The short version: Magdalena and I put an offer on a home that we loved last Friday. It was counter-offered and we accepted. We spent Friday afternoon celebrating with a few beers and a few friends who are all in the same situation. Today I paid our deposit so it feels a little more secure. We’ve signed the paperwork and are about to submit our finance application this week. It’s all quite exciting.

The actual home is listed on the Acton website still if you want to check it out, though I don’t know how long it’ll remain on there. I’ve uploaded all of the photos to Flickr if you want to check it out.

It’s a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom cottage on Berwick Street in Victoria Park that has recently been fully renovated. The renovations are really nice too - the kind that a person does when they’re going to be living in the house themselves, not just to sell a place quickly. I was especially aware of this after seeing a few places with dodgy finishes that people had slapped together. The seller was planning on living in WA but due to work changes he’s had to relocate back to QLD. Great for us; not so good for him!

Personal highlights include:

• low maintenance gardens
• big shed (not pictured but it’s there!)
• the size of the bedrooms
• useful, practical living areas
• shiny new bathroom (with deluxe towel rack)
• kitchen-outdoor combination, especially with the floating island preparation bench

I don’t like that the “laundry” is behind some doors in the kitchen, but I don’t like doing laundry so that should just sort itself out. The cars will be in the weather too whereas we have a carport at McMaster, and there’s no gate on the limestone wall out the front which is something we’ll change. There is a massive lack of built-in storage too, which we’ll be rectifying by turning the study nook (which was the verandah a long, long time ago) into a huge walk-in wardrobe.

We’ve been very fortunate to have received a lot of help and guidance from Kim Dorizzi. He operates the mortgage brokering firm Homestate Lending, though some of you might better know him as Emma’s pseudo-step dad. Having him in our corner has given us a confidence to proceed in unfamiliar territory, and I’d recommend him to anyone that is looking for mortgage advice or assistance.

Presuming that our finance gets approved and everything goes to plan we’ll be in there on February 25th. I’m thinking of it as Christmas-in-February.

I came across a series of videos that are composed from a series of photographs taken using using time-lapse techniques and interesting lenses. I thought my photography nerd friends would especially like them.

Helpless from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

 
Bathtub II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

I think they look like the models my brother used to make for his train set. Be sure to check out all the other videos by Keith Loutit and note that they’re available in HD for maximum viewing pleasure.