Good news and the squatter attempts to move in

We had some good progress on the renovation this week.  The builder as stated the 3rd week of November for the beginning of demolition.  That is great news.  We still have a bucket load of things that need to be sorted out by then but we're excited that the builder is good to go in only a couple of weeks.

In other news, the house across from our place was sold the weekend before last for a bumper outcome.  We have therefore made quite a sizeable paper profit so we're very excited about that.  We also had a real estate agent knock on our door (remember, our rental is in the same street as the house we're renovating) as they are looking for other people that may be willing to sell in the street.  I also had a neighbour ring the bell to see if we know anything about our landlord and their willingness to sell.  It is Hot Property in this street at the moment!

A side impact of the house selling this past weekend is that there has been a squatter living on their verandah for the past year or two.  The actual house as not been inhabited for at least 10 to 15 years and so this lady has set up her abode on the enclosed verandah which is quite private from the street.  We have all been quite interested to see what would happen once the house sold.  Apparently, straight after the auction, once the Sold sticker went up, she ripped it right back off.  It was put back up and she ripped it right back off again.  This week I saw a guy spray painting the word 'Sold' on the sign.  He must be the new owner.  So it has been intrigue after intrigue.

We have been a little concerned that the lady squatter would move her digs across the street to our house.  Our tenant friends moved out at the beginning of October so the place has been empty for a few weeks.  It is only a few weeks more before demolition commences.  But she doesn't know that.

This afternoon we got a call from one of our neighbours saying that the squatter was moving her mattress and other goods and chattels across the road over to our place!  It seems the real estate agent leant on her pretty heavily and so she made a show of moving her gear onto our front verandah.  He must have then left and so when I got a chance to go down to the house she had moved back to her original house.  The poor lady is obviously not well so I hope that there can be some better solution worked out for her.  I know that an outreach agency has been trying to make contact with her.

In the meantime, we have ordered a fence to be erected across the front of our house.

Getting there slowly but surely

Things have slowed down a little bit in the design stakes.  The architect has been on holiday and is now busily finalising the latest version of our plans.  We've also had a beautiful week off on the gorgeous Sunshine Coast.  I think we managed to get the only 4 day stretch of sun they'd seen in a long time.  So very thankful for that.

But now it back to business time.  Below you'll see a new version of what our back extension will look like.  We're now going with a flat roof rather than the former pitched one.  It works out to be much simpler design from an engineering perspective and of course that means a lot of cash saved.  We still need to work out the back section.  I'm not happy that there are no eaves so we are awaiting a further revision to see what suggestions the architect has.

Timeline wise it looks more likely that we'll start in November now.  The builder will get a finalised set of documents by the end of October for him to price.  Then we'll just need the building permit and a signed contract.  Simple....sigh.

Based on our understanding of the timeline, I requested a 1 year extension on our current lease which would get us (hopefully) close to the finish date.  However, because of the frail health of the landlord we have only been offered 6 months.  So long as the landlord is well (read: alive), they are more than happy to have us stay longer.  We are sending her all our good vibes and positive thoughts.

Chop Chop

It's been a roller coaster week.  We have been trying not to get too depressed around the prices we've received.  But last night we got through some feedback on costs savings from 2 of the builders.

One builder has pulled out.  He has just won 3 jobs and wouldn't be able to start our job until March.

The good news is that the 2 builders came back with a bucket load of cost savings based on the list we sent them.  It really cheered us up to see that we are now getting very, very close to a price we can move on.  One of the big changes we've instituted is to remove the area along the side where we were building out to the boundary.  This is the wall that has caused all of the angst with the next door neighbour.  We have looked at how to redesign so that we work within the existing structure of the house.  It means a smaller laundry and cellar.  It also means the Butler's Pantry is really more of a walk in pantry.  The ensuite has changed (but I actually prefer it) and strangely the Walk in Robe gets bigger!  Overall, we are quite happy with the outcome and if it saves us money and we no longer need to deal with the neighbour then win-win.

After conversations with the architect today we have narrowed our selection down to one builder and we're now going to work with him to whittle the last few dollars out of it.

And guess what?  He can start at the end of October.  I can't believe that my October plan might actually come to fruition.

Ch-Ching

Tender quotes came in on time last Friday afternoon.  Within a short space of time our architect sent us a comparison work sheet for all of the costs.  After I fell off my chair we then looked at them in detail!

Unfortunately, despite all of our cost cutting measures during the remainder of the design process, the prices have come back in the same as the preliminary costs.  Not quite what we had in mind.

So the process begins to shave at least 20% off the prices to enable us to start.  I guess at least with some real costs in front of us it has galvanised us into action around making some key decisions that will influence the price.  We're trying very hard not to compromise the overall design but it's proving to be quite tough.

We now have quite a long list of items that is going to be presented back to the builders around cost savings.  This will certainly work out who is keen for the work.  Stay tuned.

Update

This is the last week for our builders to work on their tender pricing.  It's been busy having various builders and their sub-contractors running through our house.  Great that they are taking the time, so hopefully that bodes well for the final prices.  I have a number in my head and I'm just praying that the total price is close to that.

As for the neighbour....her objection was bundled up and sent to the Council as per procedure.  There has been a bit of back and forth with the Council and now we sit back and wait.  Will hopefully have their decision by the end of next week.


Below are some 3D images of what our eventual house will look like externally.

And no, we don't own a Porsche.  Just the architect's sense of humour.

View from the side.  This side faces North.

This would be the view if you were standing in our neighbour's yard (not the objecting one) and there was no fence between us.

And this is the other side.  Again, this doesn't show the fence, although you can see the bit of wall at the front which is the contentious point with our neighbour on this side.  What this does show is our long glass window in the open plan area that also doubles as a splashback.  We will be able to look out onto some lush foliage and a boldly coloured fence.  Just need to pick a colour!

And finally an elevated shot depicting the rear of the house.  You can see our garage door which is accessed via a ROW.

Glass magnetic whiteboard

My architect recently showed me this new whiteboard product.  It's called Chat Board.  It's made of glass and the big news is that it's magnetic.

In our new place we have designed a workstation area in the walk in pantry.  This is a place which will be used for all the messy stuff that normally clutters up the kitchen bench tops such as junk mail, correspondence, kid's school notices and the like.  It will also be a place where we can plug in phones and laptops all the while keeping them tucked away.  My plan is to have a big white board area that I can use for calendar notes, shopping lists and anything else that might normally end up on the fridge.

So I'm quite excited to see that I don't necessarily have to end up with a boring white slab of board but instead can now choose from a range of colours.

At the moment I would love it in bright red just for something nice and bold.  I'm thinking those white markers that write onto glass will be just the ticket for a very functional and good looking work area.  Will wait now to see what the price is like.  Unfortunately, we need a custom size (isn't it always the way!) so I'm not going to get too excited until I see the price.

The inevitable objection

So, just as we thought, the neighbour has submitted an objection to our side wall. The most pleasing thing (if there can be anything) was that the objection was submitted well before the deadline. So from a timing perspective we didn't have to wait the full 3 weeks. Despite the shadow diagrams showing absolutely no impact on the neighbour's window she has used her rights to object to us building it - fair enough. She also went one step further and 'put us on notice' that she refuses to grant permission to us replacing any part of the fence! Not sure why this is. It's not a particularly new or well maintained fence and it would be done at our expense. Anyhoo, I think we can avoid any fence replacement and that might cheer her up a bit. Not sure that we're going to be life long friends. I just hope that we can get through this next approval stage and get building. From here we have to wait up to 3 weeks for the Council to review all of the information and hand down their decision. Seems ridiculous that this couldn't have all been done at the same time as our last submission. In the meantime, the builders have been reviewing our tender and we had one builder come and have a look at the place last Friday. They have 2 more weeks before the resulting prices are due. We are hanging on with our finger nails to an October start.