Lot1366:

Feldgrau Rise, our street under development. Shot taken on 28/11/09 from the East:

Check out the uninvited guests i spotted eating grass in the estate!

Stay tuned for more developments!!