House stuff
So many little decisions. So many things that aren't quite what I thought they'd be but are correct/in the plans. None of them disasterous or even difficult, just surprising because I have this one image of how the house will be then I walk around on site and am faced with it being different. I feel like I've decorated and designed and worked out almost every element of this house already so when I look up and see the back of the house has no eaves (at all!) I think WTF???!!! What's going on here???? The builder says 'Oh yeah, it's in the plan, it's because you have that patio there see' which is true... BUT I thought we were doing eaves AND patio. I chat to Troy when I get home. He thought the same as I. I look at the plans. Nope. Not there.
So... the list of surprises.... most of these things were talked about with the builder but lost in the design stage some how.
My 40cm deep bench seat at the front door has become a 'standard 30cm' although even the builder admits he reads the plans like I do (that it says clearly 400mm) but 'they are measuring from the back of the brick wall (ie including the width of the brick)' which is bollocks but I am left with deciding whether to fight them on this or save my big arse fight for something 'that really matters'. Troy says we won't be using that as I think we will and I think he's right. I have this romantic notion of having a nice modern bench there ready for us to sit and take boots off and not having sand all through the house. Reality is that we'll use the back doors, we'll take shoes and boots off outside hopefully, any boots left in the front hallway will just be a trip hazard between the living room (aka my / kids space) and the media room (aka Troy's man den) etc. He's right. This is not the hill I plan to die on. Let the crappy 10cm of missing alcove be .... missing. This 10cm loss affects the media room too resulting in Troy's built in drawers for his DVD collection not going ahead. Oh well.
The laundry door is flush with the door to the pantry - I planned to put switches between those two. And that door into the pantry was supposed to open the other way making it easier to lump groceries in to the pantry. Oh well.
The alfresco space feels MUCH bigger than I expected. This makes me happy.
The tradies have all been clean cut nice and friendly types who are polite and get on with the job. They are there on the days they say they will be, they are there on weekends. It's amazing. Nary a bum crack in sight. My husband shows his more often than they do.
It's moving swiftly. So swiftly that it's looking like we can be in mid June/early July. That's a month earlier than my optimistic "August".
The earthworks has resulted in the back yard being... different... to what I expected. Oh well. We'll just do something very different to what I had planned. (And the plans are taking their sweet time getting done - need to sort that out) The alternative is getting in there with an excavator and redoing what we want. Expensive and dirty and annoying.
Curtains - I had these grand plans of what I wanted. And they changed. Over and over again. Not because I am indecisive but because of budget, time to sew (or lack thereof), indecision on the behalf of my husband who 'doesn't care' until I say 'great, we'll do this one' and get told 'uh, no!'. The requirements are drifting lower and lower and lower, and I'm finding more and more and better and better options. One day soon I will just have to bite the bullet though. Very soon.
Furniture - we have a budget because we have a mortgage. I don't watch shows like The Block because I don't want to be jealous. I'm buying stuff second hand when I see it like rugs or whatever, driving T bonkers (because he doesn't want to 'move it twice' but I don't want to 'wait forever for it' or pay full price for new on the day).
Kitchen window sill - surprisingly our kitchen bench isn't 100cm high like requested, it's 96, which means we'll have a six centimetre window sill - which is fine because I thought the window would be higher. I guess I'm just a bit annoyed that the attention to detail wasn't here - this was where I thought the window would be 10cm higher than the bench and there could be room for a little detail from some tile in there, now it's seeming that they forgot we asked for higher benches when they planned the window (let alone the height of the bench being different) and now I'm thinking of getting rid of the detail tile there entirely and making it just white tiles all around because I think it's going to look very messy. Will talk to Stallion about it.
Water tank - the Shire has decreed it MUST go out the front next to our septic. Sigh. Not happy about that. Am going to attempt to suggest that's where the grey water tank goes (it's listed as 'storm water run off collection'on the approval docs) instead and hope for the best. Otherwise it needs to be out of view of the bedroom window at least.
I dunno. Lots of people go on and on and on about how hard it is to build. Maybe it's a bit like parenthood, marriage, buying a car... you work out what you must have, you compromise on a lot and you go with the swing of it because getting your knickers in a twist just means you have a wedgie and the discomfort is not worth it?
Now if there was a whole room missing? Or a bunch of taps in the wrong place post handover....? Then I'd complain :)
So... the list of surprises.... most of these things were talked about with the builder but lost in the design stage some how.
My 40cm deep bench seat at the front door has become a 'standard 30cm' although even the builder admits he reads the plans like I do (that it says clearly 400mm) but 'they are measuring from the back of the brick wall (ie including the width of the brick)' which is bollocks but I am left with deciding whether to fight them on this or save my big arse fight for something 'that really matters'. Troy says we won't be using that as I think we will and I think he's right. I have this romantic notion of having a nice modern bench there ready for us to sit and take boots off and not having sand all through the house. Reality is that we'll use the back doors, we'll take shoes and boots off outside hopefully, any boots left in the front hallway will just be a trip hazard between the living room (aka my / kids space) and the media room (aka Troy's man den) etc. He's right. This is not the hill I plan to die on. Let the crappy 10cm of missing alcove be .... missing. This 10cm loss affects the media room too resulting in Troy's built in drawers for his DVD collection not going ahead. Oh well.
The laundry door is flush with the door to the pantry - I planned to put switches between those two. And that door into the pantry was supposed to open the other way making it easier to lump groceries in to the pantry. Oh well.
The alfresco space feels MUCH bigger than I expected. This makes me happy.
The tradies have all been clean cut nice and friendly types who are polite and get on with the job. They are there on the days they say they will be, they are there on weekends. It's amazing. Nary a bum crack in sight. My husband shows his more often than they do.
It's moving swiftly. So swiftly that it's looking like we can be in mid June/early July. That's a month earlier than my optimistic "August".
The earthworks has resulted in the back yard being... different... to what I expected. Oh well. We'll just do something very different to what I had planned. (And the plans are taking their sweet time getting done - need to sort that out) The alternative is getting in there with an excavator and redoing what we want. Expensive and dirty and annoying.
Curtains - I had these grand plans of what I wanted. And they changed. Over and over again. Not because I am indecisive but because of budget, time to sew (or lack thereof), indecision on the behalf of my husband who 'doesn't care' until I say 'great, we'll do this one' and get told 'uh, no!'. The requirements are drifting lower and lower and lower, and I'm finding more and more and better and better options. One day soon I will just have to bite the bullet though. Very soon.
Furniture - we have a budget because we have a mortgage. I don't watch shows like The Block because I don't want to be jealous. I'm buying stuff second hand when I see it like rugs or whatever, driving T bonkers (because he doesn't want to 'move it twice' but I don't want to 'wait forever for it' or pay full price for new on the day).
Kitchen window sill - surprisingly our kitchen bench isn't 100cm high like requested, it's 96, which means we'll have a six centimetre window sill - which is fine because I thought the window would be higher. I guess I'm just a bit annoyed that the attention to detail wasn't here - this was where I thought the window would be 10cm higher than the bench and there could be room for a little detail from some tile in there, now it's seeming that they forgot we asked for higher benches when they planned the window (let alone the height of the bench being different) and now I'm thinking of getting rid of the detail tile there entirely and making it just white tiles all around because I think it's going to look very messy. Will talk to Stallion about it.
Water tank - the Shire has decreed it MUST go out the front next to our septic. Sigh. Not happy about that. Am going to attempt to suggest that's where the grey water tank goes (it's listed as 'storm water run off collection'on the approval docs) instead and hope for the best. Otherwise it needs to be out of view of the bedroom window at least.
I dunno. Lots of people go on and on and on about how hard it is to build. Maybe it's a bit like parenthood, marriage, buying a car... you work out what you must have, you compromise on a lot and you go with the swing of it because getting your knickers in a twist just means you have a wedgie and the discomfort is not worth it?
Now if there was a whole room missing? Or a bunch of taps in the wrong place post handover....? Then I'd complain :)