House & Life Update

Far out so things have been pretty crazy. In some ways extremely wonderfully good and in others extremely wonderfully stressful.

At the start of June, James and I took the huge adulty step of buying a block of land and attempting the process of putting a house on it. It all looked like it was going incredibly well until prices started to skyrocket unreasonably (after signings of contracts), we were being under-quoted, and things sort of turned upside down. It all became pretty stressful. We went to a meeting with the company where the guy was incredibly rude & everything was looking pretty lose-lose for Jamesy and I. We had been given two choices, pay a lot of money to get out - or lose a lot by staying in. Either way financially things were looking really scary for us. The guy we spoke to had very little professionalism, no sympathy & just mocked us in saying things like "I wish we lived in a magical world where we could give you your house for free but unfortunately it does cost us money to build...." treating us as if we were unreasonable & of course a free house was not at all what we are asking for. With this builder James and I had a 117 square meter house, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom. Our final skyrocketing price was for walls and floor. We had no doors included on wardrobes, no floor coverings, literally the bare minimum although we were still blamed for the price saying it was our fault for adding in "luxuries" (high ceilings - to make our shoebox look a little bigger & a double shower). Anyway, we ended up being quoted to leave and it was a lot less than the pride we'd lose for going forward with the company after how we were treated so we just decided to pay it to cancel our contract. This was in the middle of so many deadlines and even though the stress was high we were both so relieved. 

Through all the mess & stress we started looking around and met so many incredibly nice builders. After such a bad experience James and I were still so sceptical and found it impossible to know who to trust. Its kind of sad really, questioning peoples integrity especially when I put a lot of trust in most people. We ended up meeting someone called Lee who I immediately noticed had a 'dadness' about him and when we told him what we were going through he was heartbroken to hear about our previous experience. He promised to regain our faith back in builders and we (still nervously) started working back and forth with him to find a plan that might suit our block. It wasn't until I started to hear good things about the company he was from through friends that I started to relax a little bit, and then another friend had told me that her sister had built directly through Lee and she was very happy and I started to become a bit more open minded. (This girl stresses like crazy ok.)

Lee managed to come up with a 186 square meter (living only), 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom + theatre + study house, with all wardrobe doors, shower doors, high ceilings ;), double shower ;) + 900mm appliances, all coming to a final price which was less than we were originally going to end up paying for our little shoebox home. He has been very generous to us and so easy to work with so far promising to be with us every single step of the way and even offering to have a drink with us when we move in. (James and I barely drink but does coffee count?)

Yesterday we signed the contract to get started and I'm so excited. Again. haha 

Hopefully this time its all smooth sailing but the water is looking a lot clearer than at the start of our last journey. 

James and I are so incredibly grateful for the friends we have made through all this craziness, our amazingly wonderful broker, and even other builders offering to help us regardless of if we signed with them or not. Its nice to know there are people out there willing to go above and beyond regardless of if there is return for them or not, those are the types of people we need more of in this world. 

Will keep ya'll updated hopefully with lots of happy news!

P.s 4 days ago our land settled & it is now officially ours!

& Big thanks to Ma and Pa for all their support and guidance through all of this.