What is your why?

The alarm goes off at 6am. It's dark, it's cold, it's raining and it's Monday.

Now I love my job, I really love what I do as I am a firm believer that if you don't love what you do, you really do need to find something else, but with that combination of things coupled with the little tiny arms that wrap around your neck, breathing their little morning breath into your face, snuggling their chubby little face into yours and with their squeaky, sweet, little voice saying "Please don't go to work yet Mummy, please stay longer at home and snuggle cuddle with me on the couch" I have to say, I really do need to reach into my 'why' to get myself going.

We all have a 'why.' No two 'whys' are the same but there is a driver, a reason that you get up each day, put your work head on and step out into the world to do what you do. My 'why' changes at the achievement of the last or shift in direction, but the last three years, we have been working towards one particular 'why.' My husband and I working opposing hours to ensure that we are both working our quota and balancing the children's requirements in order to achieve our biggest 'why' yet.

A bit out of the norm for me as I share with you my 'why' today. I'm not normally one to share my personal life but here goes.

Three years ago, almost to the day, we sat down as a family and made a plan. Our eldest daughter had been accepted to the school that we were desperately hoping to get her in to and with the age difference between all of our three girls, we did the maths and realised that we were going to be at that school for the next 16 years!!! The decision was made to sell our family home and move to the area, near the school. Now there have been some hiccups along the way. The Perth housing market was not kind to us in our sale however we eventually sold (13 months on the market!) and moved to a rental in the suburb we wanted.

We have built two houses in the past. I LOVE the building process however both of those builds did come with some frustration as we went with project builders in the past and the restrictions that you are placed under didn't mesh well with my creative ideas. We never thought that we would be able to build in our chosen suburb as it is very well established and zoning laws restrict developments to the area. As luck would have it, a block of land that had been vacant for nearly 10 years did become available and we put an offer on it that was accepted and within 14 days! We had a block! The building fairies were smiling on us that day as the block happened to be on the same street as the girl's school...Now... to find a builder.

We didn't find a builder. We found something much better. We found HBA. Home Builders Advantage. I was sceptical at first as Richard, the owner, talks a good talk but after 20 minutes of meeting with him and getting my scepticism out of the way, I realised that this was the way I was meant to go. HBA take the pain out of building and build you the house that you want to build. We sat down over numerous meetings, too many coffees, a lot of direct conversations and a truckload of Pinterest photos and we designed our house, from scratch, including all of the things that WE wanted to fit OUR budget. In fairness, he had me sold the moment he told me that there was no such thing as a 'Builders Standard Range' in the HBA world. We designed the dream house, we argued again and again over how big the dressing room and walk in robes really needed to be (BIGGER THAN THAT!) and on completion of our plans, that we owned, HBA tendered the house designs out to over 20 builders.

Now, if you have ever built a house before, you would know how many builders you have to speak to, how many specs you have to go over, how many details are required in the pricing and then the additional charges for each change that you make. The HBA process eradicates all of the shopping around. It flips the process around so that the builders come to you to fight for your business and boy, do they put their best foot forward on price. Then there is the pricing... it is detailed to the last dollar. The tendering builders will list out for you the price of every tap, every tile, every handle... There is complete transparency in what you are paying for and exactly what you are getting.

It was at this stage that we found Target Homes WA. They are a small, boutique building company that priced incredibly well for our build and made a point of explaining that they had no problems at all with my 'creative license' and crazy ideas. Jason, the Director of the company gave me his mobile number and email address at the get go and he has been my direct line of contact the whole time. This sounds like a small detail however this means that I am going straight to the decision maker for answers to my crazy requests, saving time and multiple explanations.

So Saturday, HBA and Target Homes WA did something pretty special for us. They put us through Walk the Plan.. It involved a giant warehouse with 8 projectors attached to the roof that reflects your plans, in life size, on to the white floor so that you can walk around your 'house' and see how it 'feels' to check the scale of things. With two of my three short people in tow and my husband, we wandered around our soon-to-be home, that has been three years in the making. The girls raced around pushing furniture into each of the rooms to check that everything fits, bouncing on beds and pretending to swim in the pool... The husband got the opportunity to shake his head at the size of my dressing room, (still could have been bigger Richard!) check how much wine would fit in his cellar and for me, on behalf of the oldest one, to check if a ballet barre could comfortably fit in the activity room.

So the process begins. We haven't quite yet started the build, we are told we are about six weeks away.. but this is my 'why.' This is the reason I climb out of that warm bed and move away from that snuggly little face to jump on the bus to the city in the dark... for this forever home that will be the home of these little people for many many years to come.

If you are about to embark on the building process or even thinking about it, give my mate Richard at HBA a call. He will save you buckets of money, hours of time and a considerable amount of pain. Tell him I sent you... I'll let him tell you what they do best. 1800 284 539

It is at this stage that we also have to say a giant THANK YOU to our tireless and relentless Mortgage Broker, Lukas Best from Capita Finance Solutions for making this happen. He has been subjected to many, many phone calls at all hours of the day to get this happening, even calling me the day after his first born arrived to ensure we had everything in place and ready to go... now that's dedication!