The bottom line

Well the tag-line for this blog is "Great house: small budget: big ideas", so you could always see that we were heading toward difficulties along the way, and I think we've just ploughed straight into 'the money problem'.

You'll recall that we have two potential builders in our sights, Dan and John. John said up-front that he thought it would cost at least half a million dollars to build our house and Dan thought it might be cheaper. John doesn't want to do a costing exercise but Dan has just finished his, and the bad news is that even he thinks the house - not including the studio - will cost half a million dollars to build, which would be OK if we had the money...

The economic situation isn't helping. Importing anything now costs a lot more owing to the fact that the dollar is weak, and the raw cost of materials for building our house has increased by something like 40% in the last twelve months. While we're trying to use local products where possible, such as sustainably farmed timber from local forests for example, the overall cost of materials has gone up as suppliers have increased prices across their product ranges.

Dan has also pointed out that we have expensive tastes, which probably won't be a surprise to most of you! Mind you, I don't think we've gone overboard with things. If I was being snobby about it I would suggest that our European mind-set simply means we're interested in quality products rather than shoddy stuff. We're not interested in gold-plated taps; we want taps that will work for 20 years and more without discolouring, and with the right sort of ceramic disk technology that will work when the water supply comes from a rainwater tank rather than a mains system. We don't want architraves and a decent plasterer costs more than a bodger who uses skirting boards, architraves and cornicing to hide the defects in his workmanship. We could just build the whole house from cement-rendered brick, but we don't like the look, we don't like the associated environmental issues, and we don't want to be patching cracks for the rest of our lives. We could skimp on insulation but it seems like a false economy, especially when we'll be on a solar electricity system that won't allow us anything in the way of electrical heating or cooling. Spending money up-front on appropriate insulation for walls, floor and ceiling is the only sensible answer... and so it goes on.

I'm not quite sure yet how this leaves us. Michael and I haven't really sat down and done the hard work of reviewing our cash-flow, looking at different mortgage options or trying to trim costs. Our Plan B had been to postpone the office/studio building until later, using the second living room as a temporary workplace until we could afford it. We've already ditched the idea of a swimming pool until much later in the proceedings. But as Dan's costings - and we've been through them properly - mean we can't afford to build the office/studio yet anyway, we're going to have to think of a very difference Plan C, and an extremely creative Plan D as a backup.

Funnily enough I'm not despondent. Things haven't got to the stage where I'm seriously worried that we won't be able to build anything at all: we just have to review things and be creative. Often I find that when I first think of something I can't see how to change it, but after a period of reflection it usually occurs to me that there are more options than I had previously thought. What it might mean is a further delay, although hopefully not a huge one as I think it was a condition of our avoiding Stamp Duty on the property that building work had to commence within two years of purchase of the land, which would take us to the end of March next year. More news when we've come up with some ideas!