Pleased you could join us on our adventure of building our own home. You have joined in at a really good time - the beginning :-) We are still in the very early stages of finding our ideal piece of land. We have spent most of last week searching for sections large enough and hopefully flat enough to build without too much excavation being required.

Land is really at a premium in Auckland and the prices being charged reflect this. We have found two subdivisions that we quite like, one in Torbay and the other in Greenhithe. The piece of land we like in Greenhithe backs onto a pond feature but is only 760 square metres. The land has a slight slope but not anything that will require a lot of retaining.

In Torbay the site we like is 1046 square metres which will give us heaps of room for a home and leave plenty of play area for the boys and maybe even a pool for Andy. This land has quite a slope to it but is not really mountain goat territory. It was raining when we looked at it, and the vision was not really good, but we think it probably gets a view of the sea. Mum and Dad came over today and looked at it with us. We had a good look at all the sites and found that we can get a small sea view, not as much as we were expecting. We also looked at a couple of other sites in the area and there are now 3 that we think we would be reasonably happy in.

Tommorrow we need to get in touch with the real estate agent and find out exactly if these sites are still available and what building restrictions are on them, if any. Then we can actually get round to purchasing some green stuff - yippeeee!! Then the really exciting stuff will begin, and we have to decide which building company to use.

Monday 5 July 1999
Today we went and rewalked all the sites we were interested in. Around 3pm I was back at the site to look at one I couldn't quite remember. I was horrified to discover that the sun had disappeared from 2 of the sites we liked and was well on the way to being gone from the 3rd. I relooked at Andy's favourite site and figured that it wasn't as bad as I thought. With an architect's help I am sure we can come up with a stunning home that will work perfectly on that site. Tonight we rang the real estate agent and put a hold on the site until we can get the builder and his engineer there to work out costings on preparing the site for building. We have just on 2weeks to get the site checked out and either forfeit it or pay for it. Exciting!!!

Thursday 8 July 1999
Wow, so much has happened since my last addition to this page. We thought we had found a company we liked but when we checked out a second showhome they had, we were very disappointed in the quality. That then started the rounds of searching for another company. Andy found one yesterday that he was very impressed with . We met the guy on site today and checked out the section and various options. He really seemed to listen to all our suggestions and didn't try to persuade us like things we didn't. He reckoned it was a great section and wouldn't cost us too much in site work. By now I am feeling really excited, there is something about having someone in the trade tell you it is a good site!!

I came home from the meeting and rang the real estate agent and put in a conditional offer on the section. He rang us not half an hour later to say that someone else was really keen on that site because they figured it would build out the site behind us. I am soooo pleased I put that offer in when I did. The next step for us is to meet the builders again on Saturday when they will have some preliminary drawings done and hopefully a rough estimate.

Friday 9 July 1999
We are now officially the owners of our section - wahoooooooo!!! Party time at our house. Yep, we are pretty excited and now we can get down to the really exciting stuff of sorting out floor plans and colours and things. It turns out that the guy who has the section behind us wanted to buy ours as well so he could place a height covenant on any building erected there. His architect even rang the owners of the land and tried to get our section through the back door. Fortunately because our offer was on the table this could not happen. It appears that now he missed on our site he isn't going to buy his one either. Oh well and we were going to design a really spectacular roof line for him to look at too :-)

Wednesday 14 July 1999
I spoke to our new neighbour today and he is really keen to get hold of a copy of our plan when we finalise things so he can design his house around ours and maximise his view. I am so pleased we can work something out and both end up happy.

29 July 1999
Today the contract on our section became unconditional. We also signed the contract with the builder and he is going to start now on working drawings and then permits and all that drama. Yes, finally things are really starting to happen and we can relax a little before all the hard work starts.

October
Well we seem to have so many hassles over the past few months to do with our section and plans and at this stage we still do not have building consent. The big thing now is that we have to get a geotechnical engineers report on our section so the Council can be sure that our house will not fall down the hill. I don't really mind this condition because I don't particularly want our house sliding down the hill either, but all these delays get a bit frustrating when all we want to do is start knocking in some nails.

November
Yes we have the geo tech report back and all we have to do to comply is have foundations that go to 3.6metres deep instead of the standard foundations which are about 30cm deep. We are now waiting to hear back from the builders as to how much extra it is going to cost for these extra foundations. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that it won't be too expensive.




Plans | Building | Links