BlandDesignsNZ

As a famous philosopher once said; "the waiting is the hardest part" and that's pretty much where we are now.  An eye-wateringly large sum of money has beamed from our account into the building company's and the draftsman-types are doing the engineering drawings. For some reason, this is going to take eight weeks. Presumably, they're growing trees to cut down, pulp, and turn into paper before they start or something.  Maybe they just can't find their pens.  Anyway, thereafter, Auckland Council has another 4 weeks to sign the plans off or stamp them or whatever it is they do to justify their money.  So realistically, we're losing June, July, and August before we can even start digging in September. This seems an eon away at the moment but may very well be for the best as it'll let us start in spring and build into summer. Hopefully meaning fewer weather related delays (touch wood).  Building time is scheduled to be 6 months so in Marc...

One of the "biggest" single decisions so far has been to delete two stacker doors (lounge and dining)  and replace with one big one on the north wall of the house.  Seems simple enough, but because it's going to be a big fuck off 7 meter hole in the side of the house, it needs a steel portal frame.  Which is fine, except for the $4500 price tag attached to it. (I know, right? Apparently, they aren't big on not supporting the roof structure. Wimps).  After a bit of discussion and weighing up the pros and cons, we've decided to go for it. Cos Yolo and whatnot. (See, I'm down with the cool kids' lingo) 

One of the first things you notice when you start the planning process, is that everybody you know is a previously undiscovered building expert.  This, of course, means that they won't hesitate to share their idiotic opinion on what you should do. Usually based on something they saw on The Living Channel which is, hideous, entirely impractical, and costs around $4 million dollars.  (Note the Oxford comma in that previous paragraph. Because "yes, there bloody well should be", that's why) The solution, as far as I can tell, is to find yourself a couple of trusted people and mainly get their input. You don't, of course, have to take their advice but it's good to have people to bounce ideas off. Especially if they've recently been through the process themselves.  As for the opinions of anyone else? Fuck them. If you feel like being polite (which I usually don't), then listen before disregarding everything they say. 

The old house has finally settled. This means we can finally formally proceed with the build (we had to have finance sorted and couldn't technically have finance until the old house was actually sold).  I think we're 99% sorted on the house plan now so we can sign up for the build contract any day! Exiting times ahead! 

So, Thursday night the new owners did their pre-settlement inspection.  Someone has obviously told them to try the taps. While they've being doing that they've turned on the disconnected washing machine tap and flooded the laundry.  Fucking idiots. 

So, in order to keep the rain off us and our stuff during the build, we've rented not far from the Sprogs' daycare on Te Atatu Peninsula.  Given the squillion dollar build coming up, we've ended up renting a small 2 bedroom place. It's cute and modern and clean but holy monkey, it's small.  It has the bonus of a double garage attached so at least we can store our stuff without additional cost.  But, hilariously, we have the two Sprogs sharing a room. As neither of them sleep for more than about 25 minutes at a time, this could be less enjoyable than you'd think.  The bonus, I guess, is that if we survive, the new house will seem enormous when we finally get it.  Silver linings, and that. 

Ah, the joy of packing all your shit ("Why do we have so much shit") to move.  In addition to living and raising two Sprogs, my wife and I have a small business. We had to keep the business stuff running during the moving process which limited how much we could pack.  We figured, as settlement was this Friday (12th), that booking movers for the Tuesday before would get us moved early with time to clean the house before settlement. Unfortunately, we hired the worlds's slowest movers. They took, literally, 7 hours to move maybe 2/3 of our stuff. Everytine you looked at them, they were standing round (at $100/hour) discussing stuff (not apparently anything related to moving our stuff though).  In the end we canned them after 2 loads and decided to handle ourselves. This is less than ideal, but these donkeyfuckers would have bankrupted us if we'd let them carry on.  So we managed to get decent movers in for the Thursday and finally got out of the house. Shout out to my b...

Part of the process, so far by eons the least enjoyable, has been selling our existing house. This was required as we couldn't afford to keep it and complete the build.  As this was our "forever home", we'd started painting it room by room from a hideous magnolia tea colour to a nice warm grey (Resene Double Black White). Due to our inherent laziness, as well as having to try to exist as well as raise Sprogs, we hadn't painted much. Buyers, apparently, aren't big on two tone houses, so we had to finish the painting pretty smartly over the Xmas break.  The Sprogs decided to assist by getting chicken pox one after the other over that time. Honestly, kids, eh?  Big shout out to the wife, who painted her heart out (I wasn't allowed; my patented "chuck the paint at the wall and you're done" style of painting wasn't deemed acceptable. I tried to assist with prepping surfaces and decluttering the place but it was a regular midnight finish for a ...

Unless you have a wheelbarrow full of money, one of the first things you learn on a house build is to compromise on stuff  (because sweet baby Jesus, it's expensive).  One of our earliest decisions was that this wasn't our "forever home" (take of that what you will; our first house was a "2 year house" that we stayed in for 8 years). In some ways this makes it easier to compromise on things that we couldn't really afford to do (solid gold toilet, stripper pole in the lounge, stripper accommodation). In other ways, its harder as you have to consider resale (albeit in a few years) so you can't do anything too unique that'll make it harder to sell later.  After messing round with single house plans, we decided to do a home and income (herafter H&I) for a couple of reasons. The first was that rental income can be used by the bank to increase the amount you can borrow. The second is that a H&I can be easier to sell down the track.  We've c...

Right; the fascinating details; The land we have purchased is 650m2 of mostly flat (dips at the front and rear) rectangle. (This 'un) The house, in which the living area will mostly be oriented North, is a home and income plan comprising a 4 bed/2 bath main house and a 2 bed/1 bath minor dwelling attached to the back (east) side of the main house.  The plan is to rent the back house out to help with the mortgage as well as make the property more appealing when we look to sell (more on that later).  There's a Right Of Way/Lane thing at the back of the section. Turns out that we own 1/6th share of it (along with 5 neighbours). As a result, we're approaching Council for permission to have a vehicle crossing for the back house. This is massive for us as Council rules are you have to have parking for each dwelling, and at the moment, the slab for the back house pushes the whole build off the southern boundary. Naturally, we want to be as close as we can to t...

Me; suave, ruggedly handsome 30-something (writers' license may apply) My wife. Endlessly tolerant of me.  Sprog1; Female. Wiggles fan (but only Emma)   currently 4.5 years old (going on 16) Sprog2; female. Fan of everything. currently 19 months.  So, why build? Well, it's something we always wanted to do. I've always wanted to live in a brand new house and have a hand in making it exactly what I wanted.  Sprog1 (S1) didn't get into the small country school that we wanted her to, which was the catalyst for it happening now. Two young children isn't ideal for the process though.  We also have family and friends living in the area, and the new house is walking distance to the local country school.  So, with some trepidation, we've sold our existing house and will move into a small (smaaaaaalll) rental during the build. 

Hopefully, not too bland My intention here is to document my family's new house build in Riverhead, NZ.  This is mostly for my own amusement, but as always, if my life can serve as a warning (or as mild amusement for a while) for others, then that's a bonus.  Next post will be some background to the build.