OK so for those of you who have been following the construction updates of our home build, you would know this is our first time building a house…
There’s so much involved that you never think of and that no one ever tells you about. It’s pretty overwhelming to be honest!
Related article: Construction update 10: Walls, walls, walls
Related article: Construction update 11: Colour consultation and painting
Things haven’t been going as smoothly as we would have liked. We’ve hit a few road bumps that have slowed us down and also blown out our budget. Oh you know, small things like the roof for the second storey had to be completely re-engineered… it’s gotten to the point where Bruno’s stressed we might not finish.
“Why aren’t you freaking out about the money!?” he asked me the other night. I know I should be and that I could be doing more to tone down my ideas (hey, I already gave up my glass ceiling in our ensuite) but I have the feeling things are going to work out. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
When all the #fails were getting to us, my father-in-law shared an Italian proverb to help us laugh off the worries.
You know nothing of this life until you have married or built a house.
He says, it’s only when you marry or build a house that you understand real problems in life.
To try and do my part to get the budget back on track, I’ve been spending all my time pouring over the pages of home magazines, and Instagram and Pinterest accounts of interior designers to find inspiration that I can interpret in a less expensive way. Navigating the various colorbond roofing costs options helped us make a more informed decision for our second-storey re-engineering.
I’m pretty excited about what we’ve found and can’t wait for the interiors of our house to get underway so I can share them with you!
The Freakout
About a week ago when Bruno and I went to the block and we had The Freakout. It went a little something like this…
Bruno: “Does it look weird to you?”
Gina: “Yeah. What’s going on there?”
Bruno: “It looks s#!t”
Gina: “Is it supposed to be uneven like that?”
Bruno: “We’ve f##ked our block.”
Gina: “I don’t think it’s that bad.”
Bruno: “We’re spending so much money and we’ve completely f##ked our block.”
[Long pause]
Gina: “It’s not that bad…”
We’re standing across the road from our block looking at the roof trusses that have just started to go up on the big house. And it’s looking weird. Really weird. And we’re both freaking out.
I didn’t take any photos of the half up roof trusses that caused this freakout… I didn’t really want a lasting memory of the moment. The full trusses are up now and perhaps you can picture what we were looking at if you imagine only the roof in the red circled section was up…
We went home in silence that night both feeling unwell at the thought of building a home we don’t love. “At least it’s not our forever home” says Bruno to try and make us feel better.
Up until this point we’ve loved everything about our house. It doesn’t bother us in the slightest when people stop and ask if we’re building a shed because we can picture how it will look when it’s done — a totally different home to any other in Canberra that suits our style.
But in this moment, we aren’t feeling that love at all. We’re feeling worry.
As soon as we got home we consulted the plans again. You would think we have them memorised by now! And breathed a sigh of relief.
Turns out the not-lining-up roof lines of the big and small houses was totally part of the plan and not our re-engineered roof. And just like that we went back to loving our house.
I’m hoping that was a once-off thing because after investing two years of our life and every cent to our names, we can’t really afford another freakout 🙂
Stay tuned for the next construction update soon! In the meantime, if you have any comments or words of wisdom to share about building your own home, I’d love you to share them with me in the comments below.
Your optimistic outlook shines through and will help in this stressful and exciting process. It’s great you have a clear vision and can work through obstacles to keep on track. Enjoying reading the updates and looking forward to seeing more photos.
Thanks so much for your lovely comment Julia 🙂 Fingers crossed xx
It’s looking great! Love the material choices – I’m sure it will look even better when finished. What colour roof are you doing?
Thanks Jane! Seriously cannot wait until it’s finished to be honest, ha ha. We’re using the same ‘Monument’ colour (almost black) as the cladding on the roof 🙂