BlandDesignsNZ

Flying visit to site today. We've been told they're gonna do the topsoil scrape, but not when they're gonna do it, so we drive up and check from time to time.  Today's visit found someone parked in front of our our site (the liberty!) so we couldn't take the photos we wanted.  In exciting news, stakes have been smacked into the ground to show the location of the drive, and where they need to earthwork.  ( Mmmm, steak. See, that's funny Cos "stake" and "steak" sound the same. I can't believe I didn't put a paywall on this gold. You're welcome, humanity)  The blue stakes above are the location of the driveway crossing. The Orange stake you can barely see through the fence marks the outline of the earthwork area and finished floor level (FFL in builder speak). (The Orange thing to the far left is the top of a portaloo for one of the other sites, Sprog1 is disgusted that we will have to have one for our site too). There would have bee...

The bank, as part of their process of lending us a frighteningly large sum of money and earning an enormous sum of interest from us, insists on three valuations - the first of which is done from the plans.  A few years back, people got dodgy valuations on houses and took of with the cash. When the banks repossessed the houses, they turned out be worth heaps less than the lending. So the banks took a bath.  Boo hoo, right? Anyway, the banks collectively changed he rules so valuations could only be done by certain companies. In the spirit of capitalism, they've all hiked their fees Cos "yay, monopoly!" So the first valuation is costing eight hundred and fifty dollars! $850 so Nigel can look at the plans and put a number down for the bank.  Probably "plus GST" too, come to think of it. Bastards.  On a brighter note; we went to see the site the other day (Cos "yay, dirt and mud") and met the next door neighbour. Thankfully, it's another young family wi...

So we met with the Project Manager last week. Seems like a no-nonsense, get shit done type of bloke.  We ran through the window schedule to make sure that was ok to send off (most of the joinery is standard, but the big bastard 6.6m stacker isn't stock so they need time to make that).  Scraping of the site should be done this week, and PM reckons we'll have roof on and watertight before Xmas, which is awesome.  We also discovered we don't need the 8000l  rainwater detention tank that was planned. So that's a credit on the build. Not sure how much but should be a fair few bucks. Nice to have numbers flowing this way for once. 

Today, we meet the Project Manager and the build manager.  The builder has the suitably bulderish name of "Jim". I like that. It's an old school, no nonsense builder name.  Bob would have been better, of course, but the jokes I'd be obliged to make as a dad would mean he'd likely not finish the house.  This is the last meeting scheduled before building actually starts. It's about damn time. 

Woooo!! Finally, the council have stamped the documents or whatever it is they do to justify their fees and we have consent to build! We have a meeting with the project manager in the next few days and they estimate building will start in 4 weeks or so.  You think this has been riveting so far (and thank you for saying), the fun is about to start! 

We should have had consent by now, but it turns out the people applying for the consent, who, by my reckoning have applied for approximately 450 million building consents (approximately, I'm rounding up) didn't send all the documentation to Council that they should have.  I mean, this is your *job*! You should know what documents you need to submit the first damn time. Cmon Nigel*!!  So the actual consent is so close that I can almost taste it (lemony, thanks for asking) but isn't quite here. Maybe tomorrow. *dramatic sigh* (*his name isn't Nigel, but that seemed a good one) 

Our house is pushed as close to the southern boundary as possible, so 1m from the boundary. This was, of course, to maximize the northern outdoor area. (Lounge/dining/kitchen open onto the northern yard) The house to our south has just started pouring their slab and they are as close as they can be to their northern boundary, also 1m. The smart kids will have already realised that this means the two houses will be 2m apart. Not a major for us, as its childrens' bedrooms and we've got extra soundproofing going in there in any case.  (Bottom right is the boundary peg. The fence to the left runs through where the middle of our house will be. Our garage will be in front of where the pic is taken)  It also, rather curiously, means that their house will have no north yard and, particularly in winter, our house is gonna block a massive amount of their sunlight.  Still, maybe they're vampires or something.  On another note, minor tweaks for the Rinnai boxes have been done an...