Tales From the Box

When we bought our place nearly three years ago, the first thing that my wife noticed (apart from the house on stilts) was the white blossom tree to the right of the house. We had five trees in total in that garden – but most of them didn’t flower and were quite unhealthy. One remains and always puts a dazzling show on every year from mid september onwards.

Forgive me one and all – its has been three weeks since my last blog.

Feelings of guilt and remorse have been evident – it is not like there has nothing to talk about – oh to the contrary – much has has happened and much is still to happen. We have submitted our plans to council and have received nothing back as yet – however we are approaching the magical 40 day mark which is the current time that our council takes to approve such applications. Isn’t it weird that it is that number: 40 days. In fact it has been 40 days and 40 nights – so maybe the wandering in the wilderness which has resulted in the lack of postings has some sort of historical precedent….

Anyway – here is where we are at @ UTC/GMT is 05:49 on Thursday, September 14, 2006:
We have had a few quotes for our renovation returned to us and regarding the overall cost, they have been about where we thought they would be – however in the time that it took for the quotes to be quoted by the builders (approx 3 weeks), we somehow convinced that ourselves that our renovation would cost less than what we initially thought it would be. So when the first quote was returned and was priced where we thought it would be priced – we were alas disappointed (because we are firstly cheap and secondly greedy).

However we are asking for much more than we had initially dreamed. In addition to the doubling of living space, plus a sizable rear deck (view these plans and more here) the builder suggested some new windows/doors for the front of the house (so that we can actually get onto the front deck) plus we have opted to re clad the top of the house in funky colorbond. Downstairs, the polished concrete floor will cost us a little more than we thought with essential grinding that will need to take place in order for the floor to be somewhat level.

So yeah – perhaps we need to take restock. We are waiting on builder number two to get back to us. We know builder number one – and feel comforted that we know he is a good builder (rather than the simply dodgy building stories we hear). Plus George, our bathroom guy (who is forever to be known as the ‘voice of reason and wisdom’ – or VORAM for short) is helping us out on all things across the entire reno.

We have other issues to consider – being that council will possibly object and draw our attention to some/all of the following:colour,drainage, bushfire protection thus massive rear wooden deck, screens for doors, screens for windows, height of ceiling, water tank storage, structural integrity of our current dwelling.

Awesome….