For our block, we knew we had to make provision for a rainwater tank, as part of council’s water efficiency and conservation efforts. But the recommended rainwater tank for our block is too big and as ugly as a blind cobbler’s thumb. We decided we’d have a good chance of seeing if we could change…
Progress – Admin, but moving along
It’s hard writing a blog when there’s not much happening. We’re obviously in an admin queue – our builders have got more clients than their contract administrators and non-gender-specific draughtspersons. We’re officially at stage 2 of 14 Preconstruction stages. We’ve gone from the ‘Sales Admin’ stage to the ‘Contract Admin’ stage. I’m trying to think…
Smart Choices and Progress
Now that we’ve signed up with Smart Homes, I thought that it would be a similar waiting game to the last one. However, even without digging anything or building anything, the ever-attentive Ram has kept us moving along our design journey. First up was getting that design sketch as good as it could be, before…
New Builder Appointed
We had to walk away from Plunkett in the end. After a placatory phone call from the Sales Manager, and even after the Salesman (sorry New Homes Consultant) offered to give up a fraction of his commission on the deal, we thought about continuing with them and stomaching their iniquitous price hike – but it…
Welcome Street Party
The developer, Cedar Woods, invited us to a street party to celebrate the completion of ‘Stage 12’, which sounds like a milestone in the Nazi Party’s master plan for the human race, or perhaps another step on the path to Nirvana. Oh Nevermind. The real reason was to welcome us to our sand, and to…
Plunkett’s fall from Grace
What a bad experience we’ve had with Plunkett recently. A $26K price increase, out of the blue. Here’s the story: We signed a Preliminary Agreement with them in December. We did that because they gave us a quote that included a base price for the house. Variations were extra – fair enough. Next step for…
Quiet Celebration of Settlement
I know it sounds a bit corny but I wanted to pop a cork over our newly acquired piece of sand. I didn’t think anyone would mind, especially not the government, who had just that morning charged us over ten grand to send us a copy of a piece of paper via email. Still, I…
Titles, Settlement
The land vendors (Cedar woods Properties) had a special on settlement agencies at the time we put the deposit down. It seemed a good deal, and we hade previously used Vicki Philipoff settlement before when we sold an investment property a few years ago. They were good then, so we went with the deal. They…
Scullery Out
We’ve scrapped the scullery. There will be no place in our home that separates the ‘downstairs staff’ and the hoi polloi from the the elite. There will be nowhere for the staff to cook, clean and gossip; there will be no place for the butler, housekeeper, footmen and maids to eat leftovers and plot schemes…
A Visit Amongst the Christmas lull
Nothing much has been happening lately. The Christmas Grinch has stolen all the work that is being done on our new house. No design is being done, no work on titles or settlement is being done. We are looking at different doors but that’s about it. I wonder if I’ll be writing a similar post…