I'm gonna....I'm gonna... I'M GONNA

SCREAM!!  Aahhhhaaaaarrrharharhaaaahahahhhhhaahahaha!!!

That's better!  We have just received an email from Prestige Homes today regarding our permit.....It is here!!!

And what's more Joe had been up to the section and scooped off the footprint of the house and then some!  We are a wee bit gutted that we didn't get to see the digger in action but awe hell it is a minor issue as we are breaking ground 2 1/2 full weeks since the permits were submitted!  Record time for the Council I believe.  Lucky the kids were sick and stayed home from daycare so were able to go up to the section to have a run around on our scraped dirt.

We are ecstatic and can't wait as we will either be going up to the section on Monday if not tomorrow to go over where all the footings for the house will be and get that all sorted.  We may even finish our build around the same time as the neighbours as they only just started their framework today.  Well I can't believe it is actually getting done and we are finally on the way to getting our first house built.  VERY EXCITING!!!

Grafittied Grass

As nothing is expected to happen over the next few weeks we decided to take both cars up to the section and trial the backing in and out of the invisible garage to see if the space in front is more than enough for the turning bay.  Well after measuring and marking out where the garage door is going and the pillars in front of the garage we parked up our cars inside...so to speak.  After rearranging the cars to where we thought it to be about where we would park inside the "garage" we marked out the place where our tyres were in side our parking places.

It could have gotten out of hand with the spray paint cans as we had choice of fluro yellow and fluro pink.  The temptation to really go to town tagging our own section was thankfully hindered by the 2 builders next door for our to be neighbours.  We did restrain our paint job to just the marks mentioned above as I think we had made a spectacle of ourselves playing cars driving up and down the section.  Although a short and somewhat silly exercise we have put our minds at ease with the area we have out the front is ample room to turn out of the garage and drive onto the road without having to reverse onto the road.

Concentrating on minor things

It has only been 5 days since my last blog and since then have organised for the Valuation to be done for the bank.  I think I made the guy's job too easy as he rang me in the morning to check on one more thing off my massive information list I had emailed the night before.  Then he visited our site and called the following morning to say he was finished with the Valuation report and had ours in the mail plus one to our Account Manager at out bank.  So that came yesterday and with that came the bill which thankfully came a lot cheaper than what they quoted.  

Now we have 21 days in which to pay the invoice, which Nathan had a great idea for a diversion plan.  As our Council permit is going to take about 21 days also we have decided to concentrate on not paying the invoice till we are nearly due the permit!  What a great idea aye!  That is a semi intelligent way to divert our attentions from waiting to avoiding something else.  I do feel that it may backfire a bit as I don't like not paying bills at the last minute.  So I'll see how long that lasts before it gets paid.  But look I managed to do an entire blog that had little to do with the actual house.....We are calming down with our excited impatience with getting started at least.

Permit meeting

It is so ridiculous that we are on the edge of our seats as today Joe from Prestige Homes goes into Council today with the working drawings to submit them to go through the permit process.  It is not like we will find out anything till they actually get the permits passed in about 20 working days!  For some silly reason we feel like Joe will call today and say "They are really happy with the plans and we will be allowed to break ground next week!"  To which we would say "Can't we get the digger in this week, we can't wait that long!".  Then I wake up and realise just wishing for it to gain momentum while we have to stand still is not gonna happen.

We are constantly thinking about the house all up and finished and it is frustrating that time can't pass just a little quicker so we can finally get the house started at least.  I guess as we have been planning this house build for what seems like such a long time but in reality has been about 2 years and as we have no major decisions to make now with building materials etc it is like time is dragging on a bit much. 

As lucky as we were to find and move into a 4 bedroom rental a fortnight from listing and selling the old house it is hard to feel excited to be here anymore.  Along with paying all that money into rent instead of onto our mortgage.  It is a necessary evil but we are going to be here about 6 months longer than we planned.  Since then we have drawn up multiple plans and we picked our Builder plus all the cladding, floors, tiles, kitchen, house interiors, lighting and some of the garden layout has been sorted we find it hard being here and not in the new house.  

Just minor details and we sound like a bunch of whinge bags when we are so lucky we are able to be in a position to build a house but when you are all ready to build it is amazing how slow time goes.  It is all a good thing as we are excited and happy and not stamping foot spoilt child impatient.

Then when we can organise a time to meet Joe at the section we are at least able to peg out and box the house footprint on the land to ensure it is in the right place.  Then we wait for the Permits to be approved before we dig out the foundation base.  In between now and then we will get the working drawings and get them valued for the bank to ensure value of build is inline with our lending amount.  It will be interesting to see how much they value the house completed.  If anyone offers us 60k more than the build cost we would consider taking it...haha like that is gonna happen.

Best get ready to take the kids to the supermarket to give Nath a bit of peace and quiet for some well needed sleep.

TTFN

Vinyl Planking and Armure Latte Carpet

Tiles for ensuite

borrowed brickie picie

Picky picky picky!

Too darned organised with this build...I think?

Other than the drapes and blinds we have picked everything for this house!  We just confirmed the roof tile which is the Monier Madison in Sambuca (black).  Our bricks are Austral Nougat single height and have Warm White Pearl for the joinery. But it doesn't stop there!!

We have signed off on the carpet and Vinyl planking for the house and will sign off on the tiles for the bathrooms soon.  I have designed the kitchen and picked (with a bit of help) the cabinet type, glass splashback, accent colours and handles.  The tapware and shower, bath and well........it feels like everything has been picked!!!  Plus it doesn't stop there either with all our choices we have confirmed.

There is a certain amount of stress lifted off doing all the major choices before we signed off on the contract but on the other hand I feel like I am ready to dress the house before the plans have even been approved from Council!  I must say there is definitely benefits with being organised and knowing what we want.  One of which is seeing how our budget is sitting with P.C sums for the areas of expense in the house and then being able to cut back here and there and trim the fat off to ensure we aren't choking on a mortgage for the rest of our vital lives.

Thankfully I have a few projects up my sleeve to keep me grounded till we need to concentrate again on aspects of the Build that need our attention.  I need to get into the refinishing of the furniture that we are using for other rooms once the house is built.  Maybe that will help me get focused on things in the present to help soothe my mind and to keep my gray matter from racing forward to the moving in day.  I will get cracking and post pictures of the products we are using soon.  Plus I think that doing this blog will help me keep in the here and now.

Will check out other more professional building blogs to "borrow" ideas of layout for this blog to display the materials and sample pictures.

TTFN

The ball is beginning to roll...

Got the official approval today from the powers that be at The Lakes and our house plans have met all the covenants so that is one tick.  Now we just have the council to sign off our permits so there will be plenty of batting our eyelids and giggling whilst we push our bossoms together...Nath is good at that.  I think the Tauranga City Council should be showing us some cleavage as we pay a King's ransom for the permits!  Best part of $20k...bet they have nice lunches in those Council break rooms.  But we are happy and are now eager for the plans to come back from the Engineer so our Builder can skip off to Council with them.

And the bonus ball number is.......

Forgot to add onto the last post....other than the fact we have now made some progress to get the house build underway...I have (I hope) mowed the section for the last time!!!!  As per the pics on the first post, that is as short as those weeds and sprigs of gorse are ever gonna get.  Then they will get scooped up by a digger of some description!!  I will definitely mark that one on the calendar for us to take the kids up to watch....My girls love diggers!!

Builder puts his sign up

Signed off Contract on Build 1st March 2011

Hi there

We are both so excited as we have finally got to the end of the initial process and have signed our Master Builders contract with our Builder on Tuesday the 1st March 2011.  Our Lawyer and more importantly the bank are all happy with things and now we are on our exciting journey of building our first house for our little family.  Deposit has been paid and the Architect is full steam ahead doing the working drawings for our Builder to get off to council a week from this Monday!

This morning we had to pop up and take photos of the section as we had a funny feeling the Builder raced up to place his sign up on the plot straight after we signed off the contract...I think he is excited too which is great.  Well all going to plan once the permits are sorted we will be breaking ground in about a months time!  Yippee! Until that time we will have it pegged out which will bring much more reality to the situation.

It feels like this has taken so long to get to this point but realistically we needed all our ducks in a row to get to this stage and we are glad we took the extra time to make the choices we have for our build.

Well thank you for reading our blog and hopefully we can offer information and hints for others from our build as we will be picking up the same from other blogs like ours.


Cheers


Tracey and Nathan