Being Momma G: Day 98

We think the little man is finally learning to sleep through the night!

Sean actually slept from 10pm to 4am, which for him is awesome. We are hopeful that he will continue to sleep well - we really miss our sleep.

The biggest news today was the sale of my St Leonards apartment. The contracts were signed and exchanged today, and with any luck, settlement will take place on 20 May. We didn't quite get the price we wanted, but we were so close to the magic figure. It would have been irresponsible to reject the final offer because it was $2,000 short of what I had really wanted.

Gabi and Sveta did their bits, and by close of business, we were all set to clean out the apartment by 20 May. There were still a few things left in the apartment, which we had been meaning to go and clear out, but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to completely move out of it. It had been my home for 10 years, and I wanted to take as long as I needed to bid my farewells.

Another piece of good news came by way of Jonathan, who had booked a test drive for us with Volvo for next Thursday. We were pretty keen on the XC60, so we are very much looking forward to taking the car for a spin.

So much news. I'm excited but apprehensive at the same time. New home and new baby meant that inevitably, I was going to have to get a new car and sell my old home to fund some of this. But saying goodbye to my past was making me melancholy. Still, we must look forward, and not back, and move on, even if a part of me is screaming "I don't want to let go, I don't want to change".

Being Momma G: Day 78

With a busy day ahead of us, we hoped Sean would have a good night last night, and we did.

The pattern had been set at Tresillian, which saw the little guy wake at 12.30am, 3.30am and 7.30am for feeds, and each time, he was great at going back to sleep in his own cot. We couldn't have been happier with the transition, from sleeping in a bassinet in our room, to sleeping in a cot in his very own room.

After the 7.30am feed, Sean went back for a little snooze before we had to wake him at 9.30am to go to our pre-Baptism course at the church. This meeting was one of many that had to be rescheduled from earlier this week due to Tresillian, and even though Sean was tired and a little bit grumpy, he was otherwise perfectly behaved during our one hour meeting.

It was 11am by the time we left the church, which coincided with the time for the first open house inspection for the St Leonards apartment to commence. We hoped we would get a good number of people through the apartment!

We headed to Chatswood, as we needed to return some swaddler blankets we bought yesterday. While at Tresillian, we were told we were not allowed to use the Miracle Blankets that we had wrapped Sean in to sleep for the past few weeks. Sean spent a week out of the blanket, and we had tried our best during that week to wrap him in the muslins that we owned, but alas, Sean had gotten so big that the muslins were now too small to contain His Wriggliness. Since Sean still needed to be wrapped to go to sleep, we needed to get some news ones. And Toys R Us had a small selection, one brand of which was on sale, so we bought it, took it home, and found it far far far too small for our growing baby.

With the weather getting cooler, we wanted to buy some full bodysuits to keep Sean warm. We took a trip to Target and found some bodysuits, and while I thought we should get a few suits that were slightly too big for Sean, Jonathan thought Sean should have snug fitting bodysuits. Jonathan won the argument and we got the slightly smaller ones.

We had so much fun looking at things in Target that we had forgotten to keep a check on the time. Jonathan had pre-arranged to collect Mina from her house at 2pm, and would be late if he was to drop us at home prior to setting off for Mina. So we all drove to Bankstown from Chatswood to collect Mina, and I made sure I was seated in the car and pretending to be on the phone so the Evil Witch couldn't find an excuse to talk to me. Mina was glad to see us, and as soon as she hopped in the car, we peeled away from the house and hurried home.

Poor Sean cried all the way home, as he was hungry and wanted to be fed. As soon as we arrived home, Sean and I sat down to a feed while Jonathan and Mina got changed and sat down to play.

We had a number of choices for dinner, which we presented to Mina, and she chose the chicken sausages with roasted garlic and cheese. Divine!!! Mina loved the sausages too, which was terrific as we were now able to add these to the ever growing menu of foods we could have with Mina.

Sean woke just as we were finished with dinner, and after a good feed, Jonathan and Mina gave Sean a bath. Mina wanted to read Sean a bedtime story, and chose Harold & The Purple Crayon to read to Sean. Mina's reading skills had improved by leaps and bounds, and although she still needed help on the odd word here and there, she all but read the whole book aloud to Sean by herself.

At the end of the story, Sean went to bed, as did Mina who had a couple more stories read to her by Jonathan. Mina was a bit unsettled after story time, and fussed and fidgeted for some time, but eventually, she fell asleep around 9pm. Meanwhile, young Master Sean had quite a few issues going to sleep. A lot of patting and shushing ensued before he finally fell asleep around 9.30pm.

After such a long and busy day, we are about to head to bed too. Here's hoping for a good night of sleep by one and all!

Project New Home: 2 Weeks Later...

We have moved!

After 2 full weeks of living in our new home, we have to say we love it!

The big move on Friday 19 November went better than expected. Admittedly, Jonathan and I were still finishing the packing at around 1.30am the day of the move. By the time we finally fell into bed, we could manage about 3 hours of shut eye before the alarm sounded to start the day. We were so careful with the packing and the labelling during our early stages of packing, but by Thursday night / early Friday morning, we were just keen to chuck everything into boxes and get them over to the new house!

The company we hired was fantastic - we were so pleased with the way Darren and his boys from Hills Professional Removals & Storage handled the move, with utmost professionalism, courtesy and friendliness, and took great care of all of our belongings, and even took out the garbage for us! We filled a medium sized truck, and half of the big truck, and it took 4 guys nearly 6 hours to move our stuff from the apartment to the new house, including dismantling and reassembling a few pieces of furniture along the way. We were so pleased with them that we ended up giving them the only 6 pack of beer we had on hand!

Within an hour of Darren and his boys leaving, our brand new fridge and washing machine / dryer combo was delivered. This delivery has been quite painful, after suffering 2 setbacks with the scheduled deliveries. In the end, it was worth the wait, and we were the proud new owners of a sparkling new fridge and a wizz bang washing machine / dryer.

Surrounded by boxes, and with most of our Ikea furniture in place (after Jonathan spent Tuesday with men who specialised in putting together Ikea furniture), we took ourselves to lunch before we tackled the mammoth task of unpacking. It proved to be a good move!

The first room that received attention was the kitchen. We managed to unpack most of the kitchen stuff on the Friday, with the rest completed on the Saturday morning. Bit by bit, we unpacked a lot more other boxes, putting everything away in spaces that we now have, and standing back and admiring our work. There were still quite a few boxes by the time Grace and her kids arrived for morning tea on Saturday morning, and less boxes by the time Mina arrived on Sunday morning, but we were pleased with our progress.

By Monday evening, we only had books to unpack and load into our brand new bookshelves. We really wanted to finish all the unpacking before Mina came for the weekend, as it was a sleepover weekend, so Jonathan put in the hard yards and emptied the remaining boxes, hoping that Darren would swing by and pick up the boxes as soon as they were ready. Unfortunately, 2 weeks later, our garage is still the proud storage facility for Darren's boxes. Hopefully, we will be rid of them by Wednesday or Thursday next week.

Today, looking around the house, we still have a few boxes, which we'll get around to emptying soon. The boxes contain our brand new dining chairs, and cables, and a lot of other bits and bobs. Jonathan has sorted through the books and he's happily arranged his books on one bookshelf. I need to get around to sorting through my books and working out which ones to keep and which ones are to be donated to charity. I also need to sort through my cooking magazines, which I'm sure I'll get around to doing one day soon.

We are loving our new house, and are now well and truly settled in. The last room to configure is the baby's room, and we still have a little bit of time to do that, so we'll get around to that next week. We have now bought a bassinet for Speedy to sleep in our room, so at least that has been put together and is ready to go. Everything else can wait.

We've had our first visitor in the house - my cousin Joy has spent the last few days with us, and we hope she's enjoyed staying in our new home as much as we have enjoyed her company!

We have plenty of photos - see for yourself. We can't wait to show our new home off to everyone - once Speedy's here and we've settled in, please feel free to drop by!

Project New Home: It's Ours!!!

We apologise for the lack of updates, but we have been very very busy!

So without further ado, in case you weren't aware, Jonathan and I are now the proud new owners of our gorgeous new house!

Settlement took place last Friday (12 November) and we have been frantically busy getting everything ready for our big move on Friday this week (19 November)!

We were only given a week’s notice that settlement could be brought forward to 12 November. It appeared that the vendors were able to wrangle an earlier settlement on their newly purchased property, so everything else needed to be finalised straight away. Thankfully, our solicitor, our finance people and our bank were all ready and willing and everything was set.

As soon as we knew we could move, we set ourselves a moving date. Friday 19 November was decided to be the best, as this wasn’t a sleepover weekend, and I was already on an approved day off work. We immediately arranged for a quote from the removalists, who dropped by to see how much stuff we had. The quote was twice what I remembered it to be when I last moved 10 years ago. I guess it was to be expected to be a bit higher now!

Our packing cartons arrived late on Monday night, and we started packing a little bit at a time as we didn’t really have a lot of space to house all the boxes any way. Jonathan was scheduled to start early and finish early last week, so he was able to pack all the books and cull some stuff in the garage while I was at work. The idea of paying for someone to pack everything for us was a great one, but at an extra $700, we thought we’d do the work ourselves!

Jonathan and I went to the house last Thursday evening to conduct our final inspection, and to do some more measurements of the rooms before making a final decision on all the new pieces of furniture we were going to buy to fit out the house. We were so surprised to see how clean and tidy and orderly the vendors had left the place - everything was scrubbed clean and wiped down. It was such a lovely blessing.

Last Thursday night was also shopping night to some extent. Jonathan and I went and bought a new washing machine / dryer combo, and a new and much bigger fridge for the new house. Shiny new toys!!!

I hung by the phone from 2pm to await a phone call from our solicitor to notify us of settlement. The phone call finally came through at 2.30pm, and I immediately called Jonathan to let him know. We were both squeeing like little kids down the phone to each other!

On Saturday, Jonathan, Mina and I went to collect the keys from the real estate agent. It really was a momentous occasion to be handed the keys to our first home together. Once we had the keys, we raced to have a look at the now completely empty house and took some final measurements of what will be Mina’s room / Study / Guest Room, before heading to brave Ikea on a Saturday morning to buy all the furniture.

Ikea was amazingly quiet for a Saturday morning - no lines for anything! Mina was able to go straight into Småland and play for an hour while Jonathan and I dashed around the store and looked for various items, and we even managed to load 2 big flat trolleys and a shopping trolley full of stuff before Mina’s hour of play time was up! All in all, we ended up with 27 boxes to be delivered, with the whole exercise costing a small fortune.

As we were leaving our details for delivery, the locksmith called and told us he was at the house, waiting for us to return so he could change our locks. As he was early, we asked him to return at a later time, which he very kindly agreed. We had no time to spare, so off we raced back to the house to wait for the locksmith to return, and also for the plumber and the electrician to drop by.

We needed the plumber to look at our leaking shower base, and the electrician to look at putting network cables through the whole house (and to hang Mina’s new chandelier lamp in her room). Everyone turned up on time, and were very quick getting their quotes done, so we were able to get away from the house at a reasonable time.

Next task was to drop into Macquarie Centre to get 4 full sets of keys cut and to look for a few things, like a new TV for our bedroom. This was always a “like to have”, not a “must have”, and with our darling friend Tristan working in his store on Saturday, we thought we’d pay him a visit and see if he was able to give us a good deal on a TV. And he did!

It was nearly 4.30pm by the time we got home, and as Mina had been so patient and wonderful throughout the day, and with Saturday being the stinking hot day that it was, we went down to the pool for our last swim as residents of the building. We played and splashed around for about 45 minutes, before heading back upstairs to shower and cook dinner.

Sunday morning was devoted to Mina’s swimming lesson, before a bit more shopping at Macquarie Centre, followed by an afternoon of waiting games at the new house for the Ikea furniture to be delivered. There was not much time left after the furniture delivery to do much else but to take Mina home, before heading over to my parents’ place for dinner and to take delivery of Speedy’s cot from Georgianna and Tim. Needless to say, not a lot of packing got done over the weekend!

With 3 days to go before we move, Jonathan has taken a couple of days off work to supervise the works that need to be completed at the new house. Today, the locksmith came to complete the job (which he wasn’t able to complete on Saturday as he didn’t have the correct door knob. The Ikea flat pack furniture specialists has been at the house for most of today to put together all the Ikea furniture.

A specialist who knows how to fix the problem in our shower dropped by to inspect and quote, and is now engaged to do the works tomorrow. The new washing machine / dryer comb and the fridge were to have been delivered today, but they will now arrive tomorrow. Much like the electrician, who was to have been at the house today, but due to the awful stormy weather yesterday afternoon, was unable to complete that job, and has now pushed us out to tomorrow. Poor Jonathan has to be at the house by 7am tomorrow to let everyone in!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (apartment), we are still in the process of packing, with the small kitchen appliances, pots and pans, “junk” drawer, baking stuff and most of our plasticware all but packed away, which filled 3 large boxes!!! Tonight, we’ll do the dishes and cups and breakables, and whatever else we can manage to put away in boxes.

We’re nearly there. Once we have moved into the new house, we will most certainly take plenty of photos and post them to show what we’ve done with the place!

Project New Home: Contracts Exchanged!!!

We have lift off!!!

The last 2 weeks have been so hectic. Since we inspected the villa with Dad and Mum, then having our offer accepted, then experiencing the small glitches regarding the settlement date, only to find out why the vendors were fixed on the December settlement date, we went and saw our solicitor yesterday to sign the contract and to hand over my life savings.

It was a huge moment for the both of us. We were buying our first home together, one that we will be raising our family in, one that we'll be living in for quite some time. We have gone into this whole thing with our eyes wide open, receiving so much help from Dad and Mum, our friend Andrew the finance guru, and the very lovely real estate agent who has been tremendous in getting bits of information to us.

We'd received various inspection reports a couple of days ago - building, pest, and strata all completed by a reputable company, and there were no gaping issues that we needed to worry about. The reports yielded a small number of things that need to be fixed before we move in, but nothing major, so we were happy to continue with our tentative steps forward.

Today, at 2pm, contracts were exchanged.

With any luck, the property will be ours in 6 weeks. There is an outside chance that we won't be able to collect the keys until December, but here's hoping that we will be able to move in around mid-November.

In the meantime, we promised photos, and here they are! These are the photos used in the advertising material, and we will have some of our own photos when we've moved in.

We're both feeling very grown up right now!!! Bring on settlement!

Project New Home: Homes Viewed = 18

Jonathan and I decided earlier in the week that considering the small glitches and tentative steps we've made with the dream home in Denistone, we would continue attending open house inspections until we have exchanged contracts on the Denistone villa.

With that in mind, we found 2 properties to inspect, both in Marsfield. The first one was in the same complex that I lived in for 6 years prior to moving to St Leonards! My unit was at the front of the complex, and this townhouse was at the back of the complex, so it was a lovely trip down memory lane to visit the old stomping grounds.

The villa was quite lovely, with spacious bedrooms and a lovely courtyard about the back. The kitchen was smallish, but not tiny. The living / dining space was quite small, with a sunroom between the living space and the courtyard. The layout was a bit odd - the sunroom felt disconnected with the townhouse, which meant that the sunroom felt like it was to be used for "formal" occasions only.

The master bedroom was a very good size, and the other rooms were quite big too. Only the master bedroom and one other bedroom had built ins though.

The courtyard shared a fence with the Stamford Hotel North Ryde, with some of their rooms overlooking into the courtyard. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing!

There was a single lock up garage that had access through the sunroom. And to top of it all off, there was a full bathroom, and an extra toilet in the laundry at the back of the townhouse. The clothes line was also on the back wall of the townhouse, in the shadiest part of the property.

The property was listed with a price range, and we expected the property to be able to fetch the higher end of the price range, which was out of our range in any case. We thanked the agent and headed to the next property.

The next property was very close to Epping Boys High School, and we arrived a tad early, so we walked along the footpath for a bit and Mina picked some yellow flowers from the lawn. At the appointed time, we headed down a fairly steep driveway to the townhouse.

I had seen this property advertised for over a week without any addresses, and only received an email from the real estate agent after 3 separate emails. That was the first sign of trouble.

As we headed down to the property, we walked past the little sandwich board out the front of the complex, noting that "this property has been sold". Jonathan and I debated whether we should still head down to look at the property, and upon seeing other people heading down, we too took a chance and joined the others.

After giving our contact details to the agent, we asked him what the sign out the front of the property meant, and he said "well, the property is actually under contract, but if those purchases pull out, then we will have a list of people to contact to see if someone else might be interested". Um, WTF??? If the property was under contract, then in my opinion, it is a really bad business practice to continue showing the property. While it's not illegal, we found it very unprofessional and very unsettling.

Oh, if you want to know who the listing agent is, click here. The guy showing the property appears to be the son of the proprietor. The property in question is here - if you're looking for a property in Marsfield, skip this one as it has been sold. And if you choose to contact the agent, he's only after your contact details to expand his database. Jerk.

There were so many nice things about this property, but we won't bother listing them. The whole experience left a really bad taste in our mouths. If we had been seriously looking, it would have been a huge waste of time for us.

As we were leaving, another couple was also putting their shoes back on, and they expressed their disgust at having wasted their time inspecting a property that was already sold. We totally agreed.

Hopefully, these are the last properties we will inspect for now. We hope to have some good news by mid to late next week regarding the Denistone villa. Cross everything for us!

Project New Home: Tentative Steps Forward

After a restless night of weighing up the pros and cons of continuing our investigations and negotiations with the villa, we decided to contact our solicitor with instructions to hold off on all inspections for the time being.

The completion date was still a huge factor to not continue with the negotiations. And our solicitor understood our predicament, and put on hold all inspections until further notice. He also said that as far as he was concerned, he had done as much as he can to get the vendors and their solicitor to change the settlement date, and that if we still wanted to push the issue, we should enlist the real estate agent to help us.

So we called the agent and asked him to have a word in the vendors' ears. Our agent was keenly aware that we were totally sold on the property, and was more than happy to help. Alas, he was not privied to a number of things - in fact, he didn't notice the specified settlement date until I pointed it out to him. We explained to him what we knew, and he promised to get back to us once he had spoken with the vendors.

A little while ago, the agent called back with the last piece to the puzzle.

Here's what we knew so far:

- The vendors had bought a property and the settlement date on that contract was December 1.
- The vendors wanted to have somewhere to live until their new property was settled, hence they instructed their solicitor to draft a contract for the sale of the villa we want to buy with a settlement date of December 1.
- The vendors were unwilling to budge from that date, but had mentioned that they would do everything they can to bring forward the settlement date.

Here's what the agent found out:

- The vendors had purchased a deceased estate which was waiting on probate being granted. Probate usually took around 6 weeks from lodgement to issue.
- The vendors' solicitor had kept the vendors informed of the progress of probate, and it was only a matter of days before probate was expected to be granted. The wait would be no more than a fortnight.

We told the agent that we would definitely seriously consider all the information now that we knew everything, and that if we were to go ahead with the purchase, the exchange of contracts would not take place until after all the inspections were completed. In which case, the earliest we could hope to exchange contracts would be mid next week. The agent agreed that we needed to have a complete set of reports, and told us that the vendors were expecting us to obtain various inspections prior to exchange.

The agent noted that if probate was granted in the next fortnight, there would be nothing stopping us or the vendors from pushing the settlement date forward to mid November - earlier if possible. The vendors were keen to get their money from the sale of the villa, which was a good sign.

Jonathan and I talked about this villa again, to see whether it was worthwhile continuing with negotiations. Since we still have to do the inspections, chances are it will be another week before we have the full picture and be ready to exchange. And if probate was due to be granted in a fortnight, well, we'd be a week closer to that milestone. We still really really really loved this place, so we agreed to give our solicitor the go ahead to continue with the inspections.

In the meantime, we continue to attend open house inspections on weekends, until such time as the exchange has taken place.

For now, please send all good vibes and think good thoughts for the Probate Office and the vendors, for the expedient processing of probate!

Project New Home: A Small Glitch

Another day, another update.

Our solicitor received the contract earlier today, and after reading through all the conditions, raised a few items of concern with us. We made an appointment to see him after work today, so he could go through the list of concerns with us. The main one remains the settlement date - this was now becoming a much more contentious issue than it has been.

We arrived a few minutes late to our solicitor's office, but he too was running late, so it all worked out for everyone. We went through the conditions that he had concerns with, and talked about the reports that we need to obtain prior to exchange. The one thing that kept coming back was the settlement date. It turned out that the vendors have purchased another property, and the settlement date on that property is December 1, the same date as the one stipulated on our contract.

The more we talked, the more it became a problem. Fact remains that I am pregnant and due to be giving birth at the end of the year, and the last thing I want to be doing 3 weeks before Speedy's expected arrival date is to move house.

Nevertheless, we instructed our solicitor to keep negotiating with the vendors' solicitor for an earlier settlement date, and to keep pushing the issue for us. In the meantime, we gave instructions for him to commence the strata search, the building inspection and the pest inspection.

We had arranged to have dinner with Dad and Mum tonight to give them an update on the proceedings. So after dinner, we gave Dad and Mum a thorough report, and they too are very worried about the December 1 settlement date. Dad mentioned a few points, namely that both sisters went into labour earlier than expected with the first baby, and there is every likelihood that Speedy will come early too. Mum was of the opinion that if we are not moved in to our new home well before Speedy arrives, then the soonest we would be able to move would be February.

Mum also pointed out that movers are pretty booked up during December and January (or on holidays), and in her experience, to move during those months, one would had to have booked the movers by now. Dad then pointed out that December / January / February were notoriously quiet months for the property market, so even if we were to settle and move into a new home before December, we would have trouble selling St Leonards any time before March.

As I said, the more we talked about the settlement date, the more contentious this issue has become.

Jonathan and I are now convinced that we need to push our solicitor to push the vendors to commit to an earlier settlement date. The settlement date has now become a deal breaker, even though it wasn't only 2 days ago. And if the vendors pull the plug because they feel our demand is too great, then so be it. First thing tomorrow, we'll be calling our solicitor with new instructions, and to hold off on all inspections until we can reach an agreement on the new date.

We are a little sad that it has come to this for now. But we are hopeful that the vendors will understand our situation and be willing to help. Stay tuned for further updates!

Project New Home: Almost A Reality

Since our offer was accepted yesterday afternoon, Jonathan and I have been dancing around excitedly about the prospect of being in our new home by Christmas time.

We kept pinching ourselves that we have found our dream home, and are now waiting anxiously for our solicitor to do his thing prior to exchange.

The solicitor we engaged is a long term associate of Dad's, and someone I have had dealings with in my past working as a paralegal. The solicitor fondly remembers our past dealings, and continues to tell Dad to this day (some 15 years later) that he thought I was one of the most efficient and thorough paraglegals he had had the pleasure of doing business with.

Our lovely agent called late yesterday afternoon to ask for Jonathan and my full names, as well as our solicitor's details, which I promptly emailed over. The contract front page was amended and was faxed straight to our solicitor, who called me to confirm he had received the front page. We talked about a few things, namely the settlement date of the contract. Oddly enough, a date has been specified on the contract for settlement, and not the usual 6 weeks from the date of exchange as is with most conveyancing contracts.

The specified date is 1 December, which makes it 3 or so weeks before Speedy is due to join us. The timing was just a bit too tight for us, so we had asked the agent to speak with the owners about shifting the date earlier, if possible, to mid November.

Our solicitor asked us if the settlement date was a deal breaker, and in all honesty, it's not, but it would be lovely to be in our new home and all settled in before Speedy joins us, and definitely before Christmas. Moving house is stressful at the best of times, and I would hate to go into labour early. In fact, Speedy is not allowed to make his grand entrance any earlier than 18 December - if he does, I will lose my paid maternity leave, which would suck for all involved.

So we asked our solicitor to go back and talk to the vendors' solicitors about moving the settlement date, and he warned us that even if the vendors are willing to move the date, to say, 15 November, they still don't have to settle on that date - there are provisions for the vendors to settle within 14 days after the specified settlement date.

We've just heard from the solicitor, and he said that the vendors were unwilling to commit to an earlier settlement date. The instructions that came back were that they will try their best to settle in mid-November, but the settlement date will still remain 1 December as stipulated on the front page of the contract. Our solicitor asked us if we would like to negotiate the 1 December date to be "time of the essence", which means settlement must take place on that date, and we agreed that would be the best course of action for now.

Now we wait and see what happens next. The contract was being sent to the solicitor, so he'll be in touch when he's gone through the contract with a fine tooth comb. Stay tuned!

Project New Home: Another 2nd Inspection!

After a night of great anticipation, Jonathan and I took Dad and Mum, and Mina, to see the gorgeous villa in Denistone.

Prior to leaving for the inspection, Dad and Mum had asked about the villa's proximity to schools and public transport. Mum had pulled out her very old street directory and looked up the area, and we found that besides the Catholic primary school a block away, there was also a public primary school on the other side of the main road, about 3 blocks away, which was still within walking distance. I had told Dad and Mum that we had checked out the high school situation, and that the villa was within the catchment area for the schools we want the kids to attend. Denistone station was a little bit far away, but the walking distance was not entirely out of the question.

Having already spent 30 minutes at the inspection yesterday, we were ultra keen to show the property to Dad and Mum, whose opinion and expertise we value. For the duration of the tour of the villa, I was expecting Dad and Mum to pick apart the property and list all the flaws. Yet, strangely, for much of the tour, there was silence.

Meanwhile, Jonathan and Mina busied themselves with their measuring tapes and measured up the rooms. As we weren't given a floor plan, nor the dimensions of the rooms, we felt it was important to get some measurements to see how big a space we were dealing with.

From room to room we roamed. Dad and Mum both noticed that the stove was electric (they have always preferred gas), and the hot water system was on the small side. They both noted that the ceilings were nice and high, and that the master bedroom has the only built in wardrobe. In the back garden, they noticed the overflow pipe for the hot water system seemed to be jutting out a fair way from the house, and asked if it could be sawed back.

Dad and Mum also noticed the spacious laundry space, and the lovely lovely lovely walk in pantry. They seemed to like the security shutters on the front windows of the villa. They made a comment about the single car space, and the single toilet in the 3-bedroom villa, but liked the fact that the toilet was separated from the bathroom.

We spent another 30 minutes at the villa with the agent, talking about various things before finally heading off for lunch. Mina seemed to like the villa a lot, although we can't be sure whether her comment of "this is the only one I've liked so please buy this one" was reflective of her true feelings, or simply that she'd had enough of house hunting with us and really wanted us to buy a place so weekends could return to doing stuff she wanted to do.

The agent told us to put in our best offer by midday tomorrow, as he had received 3 other offers already and was keen to end the inspection process for the vendors by then. We took the buyers' price declaration form and promised to email him our best offer before midday tomorrow. With that, we left to head back to Chatswood for yum cha and a debrief.

Over lunch, Dad and Mum listed their main concern - that the train station was a bit far away, and getting to and from the bus stop, even though it was close by, was still subjected to the elements. Mum's concern was for Jonathan's trip to work, and that was when we realised we hadn't told her that Jonathan had moved offices and was now working in the city! Dad said that while the bus is a good mode of transport, the trips to and from work may be long ones for us as we would inevitably be stuck in traffic during peak hour.

But otherwise, generally, Dad and Mum were both quite complimentary about the villa. Even though it didn't have the "magic" combination of 3-2-2 (bedroom, bathroom, garage), there was plenty of storage space, with room for more outdoor storage in the form of a future garden shed behind the garage. The villa was at the back of a complex on the high side of the street - at the highest possible peak of the street, and it was on a quiet street with very little traffic. From the front of the villa, there is a lovely view of Homebush and Parramatta, which would be a good vantage point for any fireworks displays from the Sydney Olympic Park.

When it came time to talk money, Jonathan and I needed a little bit of guidance as to how much we should offer. The agent had already informed us of 3 other offers, and told us that if we were to make an offer, indicatively, it needed to be higher than the listed price and the amount should not end in a rounded figure. Jonathan and I wanted Dad's opinion on how much to offer, and the amount he had in mind was the same as the one we wanted to pay.

We thanked Dad and Mum for all their help, and spent most of the afternoon discussing the property and our offer, until we were both 100% comfortable with making the offer in the amount that we had in mind. We also came up with a totally random sum, with the last 4 digits being 1234. We hope this will get us over the line, because we really do like this place, a lot.

As soon as I get into work tomorrow, I will be emailing the form through to the agent. After that, there won't be anything else to do but wait. Stay tuned!

Updated on September 13 @ 9.35am

Email sent. Waiting game begins.

Updated on September 13 @ 12.05pm

Agent just called. Our offer is the highest! Pipped the 2nd offer by that much. Agent is now going to take the offer to the vendors and see if it is accepted. Stay tuned!!!

Updated on September 13 @ 4.03pm

Agent just called again. Our offer has been accepted!!! Now comes the scary part - the part that involves solicitors and money!

We are almost there. We can almost almost almost say we are the proud owners of a gorgeous new home!!!

Project New Home: Homes Viewed = 16

With no real hits from either Domain or RealEstate.com.au early on Friday, we thought we would have a weekend's break from house hunting. Luckily, late yesterday afternoon, I checked both websites again, and up came 2 properties for inspection.

The first was in Marsfield, which was on the same street as one of the first properties we ever inspected. In fact, this property and the one we inspected previously were separated by only 1 large complex.

The townhouse was at the very back of complex, and it was on the end of a row of townhouses which meant it shared only 1 common wall with a neighbouring townhouse. On the other side of the townhouse was a small grassy reserve which was common property.

The townhouse had 2 levels, and the downstairs level had a generous sized living / dining room and a decent sized kitchen, which had a nice nook for a laundry attached. The room flowed out to a small but tidy courtyard with a lovely little garden patch. There was also a toilet just inside the entrance to service downstairs.

Upstairs, there were 3 good sized bedrooms, with a nice sized bathroom as well. The master bedroom was the only one with a built in wardrobe. And it had a rusty old air conditioning unit that has seen better days. The walls all looked like they had a new lick of paint, and the carpet felt quite new. The bathroom didn't look that bad either.

Neither Jonathan and I thought very much of this property on paper, but we were impressed with the size and condition of the townhouse once we had inspected it. The agent was very keen to see people interested in the property, and told us that if we were super keen, we should make an offer, and the owner is in such a hurry to sell that we could even offer up to $20K lower than the asking price!

Jonathan and I worked out that we would probably need to spend around $30K to $50K to pretty up the place - get rid of the air conditioning unit, reglaze all the windows, repaint the whole place after all the hooks have been removed from the walls, maybe a new kitchen, and tidy up the laundry. Even then, the townhouse would have been bought at a good price.

We drove to the second property, in Denistone. Although we were a bit early, there was already another family there waiting for the same agent. The thing that struck us first was that the villa was in a small complex, that looked like it could have been a retirement village once upon a time ago. The villas look like they were lifted straight from the set of Blast From The Past!

Once inside, we were transported straight to the modern day. The interior had at one point been gutted and totally renovated by the current owners, with gorgeous floor boards, state of the art kitchen, and a professional paint job. The whole place screamed "class" and "elegance", and everything was well maintained and gorgeous.

There are 3 bedrooms in this villa, all quite spacious. Built in wardrobe in master bedroom only, but you'd expect that from a villa that was over 40 years old. The owners must have put that in in the last decade or so - it looked quite new. The bathroom and the toilet were separated, which was great.

The living space and the dining space were quite adequate, and the open plan kitchen was GORGEOUS! State of the art appliances, huge walk in pantry, loads of bench space - basically, my perfect kitchen!

The backyard was lovely too. The yard wrapped around the back of the villa, with one side paved for entertaining and the rest turfed with low maintenance grass. Just the right amount of grass for the littlies and not so much that Jonathan wouldn't mind having to mow every now and again.

High fences meant that intruding neighbours would find it hard to peep over the fence to spy on the backyard, one side of which shared a fence with the car park of the local Latter Day Saints' church.

We loved it. We really loved it. We loved it so much we spent 20 minutes looking at the property in fine detail, and then spent 10 minutes talking to the agent about the property. We loved it so much that we asked him to send us the contract straight away, and told him that we would be keen to inspect the property again with my parents tomorrow if we are able to tee up a time that would suit them.

After bidding the agent farewell, Jonathan and I drove around the block for a bit to find out what amenities are close by. We found the local Catholic primary school, the bus stops, and a park / reserve area not far from the villa. We paid a trip to Top Ryde Shopping Centre as well, which really wasn't that far away from the villa.

We spent most of the afternoon talking about both properties, neither of which we held much hope for at the beginning of the day. Yet here we were, impressed with both and debating which one we liked better! In the end, the villa at Denistone won the day - because it was a "move in straight away with nothing to fix", as opposed to "there are a few things we must fix before we move in" at Marsfield.

Once home, we looked at the My School website to see if Denistone was within the catchment area for the high schools we wanted to send the kids to. And Denistone was definitely in the catchment area. With this information, we rang my parents and arranged a time for them to come with us for another inspection. The last piece of the puzzle fell into place with the agent also available at the time we wanted.

Super super super excited now! We are so close!!! Stay tuned!

Project New Home: 2nd Inspection Time!

So, after our chat with Dad and Mum yesterday and last night, a second inspection has now been arranged for my folks to check out the third property - the villa from Saturday's inspections.

Dad and Mum went to have a look at the property on their own yesterday, and we had dinner with them last night to receive the verdict.

Dad rightly gave us all the "flaws" first - we needed them to pick apart the property for us, so we didn't mind that they had a small list of "flaws" to tell us.

First and foremost, this property is on a main road. This fact has been niggling Jonathan and I too, and while the villa is gorgeous, it will always be on a main road.

Because it is on a main road, we may have a lot of issues going in and coming out of our driveway. And when we have guests, they will have to park on the side streets and walk a short walk to our front door. If Jonathan and I were to have my family over for lunch or dinner or something, which will involve 3 families coming from 3 different locations in 3 cars, at least 2 of the cars will have to park on the side street. There is only room for 1 other car to park in the complex, which will be reserved for Dad and Mum.

Other small issues that Dad and Mum saw included flimsy windows and the air conditioning being in the main living room only. Being very security conscious, and with the property being on a main road, Dad and Mum were wary of how flimsy the windows were. And with summer approaching, and the Speedy bump increasing in size, Dad and Mum were worried that the single air conditioning unit might not be able to stave away the heat.

After all the concerns were noted, Dad and Mum said if we could deal with everything - and mainly if we could deal with the property being on a very busy main road, then it would be worthwhile to make an offer. They liked the property for a lot of things too, such as the space and the size of the rooms, and that it was quite new and in a good area. With everything in mind, Jonathan and I talked about it some more after dinner, and decided to make an offer today.

We called the agent first thing in the morning and made an offer. The agent told us that we were the 6th party to make an offer, and our initial offer was the lowest of the 6. As we had never made an offer on a property before, we asked the agent to give us an indication of the range we hope to be playing in. The agent was quite cagey - around this point, I started to feel uncomfortable about dealing with him - and told us that we should make a much higher offer if we want to be in the game. Quickly, Jonathan and I decided to substantially increase our offer, which was still in our price range, but was now at the higher end of what we want to pay for this property.

The agent continued to make me feel uncomfortable, by asking if we would be willing to make an offer even higher than our revised offer. I asked if he could tell me why, and he told us that we were now at the higher end of the offers he'd received, but not the best offer by any means. He kept saying things like "You're around the 2nd highest offer", "I won't be taking your offer to the vendor because it's not the highest offer", and asking "Are you sure this is your final and best offer?", which I felt was him being extremely aggressive and pushy. So I became defensive and told him that our revised offer was all we are offering, for now, since we have no way of knowing if he was telling the truth about there being 5 other offers.

The agent at this point back-pedalled a bit and told us that we were definitely the 2nd highest offer. Then he did something which made me think even less of him - he said that he knew we were stretching and implied that he didn't think we would be able to make a higher offer. How patronising! At that point, with Jonathan's total support, I dug my heels in and told him that our revised offer was our best and final offer, and that I would email him that figure to confirm our offer.

Even via email, the agent was still trying to get us to up our offer. Since he was so pushy, and I was now tired of dealing with him, we confirmed it was our best and final offer.

Let's see how this one pans out!

Updated on September 10

Jonathan and I have heard nothing from the agent. The property has been taken off Domain. We can only assume we missed out. Oh well. We weren't totally enamoured with the property. Ultimately, the villa IS on a main road, it will always be on a main road, and the main road will never be anything less than a main road. Truth be told, the main road is just going to get busier in the future.

We've found 2 properties to inspect this coming weekend, so our search continues!

Project New Home: Homes Viewed = 14

Anther Saturday, another round of open house inspections.

After last week's slim pickings, we were able to find 3 homes for us to inspect this week. Of course, our trusty power point counter and bath spotter was with us this weekend, and we had to ask her again to be patient with us while we inspected each of the properties.

During the week, when I found these properties, I had a good feeling about this batch of homes. The feeling was that one of these would be perfect, and on paper, one was in a great location, one had a pretty good floor plan, and one had awesome low strata levies. And they were all well within our price range.

The first of the properties was in Epping - on the side of Epping where I grew up. For many years, I had walked past this complex and always thought it was quite pretty. And being the first weekend this property was open for inspection, I was expecting a large group of people to be viewing it at the same time as us.

I was not to be disappointed. There would easily have been 10 other families crammed into the 3 bedroom apartment for the inpsection when we arrived. The property presented quite well, if somewhat a bit older than some of the others we'd seen. The bedrooms were spacious, all with built-in wardrobes, but the bathroom could do with a bit of an upgrade. The kitchen was a tad small, with a few odd food storage solutions found in the laundry. The lounge/dining area flowed onto a small balcony (which can also be accessed via the master bedroom).

There was a strange bump in the hallway, which I almost tripped over. The single lock up garage was downstairs, about 15m from the side door and the stairs to the front door of the apartment.

The biggest drawcard was the gorgeous gardens. We walked through the beautifully manicured gardens to get to the front door, and I would imagine that would be where the bulk of the strata levies would go to - and rightly so.

Location wise, this was perfect for us. It was a short walk to Epping Station and the bus interchange. There was a row of shops and restaurants between the apartment and the station, and my old Church was but a short stroll up the road. The street, while not a main main road, was still one of the main roads that connects North Epping to the rest of the world. And that was one of the "cons" on our list - the balcony and the living room, and to an extent the master bedroom, faced onto the often busy road. And Jonathan thought the apartment was a bit "twee".

With that property inspected, we went to Macquarie Shopping Centre for our weekly visit. We went and visited our gorgeous friend Tristan in his store, and bought Jonathan a fabulous Father's Day gift (the Nintendo DSi XL, because I'm a good wife and the only Christmas / birthday present he's getting this year is a baby). It was during this time we discovered Mina's fringe was covered in nits.

We headed to the food court for some lunch after buying Jonathan's present. Mina was so hungry she wolfed down her lunch before Jonathan even returned with his food! As we had a bit of time before the next inspection, Jonathan took Mina down to the play area while I went and did a small bit of shopping in Big W.

Just after 2pm, we headed to our second inspection in Macquarie Park. The apartment was at the bottom of the complex that was situated at the bottom of a cul-de-sac. The apartment overlooked part of the Lane Cove National Park, which was very peaceful and tranquil. Unfortunately, that was about the only thing going for the place.

It was an obvious share house for university students, one of which was still in the apartment when viewers arrived for the inspection. When we got there, the real estate agent was nowhere to be seen, so we put our name and number down on the list. The kitchen was the first room as we walked in, and it needed a lot of work. It looked like it was the original kitchen when the complex was first built.

The bedrooms were crammed with stuff belonging to each of the 3 students living in the apartment, which made the rooms very small and not well presented. The split level dining and lounge room was quite spacious, and the balcony looked lovely, but it had a very poor drainage problem, which was evidenced by the large puddles of muddy water along the edge.

We really weren't impressed with this property, so we hightailed it out of there as soon as we had made up our minds that this was not the one.

The last property of the day was back in Epping, on the other side of the railway line, very close to where I use to live back when I first moved out of home into a share house. Jonathan had a few reservations about this property, namely that it was on the main road. We had already viewed a property on this main drag when we first started looking, which was further up the road towards Carlingford, so Jonathan was well aware of how busy the road is.

We arrived far too early, so I introduced Jonathan and Mina to one of the best fruit and vegetable markets in the Epping / Carlingford area - Martelli's. Jonathan was quite impressed with the freshness of everything in the market, and we picked up a few things for us along the way. Before too long, it was time to head to the property inspection.

The villa was located at the back of the property, which was some distance from the main road, making the property quite secluded and quiet at the same time. The villa was in a complex of 4, with a self managed strata plan and levies of $150 per quarter. Brilliant!

There were plenty of families also viewing the property, and we squeezed our way into the front door through the maze of shoes. The agent out front was the same guy who we'd been dealing with from the Eastwood property we viewed 2 weeks ago, and it was pleasing that Jesse remembered us as well as we remembered him.

Once inside, we found ourselves wandering through the really-close-to-perfect potential new home. The living space was huge - there would be enough room to have an area set aside specifically for the kids and their toys. The kitchen was a good size, although the oven was on the small side of things. The "family room" could be turned into a dining area, which would be quite spacious for our dining table.

The 3 bedrooms were all generously sized. All with built-ins, all very spacious. The master bedroom had a walk in wardrobe and an ensuite. There was an internal laundry too, which had its own separate entrance to the villa from the backyard.

The backyard wrapped around the side and back of the house, all enclosed. There was a paved area, as well as a patch of grass, which would be great for pot plants or a veggie / herb patch. There weren't any plants in the yard, so it would be easy to fill it with our own choices, if we were to buy this place and if we were to buy plants. There was also a clothes line in the backyard.

Everything about this place screamed "Take me, I'm yours"! It really was the nicest place we had seen that we can afford, since the townhouse that we fell in love with in North Ryde. The location was not the best - it was after all on the main road, but the rest of the villa ticked every box. We were really truly impressed with this property, and told Jesse in no uncertain terms to send us a contract as soon as possible, as we were very very very keen on this property.

With that, we were done with the inspections for the day. Jonathan and I talked about this property a bit more on our way home, and we were both of the mind set that we need to take my parents along for another inspection and make an offer. That's how serious we are about this place.

Tomorrow, being Father's Day, we had already made plans to see my parents and take them to yum cha. This would be the perfect opportunity to talk to Dad about the villa, and get his opinion and try to lock him in to inspect the house with us next weekend.

We might be nearly there. We hope so. Until such time as we sign the contract though, we will keep looking.

Project New Home: Homes Viewed = 11

Open house inspections for this week were lean and mean this week, but I still managed to find 2 properties for us to look at.

Admittedly, one of the properties was suppose to have been sold at auction on Thursday evening, but as it was still listed, I added it to the Inspection Planner. Alas, I should have known that the information on the website would be out of date, and I should have checked with the agent prior to driving past the property. The agent was, after all, the twat who turned an old apartment into a hot box during a previous open house inspection.

Yes, the property was sold at auction. And there was a big sign out the front of the house, with a big "Sold" sticker on the big sign. Oh well. Another one bites the dust.

There was another property that was open for inspection at the same time, in Epping, on the other side of the train line from the above property, so we hightailed it over there to have a look. And the minute we arrived, we wanted to leave.

Firstly, it was a townhouse in a complex that was right on the train line. The townhouse was on the train track side of the complex too. Secondly, the complex could not have been any closer to the train line if it tried. And lastly, the property sat literally on top of one of the tracks.

And once inside, we wondered how long we would have to stay to not seem overly keen to get the heck out and that the property was crap.

The townhouse was brand new, which was about the only thing going for it. The downstairs area was tiny, with an even tinier kitchen - and yes, it was even smaller than my current kitchen. There was a tiny tiny tiny backyard which was right on the train track. There was a tiny tiny tiny toilet downstairs, and even the garage looked tiny.

Upstairs, there were 3 bedrooms - all very oddly shaped, and only 2 of the 3 bedrooms had built ins, which was a rather odd feature to have considering this was a brand new development. I would have expected built ins in all the bedrooms!

A train passed as we were inspecting the property, and it was loud even through the closed doors and windows.

We got the heck out of there, without stopping to talk to either of the real estate agents who had strategically placed themselvs at the top of the driveway. We ducked our heads and hurried past, mumbling thanks while running to the car.

We had planned to attend the auction for the Marsfield property we viewed last weekend, so after a spot of lunch at The Ranch, we headed to the auction. As expected, the opening bid was towards our upper limit, with the auctioneer interested in $20,000 bids at the start of the auction. The bids eventually slowed to $5,000 bids, and when they finally dried up, the price was well beyond our reach, but close to what I was expecting the property would sell for. It was eventually passed in, and at that time, Jonathan and I left to continue our busy Saturday.

Hopefully, there will be a few more open houses to attend next weekend. I'm starting to become a little bit impatient and a little bit panicky about finding a new house, with the feeling in direct proportion to the speed with which my waistline is expanding. Fingers crossed we see a few more properties next weekend!

Updated on September 1

The Marsfield duplex, the auction of which we attended, is now relisted on the market for a huge princely sum, $70,000 more than the final bid on Saturday. The new asking price is totally beyond what I had expected the property to be worth, and to be honest, the vendors are kidding themselves if they think they will end up selling the property with that asking price.

Project New Home: Homes Viewed = 10

Guess who got conditional approval for a very big bucket of money to buy a new home???

The conditional approval for our mortgage came through yesterday - thanks so much to our gorgeous friend Andrew. The email came through while I was at work, and I was so excited I had to call Jonathan straight away. While we were on the phone, the enormity of our quest finally dawned on us, and although we were excited, we were also a little bit scared.

With this weekend being a sleepover weekend, we were house hunting with Mina, our power point counter and bath spotter. I found 3 properties open for inspection: 1 in Eastwood, 1 in Marsfield, and 1 in Epping.

The first property in Eastwood was a villa in a small complex of 4 villas. Although the property was on one of the busiest roads in Eastwood, the complex was set right back from the street, and the villa was at the very back of the complex which actually made it very quiet.

Upon entering the villa, we were greeted with a narrow but long lounge room, which the owners had furnished with both a lounge and a dining table. This flowed into an open plan kitchen, and a "family" space with easy access to the small courtyard which wrapped around the back of the property, which provides another entry point into the villa via the laundry.

The villa had 3 bedrooms - all very very generously sized. In fact, they were all double sized bedrooms, with the master bedroom having its own ensuite, and a really big ensuite to boot (it was almost the same size as the main bathroom). All the bedrooms had built in wardrobes, and the main bathroom had a bath. The double tandem garage was laid out so that the front of the garage housed the car, and the back of the garage was furnished like a "spare" living space.

This was a lovely villa. And it would have been perfect for us if we were a family with teenage children who spent a lot of time in their rooms, or a young couple looking to turn the villa into a share house to help pay the mortgage. As a couple with a young child and another on the way, we felt that we needed more family living space for our young family.

We went for some lunch at Macquarie Centre before heading to the inspection at the Marsfield property. Even before we arrived at the duplex, I knew this would be one property that I would fall in love with. And I was right.

The 2 storey duplex was at the bottom of a cul-de-sac in a gorgeous area, far enough removed from the hustle and bustle of Marsfield / North Ryde, but close enough to all the amenities. The property looked very well maintained, and the garden well groomed.

Once inside, we were greeted with dark redwood flooring, which Jonathan balked at immediately. We had seen the same kind of flooring at the first property we viewed at the start of our house hunting adventure, and Jonathan wasn't that keen on the flooring back then, and even less impressed with it now. The flooring just screamed "Asian", and to be honest, I wasn't that taken with it either, especially when it was so expansively installed throughout the duplex.

Downstairs, there was an ample living room and family room, which was contained to one side of the duplex. The kitchen was through a door in the centre of the ground floor, and I just fell in love with the kitchen. Big open space, with a dining area at the back of the big open space. There was also a small covered patio off the dining area. I could picture myself cooking for everyone and have them all seated at the dining table, keeping me company and enjoying the lovely aromas.

Upstairs was lovely too, with 3 massive bedrooms all with built ins - the master bedroom has a walk in wardrobe! The bathroom upstairs was amazing - the owners must have put a fair bit of money into renovating the bathroom - it was probably the best room in the house besides the kitchen.

Besides the flooring, this place was lovely lovely lovely. A huge problem though was that the property was scheduled to go to auction, with the starting bid being our upper limit. The auction will be held on site on August 28, so Jonathan and I decided we would come back to see how much the property would sell for.

The 3rd and last property for the day was in Epping, which was being listed by the same real estate agent who was selling first property we viewed - yes, Dad's friend, who was out the front of the property greeting potential buyers as we arrived.

The townhouse was at the back of the complex, which unfortunately also meant the townhouse more or less backed on to Beecroft Road. The complex also sloped down towards Beecroft Road, which meant the townhouse was at the bottom of the slope.

The entry level was the "upper" level, and we walked into a lovely lounge room with lovely rented furnishings. Two bedrooms and a bathroom made up the "upper" level, with built ins in both bedrooms.

Downstairs, there was a poorly constructed 3rd bedroom directly under the "upper" living space, with a small kitchen and an even smaller dining space. Access to the backyard was through the sliding doors adjoining the dining space, and although it was advertised as a "covered garden", the "covering" was provided by the trees from the other side of the back fence. There wasn't one flat surface in the backyard, which was a bit overgrown and looked very unloved. In fact, it didn't look like anything could grow in that backyard, and even if someone wanted to blitz it, there was little to no access for one to bring in the bobcat and other necessary equipment to do the landscaping.

And there was another problem. The 3rd bedroom wasn't always a bedroom. It looked like someone had decided at one point to put up some gyprock and enclose the downstairs living area to create a 3rd bedroom. It was dark and dingy and it actually felt damp. We weren't sure if that room got much natural sunlight at all.

It only got worse. The garage wasn't connected to the townhouse. It was displaced about 15m from the front door.

This property didn't sing to us at all, and we left in a bit of a hurry so we wouldn't be caught up talking to the agent for too long.

We've now seen 10 properties, and armed with our conditional finance approval, we are totally ready to make an offer on that perfect property. Bring it on!

Project New Home: Homes Viewed = 7

New homes viewed count is now at 7.

Resuming our house hunting after our honeymoon, we found 2 properties to inspect this weekend. The first was in North Ryde, in the same complex as another townhouse that we had viewed when we first started looking. The second was in Boronia Gardens, a much sought after location in Epping.

The North Ryde property was on the edge of the complex, which has frontage on two roads - one busy-ish road, and one quiet road that leads to a cul-de-sac. The townhouse backs on to the quiet road. It shared one common wall with another townhouse. The "front" of the property is actually inside the complex - the back door, which seems to be utilised as the main entrance, actually opens out to the road.

The owners had obviously done a lot of work to the interior - the renovations made the place very very very well presented - totally gorgeous. Everything looked newly renovated, and clean, and well maintained. Upstairs, there were 3 good sized bedrooms, all with built in wardrobes. The smallest of the rooms had a "built in" study nook too, which was awesome. The bathroom was well laid out with plenty of room.

Downstairs was just as lovely. The open plan dining and living space was light and airy, which flowed out into an outdoor entertaining area - an enclosed courtyard that really was the "front" entrance to the property. There was a toilet in the laundry, which was great as there was no need to traipse up and down the stairs to relieve oneself. The kitchen was fab - it was a bit on the small side, but I could have lived with it!

Plenty of storage space throughout the townhouse - nice cupboard / linen press upstairs, spacious under stairs storage space, and the property came with a tandem lock up garage, although we weren't exactly sure where the garage was in comparison to the townhouse.

There really wasn't anything wrong with the townhouse. It really was the nicest one we had seen to date, and it ticked pretty much every box. Close to public transport (a short-ish walk to the station, bus stop right out the front), close to the shops (Macquarie Centre was literally just down the road), near quite a few parks, straight move in without having to do any work. It was almost perfect.

Unfortunately, our finances hadn't been approved yet, and we weren't in a position to make an offer. Plus, the strata fees were quite high, with nothing really to show for it (no pool, no gym, no elevators, and the fees were about the same as those we are paying now). On top of that, we really had no idea where the garage was - more than likely, it was a long long way away from the townhouse, which could prove to be difficult with a baby, a pram and bags of groceries.

The second place was in a complex that I had wanted to live in. Dad use to own property in this complex, and I thought it would be great to have an opportunity to live there too. After inspecting the property at North Ryde, we were hoping the standards would be on par.

Sadly, we were to be totally disappointed.

In total contrast to the North Ryde property, the Epping property was totally vacant. No expenses were spared to dress this place up - and no, we are not kidding. Not one stick of furniture was hired to make this place look presentable, which only showed up how old and tired the apartment looked. The real estate agent did himself nor the property any favours by cranking up the air conditioning to full force hot.

The property was around 30 years old, and you could really tell its age. The walls looked like it carried 30 years of wear and tear, and although the carpet looked newer, it too had seen its best years. The kitchen was so typical of the trend that was 30 years ago, and the bathrooms were hilarious! The sinks were placed so low that when Jonathan stood over them with his back straight, he couldn't reach the taps!

This was a fixer-upper-er, and we are in no way interested in buying a fixer-upper-er. So we hightailed it out of there after a 5 minute inspection.

We have now seen the almost perfect property. Almost perfect. Which we suspect will be snapped up very quickly. With our finances still to be finalised, we will keep looking for that perfect place!

Updated on August 30

The North Ryde property went for a price that was well within our reach, now that our finances have been finalised and we have conditional approval for a truckload of money. Oh well. The search continues!

Project New Home: Homes Viewed = 5

The homes inspected total stands at 5 today.

Being a Saturday, Jonathan, Mina and I went off to inspect 2 homes - one in Eastwood and one in Marsfield.

Both properties were being shown at the same time, within the same 40 minute period, so we had a choice as to which to see first. Thankfully, the properties were within a 5 minute driving distance, so we would not need to break land speed records to get from one to the other.

The first home we visited was almost brand spanking new. The building was 3 years old, on top of shops in Eastwood, across the road from Eastwood Police Station, and within a stone's throw to Eastwood Station. The building is also a secure building with only 17 apartments over 4 floors.

We absolutely loved the interior - you could tell it was almost brand new. The layout was great, with a huge open plan living / dining space, wiht a gorgeous covered balcony and a massive kitchen (with a gas stove). The bedrooms were all generously sized, with plenty of storage space. The walk in wardrobe in the master bedroom was huge! Along with an internal laundry and 2 bathrooms (one with a bath), there is also a small balcony off the master bedroom.

This place ticked a lot of the boxes. But there was a draw back - the apartment doesn't have any real kind of outlook at all. By this, I mean it is pretty much surrounded by other buildings, and the only kind of light is coming in from an angle above the windows. Although the interior was gorgeous, there is no view to speak of, and after talking to Jonathan, we are both afraid that we would start to feel totally boxed in after living there for a while.

The second place was in Marsfield, in a huge complex with over 130 townhouses. When we arrived, we went towards the back of the complex, and soon found the townhouse we were inspecting to be right next to the Epping Road side of the complex. The townhouse was split over 3 floors - the ground floor was the entrance and the double lock up garage. The next floor was an awkward split level living and dining area, with a small kitchen and a small courtyard leading off the kitchen. The 3 bedrooms were on the top floor, with a bathroom and an ensuite in the master bedroom. All bedrooms had built in wardrobes.

The apartment was totally unfurnished, and the carpets were quite stained. Besides that, when we were upstairs looking at the bedrooms, pretty much all the windows faced on to or were seriously affected by the noise coming from Epping Road. Mina liked the fact that the townhouse was right next to a small play area, and that the complex had a pool, but after we showed her how busy Epping Road was, and how noisy her bedroom was going to be, she wasn't so keen on the townhouse after all.

We are now going to be taking a break for at least 2 weeks to get married and go on our honeymoon. Hopefully, by the time we get back from our honeymoon, we will be that much closer to our mortgage pre-approval.

The search continues!

Project New Home: Homes Viewed = 3

With Project New Home going full steam ahead, Saturdays will become another "date" day for Jonathan and I as we embark on our exciting journey of going to open house inspections.

As at today, we have attended 4 open house inspections on 3 different properties. The Epping property we viewed last weekend was worth another look - that was how keen we were about this place - and we took my parents to see it too. Both Jonathan and I are really glad my folks came along - through their eyes, we saw a whole bunch of flaws, such as a huge lack of power points (only 1 per room - very typical of the era in which the building was constructed), and there were a whole bunch of other "defects" that would need to be fixed up as well. So really, it wouldn't have been a straight forward "move in and live" situation. Rather, it would have been "buy it, fix her up - and there's a lot to fix up, then move in".

All thanks to this second viewing, we are now not completely hooked on this property.

Last week, we also looked at a terrace on the border of Epping and Carlingford. Jonathan has always wanted to live in a terrace house, and the pictures on Domain looked fabulous. There were a few warning bells for me, the first of which was that the property was situated on Carlingford Road - which is busy 24/7.

Nevertheless, we went and had a look, and sure enough, the busy main road detracted from an otherwise quite gorgeous terrace house. The interior was all quite new and the property was quite well presented, but we couldn't get past the fact that the property was on a main road.

Today, we went to view a property in Marsfield which is very close to Epping Boys High School. The property is a townhouse in a complex of about 30 townhouses, in a nice leafy area that unfortunately wasn't well serviced by public transport. We liked a lot of things about this property - it was a double bricked townhouse with good sized courtyards (in the front and in the back), the layout in the downstairs living area is lovely and open, and the bedrooms upstairs were all decently sized, with a walk in wardrobe in the master bedroom and built ins in the other rooms. There was an internal laundry, and 2 bathrooms (both upstairs). The property came with a double lock up garage as well.

Our first impressions of the property was that it was really really really over-furnished. We walked into a tiny living area, filled with a massive lounge, a bulky entertainment unit and a bulky wooden wall unit. As we moved towards the back of the property, it became apparent that the much larger living area was being used for other purposes - like housing a massive shrine complete with a statue of Buddha. It was actually quite creepy looking - I thought it looked more like a crypt, but Jonathan insists it's a Buddhist altar table.

The exterior of the property looked well maintained enough. The interior, however, will require some work before we can move in, if we were to buy this place. At the very least, the whole place would need to be painted - the current yellow and blue colour scheme downstairs is very dated, and all the walls upstairs looked like they could do with a fresh coat or 2 as well. The carpeted stairs will need to be replaced, preferably with floor boards, and the landing on the first floor could do with some work too. The bathrooms took us all the way back to the late 70s when this property was built - those tiles were, so, um, vintage. A few doors could be eliminated, like the kitchen door and the walk in wardrobe door. But we did like the front door very much - quite possibly the best thing in the entire property!

The agent said the vendors are very keen to sell, so we've asked for a contract to be sent to us.

In the meantime, as we're now not emotionally attached to any property, we will continue to sort out our finances and hopefully, we'll get approval for a home loan before we find the perfect place.

So the count is up to 3 properties. No doubt we will see plenty more on our new and exciting journey. Let's see what next week will bring.

Project New Home

Now that Project Wedding is pretty much all finalised, and Project Baby is ticking along nicely, Jonathan and I have tentatively started looking for a new home to house our growing family.

My one-bedroom apartment in St Leonards has been home to me since 2001, and has served me, and since May 2009, served us very well. I loved the space when I was there on my own, and when Jonathan moved in, it felt like there was just enough space for us (although at times it has felt a little bit cramped). Add Mina visiting every weekend and sleeping over every second weekend to the mix, and my growing belly containing Speedy, space (or lack thereof) has recently become quite an issue.

Whilst I am reluctant to move, because I've been at St Leonards for so long, and oh, how I hate moving house, we will soon have no choice but to find more space. The apartment really isn't built to house 2 adults, an active 5 year old, and a brand spanking new baby.

Last week, I started looking at properties for sale on Domain. My location preference for our new home is in the Northern Suburbs where I grew up - anywhere in the Epping / Eastwood / Marsfield / North Ryde area would be perfect, as I've always loved that area, and there are some very good schools too. The public transport system has improved by leaps and bounds since I last lived in the area, with train stations added to the North Ryde area, and a massive upgrade of Epping Station and the Epping Bus Depot. And there are plenty of shops around too - Macquarie Shopping Centre is huge, and there are some big supermarkets close by as well. Jonathan has no real preference for location - he knows where he doesn't want to live, but that's about it.

Ideally, our new home would have 3 bedrooms, a study (that can be turned into another bedroom), 2 bathrooms, a newish kitchen, an internal laundry, some outdoor-ish entertainment area (balcony or courtyard), and 2 garage spaces. But certainly, no less than 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and 1 garage space. We worked out that we need 3 bedrooms at a minimum - Mina has recently been complaining that we aren't providing her with a proper bed and a proper bedroom and a proper bath in a proper bathroom, and now has permission from her mother to not sleep over again until we do provide her with her demands. (As an aside, how many 5 year olds can you name that has a double futon bed which is all hers to use for the 2 nights a fortnight that she sleeps over??? Can anyone spell "demanding brat"???) So, in the spirit of being good parents, we need to provide a proper bedroom space for the brat who uses it 2 days per fortnight. We also need a room for Speedy, who will actually be using his room full time. And of course, we need a room for us.

In my search on Domain last week, I came across a lovely looking place in Epping. The photos made the place look very nice, as did the advertising, and it ticked a large number of boxes for me - 5 minute walk to the station, 4 bedrooms, fully renovated throughout. I liked it so much I asked Jonathan if we could go to the open house last Saturday.

Of course, I should point out that neither of us had to this point spoken with our finance guru friend to see if we could afford this place. But that's just the way we are - unconventional.

Along with Mina, we went to inspect the property. We were the last family to arrive for the inspection, and we stayed as long as we could. We chatted with the real estate agent, and asked a few questions here and there. We also agreed to her sending us a copy of the contract.

Oh yes, we love this place. We want this place.

The property is scheduled to go to auction while Jonathan and I are away on our honeymoon. By the look of things, the open house we went to was the 2nd of 6 open houses scheduled for this property's 6 week advertising campaign. It certainly feels like the vendors are stuck on the idea to go all the way to auction.

Jonathan and I are trying our best not to put all our eggs in the one basket with this property, but it's proving a little harder for me than him. He has been quite upset since Mina's mother told Mina she didn't have to sleep over any more (without consulting us first), so I want us to have the space for Mina and meet her brattish demands as quickly as possible so that she would sleep over again. Plus I'm also getting into a small state of panic about the current lack of space, and in the very near future, the possibility of having to deal with a visiting brat and our brand new baby in a one-bedroom apartment.

With all things in mind, we talked firstly to my folks about the property. My dad has been in the real estate game for as long as I can remember - he purchased properties in Sydney as investments way back in the early 1960s when he was in Sydney as a mature age university student and has always been a shrewd property owner and investor. Since he has so much experience and still know so many people in the real estate game, it would have been remiss to not seek his advice. The owner of the listing agent turned out to be a very familiar business associate of Dad's, so phone calls were made to discuss the property. Bless. I love my father!

Next task was to line up a meeting with our finance guru friend Andrew, who came to our place to talk finances with us on Wednesday night. By his calculations, we can more than afford the new place, with a bit extra for some new furniture and a new car in the future, which made us all very happy.

The property has another open house tomorrow, and we've asked my folks to come along to inspect it with us. I hope they see as much beauty as we do, and at the same time, see all the faults that we don't - Jonathan and I are now pretty emotionally wrapped up in this property that we will need my parents' objective eyes to point out every little fault.

We have yet to engage a solicitor, which we will need to do if my folks think the property is a goer. Dad knows plenty of people, so that won't be a problem finding someone who will look after us. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In any case, this is the first of 2 properties we have inspected, so for now, let's just say the search continues. It may be a long journey, or it may end with us making an offer on this property and the offer being accepted. Who knows what will happen in this current competitive real estate market?

Wish us luck, and stay tuned for updates!

PS - and yes, that is a picture of Smurfette's house.