Staircases and Kitchen

We're up to the stage where we have the kitchen build minus the caesar stone benchtop, the laundry cupboard fitted to the way we wanted them to look and the wine rack above the fridge have also been fitted.  Additionally the staircase looks like pretty much done.

We're still locked out of our house when we come for a visit. (I hate it when they're being meticulous but I equally hate it when they're not! lol)  Thus we can only peek from the window of our house, hence the picture quality that I am about to show you.

The tiling should also been done this week but for some apparent reason we can't get them to progress as we need to settle the invoice with Di Lorenzo before anything can happen.  I was wondering why they haven't send us any quote with our upgrade yet and apparently they're emails are being blocked by our mail server!  They must have been blacklisted by someone in the past if this is the case...

Moving on, I quickly ask them to change the initial setup in the powder room.  I requested that the feature wall tile to be moved to the shower portion as oppose behind the vanity wall.  I've just received the amended quote as I am typing this paragrah!  That's quick...

So all I have to do now is to sign the acceptance form and pay our deposit money so the work can get started already.

Here are some pics to share from our last visit.  I apologise for the quality of the shots but given the circumstances of being locked out and taking them from the window, I hope you can all appreciate them.

Enjoy.

Another retake on our front entry door in the daylight!  Cloudy to be exact.

Staircases ticked! Balustrade ticked! Zig zag capping ticked!  Timber flooring no tick...

Kitchen! Kitchen! Kitchen!  I get excited with kitchen :)

Wine rack above fridge done, Laundry looks pretty much done, kitchen is almost there...

Just need the stone benchtop and the equipment that goes with it.

We're in the news!

Well, not us personally anyway, but The Ponds as one of the newest suburb is.  Here is an article from SMH that compares Sydney: Old vs. New.  There is another mention also in this article.

It's great to see that The Ponds as a new suburb has been getting a lot of mention in the public news and even more so when comparing The Ponds and all the newest suburb around the city with the oldest suburb in the history of Sydney, The Rocks.  The article mention that The Ponds has a lot of places and lots of green grass out and about but The Rocks is just kilometers of paved and concrete all the way with not much grass on it's footpath.  Maybe trees but even comparing The Rocks to a residential suburb, there is not much competition in that department also.

The Ponds is a new suburb with a new living concept.  We were handed a guideline by the developer at the time of purchase and we have to adhere guideline in order to have our house build.  It's a great concept and I don't mind it at all.  I think it's great to have a uniformed design with the other houses in the area. I guess one of the reason is to keep the value of the area at a certain level, which is not a bad thing really.

It will be a massive change of lifestyle for us as a family having to move from where we were living before in the inner west, all the way to the north west.  I can already imagine some of the sentence that I will say when we move in: "It used to take us around 15 - 20 minutes plus 5 minutes walking distance from home to the station.  Now it takes us around an hour to get to work!"  or something to that effect.

I've already mentioned this very same reasoning in one of my early post.  Reading that article made me think and asked myself "Why are we moving to The Ponds?" and at this point I forgot that I've posted the answer before.  I'm glad that the very same reason was still my answer if we were asked that question again.

I guess in addition to that reasoning is the appeal of the community that draws people to the suburb and to the lifestyle that we are longing for.  It's true that I've already met and know our neighbors even before we move in!

My office is situated within 5 steps to The Rocks literally and some of my photography work has also include The Rock as one of my favorite location.   I don't think it's necessary to compare The Rocks and The Ponds or the other new suburb.

The Rocks has it's own historical value also that I quite like it the way it is.  It's true that some of the redevelopment maybe has destroy some of the lifestyle value there.  Something that exist in 1973 (even before I was born!) may not be there anymore.  Having said that some are still there, like the convenience store around the corner near the Australian Hotel.  Or the connecting alley along George St at The Rocks.  I hope the local council can still maintain and keep it's historic value for time to come.