We've been living in our new home for nearly 4 weeks now, and during this time I've learnt a bunch of things.
Landscaping is expensive but...
When we were planning our house with our construction company they asked if we wanted to go through their landscaping arm. They quoted us $12,000 which is not only astronimical but I didn't think it was value for money considering the plans they shared. Instead we opted to do it ourselves with the help of his family.
We really wanted to have a fire pit, and partial decking which was quoted for $18,000 so we hired his uncle to build it for us.
By going down the DIY route we've saved thousands of dollars, and got to have our friends, and family help us create our dream home!
The final cost for landscaping with a fire pit, and deck is now hovering only $8,000 with all the bells, and whistles we wanted.
Furniture takes so long to be delivered
We brought a lot of our furniture from our previous home. However we bought new items like accent chairs, wardrobe fitouts, the coffee table, a gaming chair, and a new bed base that all have an estimated delivery time of weeks to months. This meant a delay in our house warming as we don't want people to come over when there are random empty spots in the house where the product hasn't been delivered yet.
Furniture has so much packaging and council pickup takes 14-28 days?!
Oh my goodness.
There is so much plastic, polysterene, and cardboard that is wrapped around furniture. We haven't gotten to park our car inside yet as our garage is full of the packaging from our furniture.. We've already had 2 airtaskers come to take a lot of the cardboard to the local VISY recycling centre but there's just so much left.
If you are ordering a lot of new furniture for your place, I would recommend organising council pickup when you move in so once it's all unpacked you can be clear of all that rubbish ASAP.
Label your damn moving boxes
Sooooooo many moving boxes everywhere! I packed nearly all of our boxes, and we ended up with 147 boxes which is so crazy to even think about. We used the Avery Moving Contents Labels so we knew exactly what was in each box, and what room they needed to be dropped off into.
Pack a bag for the first two days
Before moving in we were under the absurd impression that we would have time to just duck out for a bit to get some essentials. Being the anxious person I am, I decided to pack us a weekend bag of clothes, underwear, toiletries and basic food.
And thank goodness I did!
Not only did we not have time to go out to buy things, we were also up until late unpacking. There were boxes in different states of unpacked scattered across the house.
But I packed essential ingredients, and was able to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner for three days. Even could make apple pie!
Buy nice or buy twice
Most importantly, buy nice or buy twice. Or in other words, buy the better option over the cheap version or else you'll spend more buying.