Well, the time has finally come for us to start building our dream house at Forest Hill in sunny Southland, New Zealand.
Let me tell you a bit about ourselves. My name is Rachel and my husband Grayson and I have four boys between us - Matt (almost 19), Zach (six), Hugo (four) and Monty (almost five months).
We have had the 10 acres of land at Forest Hill (about 15 mins drive from Invercargill) for about seven years and have been planting trees and doing some fencing etc so we can be a bit more established when we build. We have built three other houses before so have a bit of experience, but this is our first one from scratch as the others have been kitset.
We have spent a long time going back and forth with the draughtsman and finally came up with a design we are happy with. We have four bedrooms (master with ensuite and walk-in wardrobe), a bathroom, a laundry, a sunken lounge, an open plan kitchen and dining, a butler's pantry and a separate family room mainly for the kids. We also have a nice entrance way, and since we will be cladding some of the house with schist, the entrance way is also going to have a schist wall. We also are having an attached double garage. Sheds are to be built in the future.
Our draughtsman has only just put the plans into council for consent and that may be a long process so all that has been done so far is the ditch for the mains cable.
I have been browsing the web, magazines etc for years now and have been keeping a scrapbook with colours, wallapapers, furniture and fittings etc that I love. On Friday I finally found the perfect wallpaper for the bedrooms and family room in a shop here in Invercargill! I am so excited! It is by a UK company, Scion, www.scion.uk.com who have two lovely ranges, Melinki and Wabi Sabi, and it is freaking beautiful stuff! I am wanting this one for the baby's room as a feature wall:
Think will get this one for the feature wall in our room. Love the blue version, but also the green too so will have to make a decision.
I have so much to plan, but at least I have a lot of time to do it in. Getting the time is not so easy though especially now that it is school holidays, and I have a baby!
