Plaster of Progress

MORE progress... We went up there on Sunday morning, once I'd collected dearest husband from the airport, and to our astonishment we found two utes up there, with one person fixing cladding panels on the rear wall of the office/studio where we'd had to move a window, and another inside doing the waterproof membrane in the bathroom! Talk about dedication to the cause; fantastic!

























Inside the office/studio the walls have now been plastered. I think the different colours indicate joins between panels and the location of the P50 (?) shadow moulding around the doors and windows. I don't like architraves or cornicing (except in historic buildings) which is why we're having the P50 moulding instead around the doors and windows and a "square set" finish around the tops of the walls. In here we're also having a skirting board as a sort of test run because I hate the damned things... the problem is a) it's cheaper to have a skirting board because it means that the plastering around the bottom of each wall doesn't have to be so accurate and b) a skirting board protects a potentially delicate lower edge to the wall from things like over-enthusiastic vacuuming. I don't care as much about the office/studio as I will care about the interior of the main house so we're trying it out, with the proviso that if I really object to it, we could instead put a piece of hardwood around the bottom of the walls with a P50 shadow moulding above it, which would mean a flush finish and a shadow line but no protruding skirting board. Why not do this in the office/studio? Because it costs a lot more!





















The main house now has a roof which changes how it feels standing inside at the moment. You get a real sense of the internal dimensions of the rooms now, and it's just great. In the photo you can see the stacks of foam that will form the rear walls of the house: it's self-insulated, if you see what I mean, and so thermally efficient and reasonably priced. The foam pieces are glued together and then covered with a special external render (and we haven't chosen the colour yet). Against the frame you can just see the windows which have also arrived. While the main effort is definitely in getting the office/studio finished there is also a push to get the exterior of the house finished before Christmas. None of the internal partitioning or plastering will be done, but hopefully the walls, cladding, windows and front door will go in so that it is at 'lock up' stage by Christmas.

One of the advantages of working like this is that we'll be able to trial some things in the office/studio before committing ourselves in the main house. For example we have just chosen some floor and wall tiles for the office/studio bathroom, as well as the tapware and bathroom fittings. If we like them we'll use them throughout the main house as well. I'm also about to choose the paint colour for my studio and we'll have the chance to live with it and see it in different lights before using it anywhere else.

What else? Well finally, after doing a lot of jumping up and down last week, it seems as if we are making some progress with the mortgage. Put it this way, mentioning the word ombudsman seems to have had an effect! Suddenly we have letters and extra forms to be filled in and promises of immediate action. Fingers crossed that money could appear in people's bank accounts by the end of this week... meanwhile we've stumped up some more of our own cash to get things going with the sewerage people, and the first actual solar panels have gone up on the roof of the shed. It's very exciting!

Baaa

I believe I'm right in saying that our mortgage company has finally received our completed mortgage documents. These documents are the FOURTH SET of documents to be issued by our mortgage provider.

Goodness knows what happened to the first set; our local mortgage broker allegedly sent the second set off to us while we were away but it never arrived (it was posted, not couriered, so may yet appear at Dad's place if the UK postal strike ever stops!); the third set was sent off by the mortgage company directly to Michael in Dublin but I found the fourth set at home when I got back from holiday, signed it, had it witnessed and also sent it off to him in Dublin so that he could sign it and get it witnessed and send it back directly to the mortgage company...

When you consider that we first went to see them on July 30th, it took until 10th September to get an approval letter out and that the date on the fourth set of documents was 24th September but that they returned to base on 2nd November, you can see it's been a slightly stressful time of waiting for us and for our superstar builder!

Good news!

All the best things happen while I'maway, I'm convinced of it... There's a conspiracy there somewhere!

I rang home yesterday and Michael told me that not only has our mortgage been approved (phew!) but our solar rebate has also been approved. This means that we will get back 50% of the money we're paying out for our solar electricity system, and I can't tell you what a relief that is. For starters, we're intending to put the rebate straight back into our mortgage to reduce our monthly payments, so this is REALLY good news.

Mortgage madness or "pressure, what pressure?"

Two photographs from slightly different angles, showing you the strip footings of the main house with, at left, more or less of the concrete pad that will form the floor of the lounge/TV room! The roughly circular patches of grey in the photos are crusher dust, laid as a foundation for two 34,000 litre rainwater tanks that will sit behind the main house. They, combined with a tank off the office/studio roof and one off the shed at the bottom of the block, will give us over 100,000 litres of rainwater stored on site - hopefully plenty to cope with drought conditions and/or top up a swimming pool, if we can ever afford one. Plus there will be a header tank up the hill behind the house of 20,000 litres, for use by the Rural Fire Service in the event of a bush fire on the block.





























And two more photos showing the reinforcing that's going into the concrete pad for the office/studio building. Isn't that a great view? That's what Michael and I will see from our work spaces once it's all finished - what you can't see because it was hazy this morning is that there's a view of the ocean along the horizon. Fantastic!

Meanwhile, the mortgage... The second mortgage company has finally managed to get the correct valuer up to the block and complete a very satisfactory valuation. This now has to be sent to Head Office and approved, then there's paperwork to sign and Title Deeds to hand over. All this can - allegedly - be wrapped up before I go away in 10 days' time. Or at least, that's the plan.

It would be good if it all went well because today I got the sit-down-while-you-read-it invoice for the second stage payment: all $138,000.00 of it and unless we get that mortgage sorted out, I can't pay the invoice! (Warren, if you're reading this, don't worry...)

I'm doing something very unusual for me: I'm trusting that everything's going to be OK instead of worrying myself into an anxious frenzy. After watching what, 7?, series of Grand Designs I am inurred to the thought that building anything is an extremely stressful activity and I'm trying to ameliorate the rising levels of stress hormones by practicing calmness and my Zen 'beginner's mind' techniques. I'll let you know how I go.

While I'm meditating Warren is just getting on with the job. When I asked today how far he thought he'd have got by the time I get back he thought for a moment and then said that he reckoned he'd have got everything to lock-up by then. WOW! At this rate we could be in the house by my birthday, never mind Michael's.

Mortgage woe... for the moment, anyway

Ahhh... it's apparently very hard to join up the dots and do things sensibly, at least this seems to be the case in financial offices around the country. Mortgage lender one says, "yes, yes, yes, yes, fab house, love the plans, we can lend you $xxxxx because we valued it at $yyyyyy, yes, yes, yes, just doing the paperwork, oh. We can't lend you anything because your block of land is more than 3 hectares. Bye!" Second mortgage lender (BTW, wholly owned by mortgage lender one) says, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, we'll send out a valuer.... {SILENCE - always worrying}... oh sorry, sent it to the wrong valuer who couldn't read the paperwork anyway, yeah, we'll let you know when we've sorted it all out."

Meanwhile, we've decided STUFF IT! And we've started the foundations. See next post for photos!