Negotiating.....

The hard part is done. Isn't that right? We have picked the design and know where we are putting it. That's all, isn't it?

I guess not.

So starts the first of countless trips to Gregory Hills to look at the display home. If you ever get a chance, drop in and say hello to Ash. The guy is a champion and to be honest, probably cemented our decision to build with Eden Brae. He was so helpful and gave us plenty of great ideas. It is actually incredibly helpful to be able to go to the display regularly, not only to show the family what the final product will look like, but to also visualise potential changes we wanted to make. And make some we will.. 

So what happens next Ash? Well mate, give me $750 to do a sand and soil report. Ok, here you go. What was that for again? To find out the type of slab you need and to work out how flat the land is. Apparently "grey soil" and "pretty flat" were not sufficient answers. We need an engineer to tell us that, but in much bigger words. 

So what is next? $2500 for a tender proposal. Sure, why not. That gets me a tender for the construction of the house and a need to take a day off to go all the way out to the Nor-West Business Park sign up for more. We had been warned about the tender meeting. In particular, we were warned about Charles. Here is a perfect lesson in why you should never listen to other people. Charles was brilliant. He took the time to explain every part of the tender to us and sat for hours while my wife and I went through every clause and asked hundreds of questions (poor guy had no idea he was dealing with two lawyers. He does now). 

We discussed the variations to the plan that we had made with Ash and Charles took us through the costs of those. Ash's ballpark figures on price were pretty much spot on. We made a few more changes (thanks to a few more visits to the display) and finally were happy. So what were the changes? In summary:

• Taking the linen press from upstairs and turning around that cupboard to be the robe in bed 3;
• Deleting the original robe in bed 3 to allow the robe in bed 2 to be the full length of the shared wall;
• Putting a door under the stair case to allow for more storage;
• Removing the window from the pantry to allow the whole thing to be shelved;
• Extending the pantry to allow the common wall with the media room to be flush (and thereby allowing for a projector screen);
• Addition of the shower in the guest room downstairs;
• Inserting a full wall sliding robe in the study (to make up for the list linen press upstairs);
• Hanging door to media
• Sliding doors on robes in bedrooms 2, 3 and 4 to provide more space in the room (by not needing room for a door to swing open); 
• Extend the driveway, so that it doesn't do that annoying thing where it is only a single space at the roadside; and 
• Sliding doors to the WIR and ensuite in the master bedroom (cause no relationship is that stable that the toilet can be door free....).

Amended Floor Plan

Ok, ready to go, lets build! Oh, wait, not even close yet? Damn. What facade do I want? Isn't it just the display one? No? Really?? No, not at all. There are about 15 different ones to choose from. Of course there is. Each costs more than the last. Of course it does. In the end, we went for "Cromer". Primarily because it has a large balcony from the master bedroom. This one of the things on my "must have" list. The only other thing is a projector in the media room. Ok, I'm happy now. Where do I sign?