Resort living…

As you know I brought my house sight unseen. Yep, I brought it via the internet after a video call with my agent.

I definitely lucked out in terms of the quality of my new home. I feel as though I live at a resort. Seriously!

This is the first time in my life that I’ve consciously gone out and furnished a home.

One of the big furniture orders arrived a couple of weeks ago….

It’s been almost two months since I ordered my new dining table and buffet and now they’ve finally here.

It hasn’t been without a false start though. These items were supposed to be delivered two weeks ago but were “delayed” at the very last moment…

Not sure about you but the whole Covid excuse is wearing thin. This is especially true since these items in question are manufactured here in Australia.

That coupled with the fact the Australia is almost completely covid free and has been for the most part since October last year.

Yet this excuse is still being bandied about as though nothing can be done about the seemingly endless delays all with Covid to blame. Hhhmmm?

I would understand if the items were being shipped from overseas.

And we had to wait for the supply chain to catch up to the demand, but the fact is that they are produced locally. So why and they still taking weeks and in some cases months to arrive is annoying!

Yeah, this excuse really grinds my gears!

In my mind it’s a convenient way to cover up really shitty service…

Lol!

Anyway, now that I’ve had my rant I feel better. 🙂

Well, at least my home is now partially furnished. The ground floor at least!

Now I can have people over and not feel embarrassed about it being a cave with no furniture…

Still waiting on beds and mattresses for upstairs, but no real push until May/June when the kids are hoping to come out from Canada. Fingers crossed these aren’t delay beyond the 12 week waiting period.

I must admit I’ve enjoyed designing each of the rooms and pulling it all together. Of course I’ve consulted my daughter Sam in this endeavour as she has an awesome eye for architecture and design. Particularly interior design!

I’ve always had an appreciation for a clean, minimalistic contemporary design. So it was important for me to spend the time to get it exactly right.

I spent a lot of time researching design sites and magazines then with Sam’s help just followed my nose.

As you can imagine countless hours browsing online and in a variety of stores to find the specific pieces I wanted. Well worth it in the end! 🙂

In addition bringing in furniture I also wanted to add value to the house much as I had done when I moved into my last place in Toronto.

This meant finding the right contractors to assist with my vision. Fortunately for me my real estate agent Dianne and her husband Kurt were really helpful in this area.

They were able to connect me with some of the contractors they’ve used locally. Always better to get a referral from a trusted source! 🙂

Just a couple of simple changes to start off with.

The first was a new faucet with a retractable neck in the kitchen.

Next I had the stairwell window (all three meters of it) frosted to block out the afternoon heat.

Neither were costly, but certainly needed.

Next was the garage floor epoxy coated for long life durability.

I’ve also had a number of windows throughout the house measured for California (called Plantation in Australia) shutters.

They’ve been measured and ordered but they won’t arrive until mid April.

These are manufactured in China and need to be shipped for installation, so looking forward to this finishing touch.

I think this touch will really add a tropical feel to my home and complement the existing interior design.

And for my pièce de résistance I worked with a local cabinet maker to custom design a new wall unit for the main living room.

It’s going to be especially great when my shipping container arrives and I can add my personal items.

Although it seems to delayed yet again.

It was supposed to arrive at the end of January, then in January they said the end of February, but alas the ship still hasn’t left the Port of Los Angeles yet so my best guess is it won’t be in Australian waters until at least the end of March…

After that it will spend at least a month to six weeks in quarantine at the port of Sydney. Once it’s cleared customs it can then be delivered to me here in Queensland.

Depending on when it arrives it will be close to 180 days since I packed and shipped it with the moving company…

Never quite goes the way you expect does it?

The good thing is that I like a chic and minimalist home at the best of times so haven’t really missed anything other than more summer clothes. 🙂

If I only had of known I could of decluttered completely and jettisoned all of my personal belongings.

Totally feeling blessed that I have such an amazing home!

Until next week

Ciao