Our new house 2013: May 2013

The Last Post
(of the house)

Well the house is gone - yes I mean gone. I felt just a teeny bit emotional standing there looking at rubble and see familiar items. I felt like I should have a bugler play The Last Post, salute it and lay a wreath, but in the end the house was down in one day with no ceremony what so ever.

The week started with more anger, this time all our rubbish bins went missing. After talking to our amazing neighbourhood watch people (the elderly couple over the road) I found out the council took them. So I rang the council to check, wonderful conversation with the council:

Me: Hi, I'm Sara Lucas, do you have my rubbish bins

Council: Let me check, yes we do

M: Why?

C: Because someone told us to take them

M: Ok who was that?

C: I don't know our system doesn't tell us that our record it

M: So do you know if they had authority to do so? We thought the bins were stolen

C: Don't know it was probably the owners a Sara Lucas or a Frederik Lucas - do you know him?

M: (I am getting sarcastic now) Well I am Sara Lucas so you would hope I know the guy I own the house with, he's my husband.

C: Well then it must have been him

M: He's the one who thought the bins were stolen!

The Demolitions people rang on Wednesday and said they were starting on Thursday with salvage. I drove past late afternoon and discovered a digger taking away the last back wall of the house. Talk about quick. I came back 1.5hours later and everything was down.

The view from the road

The garage was still standing

From this beautiful autumn maple tree

To this....

All our beautiful palm trees from beside the deck flattened.

We went back on Saturday to view progress and while there was more evidence of clearing, the garage is still mostly up and there is still lots of rubble.

A drive through garage (sort of)

Getting a look at the bigger digger

They have told us it will all be complete by the end of Tuesday and then we will hand over to the builder.

Exciting but also sad.

We may need to use the tape at home for Annabelle, after the demolition is finished :-)

Our new house in 2013 - the journey...

Welcome to the blog to provide the commentary on the journey to build our new house. We made the decision late last year to knock down and rebuild due to structural issues in our existing house.

The list we started with seemed very simple:

Agree plans and a builder
Get a rental property
Move
Sell some things
Arrange finance
Get an underground electrical pit installed
Abolish services
Get sewerage capped
Demolish
Build

So we started the list in December. By February we had the builder and plans agreed, rental property all signed, and we moved in about 3 weeks later. By the end of March successfully sold our front fence, kitchen, air-conditioning units and hot water service. The electrical pit was installed, the gas was abolished and meter removed and I had completed the first appointment with the bank. So everything was on track - or so we thought.

April was a bit more of a challenge.

The learnings:

Telstra are useless.
This was reinforced well and truly during our move but trying to get a straight answer out of them about disconnecting foxtel, internet and phone is near impossible. It still to this day sits at "just cut it yourself"
Electrical wholesaler is useless.
We registered the request for the disconnection on March 10th and was told "it will be completed in 20 working days". The first hurdle was that they only allow 1 primary account holder and it was Sara - but Frederik was the one at home trying to organize it so Sara had to call them to say yes do it. Then after 17 "working days" we rang as it hadn't been done and they assured us that it would be done by Wednesday 17th April - great! On the 19th April I rang up to say it still wasn't done and was told it was "stuck in the portal", damn technology. They had to resubmit it and again I got told "20 working days" which I told them wasn't good enough since we had already waited longer than 20 days. To cut a long story short after another 4 phone calls including to the wholesaler, it was finally done on the 3rd May (nearly 40 working days) on the same day the demolisher started!!!
The bank is useless
They will not process anything until the have the signed plans and building contract. Which is funny because when you sign the contract the builder wants to see your approved finance (chicken vs egg). Then they will take forever to review and approve especially if you have some public holidays during this time. Then I have just found out they won't release the first payment until you have approved building permits - which the builder won't put in for until you make the first payment (that pesky chicken and egg again)
When you live on a slope expect your sewer line to be more than 2m deep
Yes when the plumber came he had to dig a huge hole and I couldn't see his head, maybe we should have installed a swimming pool will there was a big hole.
Cap all water taps in the house
When the kitchen was removed a water tap was left free, that's ok we thought, we will just leave the water turned off at the gate - but some b@st$rd turned it back on and hey presto flooded house. Luckily everything was gone but our water bill maybe high.
Don't trust your neighbours
Slightly related to the point above but we had plants stolen from our front garden - carefully dug out, weed mat laid back and everything.

But on a serious note - all of the money laid out up to this point (several thousand) is not bank loan so if you are thinking of doing this yourself then factor this into equations.

So here we are -the list is complete up to #9 and now the demolishing starts. The demolisher has been waiting for the electricity to be disconnected and so the only thing they have been able to do is remove the eaves (some were asbestos) and this was completed yesterday. So we have let the demolisher know to go for it.

So what did the house look like when purchased?