The 2nd of July came and went, August arrived, stayed and went too and without really knowing where the time went realised we were in September. Though the time has gone past we have actually done quite a fair amount of work and research. Before I get into the deatils of what we have been doing I feel I have to point out that although we have been doing work at times it has felt very slow and painful. This was due to other people we were working with fannying around and generally being very slack! I struggled some days with just how slow it was all going until I finally lost my cool and sent a few strongly worded emails kindly suggesting that if they wanted to keep our business they needed to get a hurry along and do something quick sharp!! Needless to say they now have and I think we are both feeling much happier.....
So here goes, the list of stuff we have done since June 2012.
- Just before we took ownership the next slightly tricky part was telling the people we had bought the section off that they were legally obliged to supply survey pegs onto the property. Going through the lawyer as we (mainly Mike) hate confrontation we told them they had to be done. It was and thankfully without too much anguish from them.... yes we are still talking to them. In total we got 13 metal/blue/white posts all around the boundry of our section showing us exactly what we had just bought. It was very very cool and when Mike and I went down to see them Tui flew over our heads and we felt at home.
Before shots of the garden!!! (above)
It took some doing (due to the sensitive nature of the issue) but I managed to get a man in to top the trees at the back to allow more sun in and to take out the trees around the sides and in the middle of the garden too. I refused to go sending Mike to check on the work. It all went very smoothly and made the section look and feel soooo much bigger.
Some shots during the clearance of the trees!! (above)
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| My half finished log pile! |
Mostly cleared garden!!
- We chose Jennian/Milestone. From the start I really like JMS. The man there "got" my/our vision for our house and could see the potential of our land. GJ although were more efficient and had better spec once JMS matched this it felt like the right decision. At this stage (from the above comments) I kinda regret it but hope now that they have been given a shake up that things will get back on track. Having said all that it hasn't all been bad. We have had a lot of plans through from which we have been tweaking, redesigning and getting very very excited over. We have been down to the section with the JMS man to spray paint onto the land our house and peg it out to make sure it all fits. We even painted in the kitchen bench, kettle and toilet hehehe!! :D
- Most weekends we have spent either at the section working in the garden or walking around kitchen, bathroom and plumbing show rooms. We have been busy cutting up the trees that were taken down, and I have started making a sweet log pile. I have placed it outside where the kitchen window will be once the house has been built. I did this because I'm going to hang flower baskets, fairy lights and other pretty things on it, so that when i'm stood peeling potatoes for the "Big Nazi Xmas dinner" I can watch them and think about how lucky I am to have achieved so much and have so much in my life.
- The Kicthen, bathroom and plumbing show rooms were great at helping Mike and I get up close and personal with the things we were potentially going to put in our new home. My mum actually came up with an awesome idea just before we visited the Jennian selection centre. She told me taking photos would help us remember all the things we had seen and help us once we got home to recall what, if any of the things we liked/didn't like. Having done this the JMS man, Mike and Myself have been able to work on the Spec for our home. We are beginning to go through and pick exactly what it is we would like in our Ngaio dream home. Once this is nailed down I will post it for you all to see, but for now here are some of the things we think we will be having..... (price permitting)
- Bosch appliances
- Ebony and Ivory Manilow Shower with fixed glass panel
- Methven Waipori tap ware
- Cezanna clearlite 1000x1000 shower
- Athena Liquid 1800 bath
- Cashmere charred oak vanities
- The Selection centre. This is in Masterton and we drove over one weekend to pick out things we would like in the house. The building is basically a collection of baths, showers, vanities, mirrors, colours, tiles, carpets, bricks, weatherboards, doors, handles, windows and much much more. Mike and I had an awesome time going through all of this and when it was done we sat down with the desginer to help give her our visions of what the house would look like. It was truely wonderful day topped off by them giving us $100 to have lunch in Greytown at the White Swan. It was sunny and warm and Mike and I felt we really were living the dream!
- Plans. We have worked through many of these and are finally getting closer and closer to our dream home in Ngaio. At the moment we have a 2 story brick and linea board house with 3 bedrooms plus study. It has open plan living, dining and kitchen with sliding doors out onto a small garden filled with sun and eventually seats, pond and BBQ. We also have a double garage with laundry and a back door to the washing line. Our master bedroom has walk in robe and ensuite. Pretty cool all in all.... still tweaking and working on the price hope to have it signed within the month.... then onto council!
- Wills, yes another ticky and painful subject. Venturing on such an important and huge part of our lives it only seemed sensible that we get these. It rasied quite a few "curly" ones as they say with a few disagreements on both sides. However I think we have now got these done and can progress onto the Section 21 agreement. This will basically state that Mike, myself and the bank will own the land and house and when sold sorts out who gets what and how much. It is great for protecting individuals cash amounts and couple cash amounts.
- POWER!! And Phone/internetness. This was SOOOOO Painful and cost Mike (thank god it wasnt me doing as I have no idea of this sort of stuff) hours and hours, multiple emails, endless phone calls and eventually finding out the answers to get our section connected to the world. This is how weeks and weeks of back and forward went....
- Emailed Wellington Electricity to inform them we would like some power pretty please to our section in Ngaio.
- W.E organised a contractor to meet me on site to show him where we wanted the power/phone to go. We measured the distance from two power poles either side of the driveway and picked the closest one (obiously) which was 16m from pole to top of the driveway.
- Quote - this came in quite scary and so we....
- Asked for second quote! This one came in $1000's cheaper so we picked this one!
- We paid the ouchie bill.......
- Waited......... Then got asked for phone ducting from the contractor who told us we needed it from Chorus. Chorus told us it was a telecom/vodafone thing and to go to them. Mike rang Vodafone, Telecom, Chorus and eventually found out the contractor could buy it himself and do the work... sigh if only people within the industry talked to each other.....
- Ducting was installed on a SATURDAY yup we got a workman working on the weekend.
- Completion - new footpath and POWER!!!
What 10K looks like!!! Ouchie but still worth it!!! Power cover, new footpath and white and green piping up the power pole. Mike giving it a good inspection!!!
So now you know what we have been doing and the progress we have made. Next post will hopefully come sooner than previous posts and will say we have started building.... heres hoping anyway!
