DA SUBMITTED

Yippee! Our DA is lodged! Look a bit of mucking about (oh, I'm sorry, you don't have an erosion plan. You need to draw one. Oh and the architect hasn't put the hot water system on the plans, you need that too). So we had to sit down and redraw things then photocopy them fifty million times to add back into the pile of copies we already had. I WAS NOT leaving today without that thing being lodged!

We then went to the Bank of QLD who told us up front that banks DO NOT like owner builders. Hmmm...helpful. They went on to say that if we had any chance of getting $$ we needed to employ a licensed builder to build the place (huh?) and just how were we going to show them a fixed price contract (huh again?). I explained that by definition, OBs do not have fixed price contracts. Rather, you get quotes for everything or you get an estimator to do an estimation for you/bank. He then focused on that and said that we need a quanity surveyor and not any old QS but one that is Bank Approved. I asked for a list of Bank Approved QS and he didn't have one but pointed out that unless it was a BA QS any old person could put together an estimation. Ok....now i understand they are talking about lending a decent amount of $$ but they truly don't make it easy. Anyway, we are going to go knock on NABs door and see what they can offer.

So the wait for approval begins. Lets hope that our aim of mid june works out!!

TOMORROW, TOMORROW!!

Well, tomorrow is the day we go to Council - yay!!

this has been a long and torturous path and it's just the start! So today we got everything from Roland: elevations, site plan, floor plans, shadow diagrams, contour survey, roof diagram, section diagram etc. I spent most of yesterday finalising the BASIX certificate (what a pain in the backside that is!) only to realise today that we don't actually need 2 x 4000 for BASIX (we will have two anyway but don't need to specify for BASIX or else you do yourself out of the $400 rebate). Grrrr...i am now trying to get back into the website to change the certificate and it is not cooperating!

I also spent a good part of yesterday finishing the statement of environmental effects for council. And today was photocopying day. A3 paper has a disturbing way of continuously jamming my photocopier at work JUST when the boss is trying to print something important for a meeting.

We met with Ron, the project manager/builder, the other night and he is so keen. He has even gone to the lumber yard and asked them to secure X amount of timber for us at today's prices (we have to give them a deposit but good to know the price is locked in).

We signed up to the HomeOne Owner Builder course and i printed off all the material today. It look all of 40mins to read...hmmmm.....wouldn't exactly say that it was a comprehensive guide but it will do and it has some good templates to use (and it was only $89). I have also sent off emails to a couple of insurance companies to get quotes sorted. Who would have thought you need so many kinds of insurance?? It appears you need:

1. home warranty insurance (but i thought you only required when planning to sell in first 6 years??)
2. public liability insurance (yep, understand that one)
3. personal injury insurance (in case you or your volunteer friend/worker gets hurt during the build)
4. construction insurance (yep - sounds fair - theft, storm, fire etc)
5. workers comp (BUT i thought qualified tradies needed this themselves?? slightly confusing this one).

So tomorrow (which also happens to be our 3 year anniversary) we will head into council and pay our fees and cross our fingers that it all goes through smoothly and none of our neighbours object. we would really be happy if we get lift off mid june - that is the plan. lets see how we go!

ALMOST THERE....

So we are almost there! Final set of plans were delivered yesterday including all the bits and pieces we need for council like the shadow diagrams etc. Cross fingers we will be off to council on monday :)

We sat down with the project manager earlier this week and that made it all seem much more real and scary (especially when we started talking the $$$). We have been working on setting up spreadsheets and folders for quotes and invoices etc so that we can be organised. There is so much to think of and try and be across. Its certainly an adventure.

Chris met the excavator yesterday and we need to mow the block (hmmm....1600m2, won't that be fun??). Chris pegged the rough estimates out as well which is exciting as it makes it seem much more real.

Roland has been diligently working away and has given us the plans with the window and door dimensions so we can start costing things and we can also finish the BASIX certificate.

ELEVATIONS

We got the elevations yesterday which is quite exciting. Nothing like actually seeing what your house will look like. Here is the front elevation. Imagine the render is a lightish colour and the bricks are a dark chocolate brown.

A bit like this pic