Slow News Day

This breaking news story appeared on page 3 of the New Zealand Herald. Come on. Page THREE?!

Week

This week was much less hectic than last week. With my workload being back to normal, we were able to tag team the house chores: I'm responsible for hiring a carpet cleaner for our rental, arranging internet and satellite hook-up, and managing the upstairs closet build. Not too onerous. Iain took over the kitchen sink install, plumbers, screens, and our builder.

We're both taking off the week of March 8. Iain doesn't have enough vacation days to take the FULL week. So I'm handling the move on Monday the 8th, just like Iain handled our move into the rental back in October. I'd hoped to have the internet and TV hooked up in time to watch the Oscars but it won't happen. Damn!

There's a huge sale on at Smith + Caughey this week, so I spent numerous lunch breaks looking at sheets, towels, shoes (not house-related but c'mon...), housewares, etc. I got us some fantastic orange towels for the upstairs bathroom. I might go back next week and look for towels for the downstairs, too.

Here are pictures of the rangehood and - finally! - the correct kitchen sink: 500mm X 400mm X 200mm (19.6" X 14.74" X 7.87"). The kitchen company agreed to reimburse us for 50% of the value of the handles, since they're wrong and we couldn't agree on an adequate replacement. This is a pretty good deal since they originally threw the handles in for free.

Lastly: the backsplash. Or is it splashback?

Landscaping...

The landscaping is well underway - it's one of the most satisfying parts of the job. You see immediately what they've done, as opposed to a house where an entire week might go by with no really obvious changes.

Countdown to March 8!!!!

Home is where you hang your... towel

We shopped for towel rails and toilet paper holders. Finally - I get to choose exactly what my bathroom accessories look like. How many hotels or friends' homes have you been in and thought, "Looks nice, but if I did it my way...".

Iain said, "It's just towel rails - this should take 30 minutes." He didn't realize that I have spent YEARS looking this stuff. But I never looked at prices.

Pictured below is the most stunning toilet brush I've ever seen. It's a narrow, wall-mounted stainless steel brush. Imported from Spain (I'm not kidding), it's yours for the low price of $450. That's almost what we paid for the TOILET!

It's scary how much money you can spend on this stuff. $300 for a towel rail ... toilet paper holders for $85 ... robe hooks priced at $50+. Who knew?

Addicted!

TradeMe is the Kiwi version of eBay. We've got eBay over here but most people use TradeMe 'cause it's local.

We put our Ikea wardrobes on TradeMe and sold them for a total of almost $700NZ (about $3US with the current exchange rate.)

Watching an auction online is absolutely fascinating -- at 6pm the highest bid for one of the wardrobes was $81. Five minutes later it was $90. Hit refresh -- $101. Hit refresh -- $102. Hit refresh -- $123. $129. $135. $140. $150. $160. $175. $202. And so on. Within FIVE minutes the bid leapt $150! The last 30 seconds it went up by $50! I couldn't stop watching. "This is more addictive than smoking!!!!" I said to Iain.

I am going to start selling EVERYTHING!

Tired.

My partner at work is on vacation so I enjoyed a 50+ hour week (that's not a complaint -- I just heard of another local ad agency doing poorly in this economy so I'm feeling lucky. Tired and cranky, but lucky. Ok, yeah, it's kind of a complaint.)

Iain handled all house-related chores, going down almost daily for frustrating meetings with our infuriatingly (sic) non-communicative builder. While I've been at work from 7.30am to 6pm, he's been dealing with the logistics of scheduling the carpet guys to come back and flatten the carpet that the radiator guys disrupted, calling the screen guys, emailing the kitchen chick to find out when the new sink arrives, and trying to find out why the hell we have no exhaust fans in the bathrooms! We are tired.

It's Friday night and Iain is watching a rubgy game. I'm catching up on Facebook and just wasted 15 minutes of my life watching The 30 Most Important Cats of 2009.

Here are some pictures of the radiators and carpet. What's weird is that these things, more than the kitchen install or the bathrooms, have made it all seem like a real house. Seeing the house almost finished gave me that little knot in my stomach - the first real feeling of excitement.

I confessed to Iain that I've felt negative towards the house lately, and wasn't nearly as psyched by the completed bathroom or almost-completed kitchen as I thought I'd be. I said, "This sounds awful, but I'm just sick of it." He nodded and said, "I've hated this house since June." And then we just started laughing.

Here's something strange: one of the biggest thrills has been seeing the carpeted closets. I did a quick mental search through every house and apartment I've ever lived in and realized that only two had carpeted closets. But so what, right? It never occurred to me to care about such an unimportant, arbitrary feature, but yet here I am, fantasizing about hanging my clothes in these brand new carpeted closets. Weird.

Dinner the dog, aka "Din Din"

Home Stretch!

We've had three blinds salespeople come to the house to give us quotes. The prices have ranged from $9000 to $3000. Incredible. The woman who came on Saturday morning greeted us with, "I'm sorry if I smell like booze -- my husband and I were entertaining last night." I think we might award her the job! Truthfully, we probably can't award the job to anyone -- we had no idea custom made blinds were so pricey.

Here's what's left:

1. Carpet install
2. Radiator install
3. Rangehood install
4. Backsplash of some sort (still unresolved)
5. Blinds for most of the windows (still unresolved)
6. Cat fence install
7. Upstairs closet build (still getting quotes)
8. Utilities (phone, electricity, water, etc. etc.)
9. Change of address - fourth one in three years. Enough already!

Soft Close Toilet Seat!

Here are some "action shots" of the toilet seat closing. Definitely one of the best things we've purchased!



And the shower and almost-completed vanity and medicine cabinet:


I love how big this bathroom is -- we'll have room for some towel shelves and maybe even a chair!

Getting your money's worth

The landscaping started on Thursday and already we're seeing why it's costing so much! Our guy found a bunch of old buckets and pieces of steel underneath the lawn by the plum tree which of course begs the question: "Who the HELL used to live here?!?!"

The yard was such a complete mess we've had to hire the guy just to make it a "normal" backyard, let alone a really elaborate one with fancy shrubs and flowers and decks and fences. Hell, at this stage, we're just looking for a decent lawn! I can't wait to see how this all looks when he's finished.




Okay, maybe a FEW shrubs!

Kitchen Krisis Averted!

Stupid kitchen. Wrong handles, wrong wastebin, and UGH! Wrong sink!

What should've been one of the easiest parts of the construction almost turned into one of the worst. We've discovered three mistakes in our kitchen, the latest being the sink model! An appointment with our kitchen designer was scheduled for Saturday, so we spent Friday evening going through all of our paperwork. Yep - they installed the R100 sink, not the RJ10 sink! And the handles? Bilma, not Bilma Straight! WTF???

Even though the company was in the wrong, I was still nervous and suffered a sleepless night on Friday. We've heard horror stories of people going back to their installers and being ignored, or handed some arcane set of terms and conditions that absolves the company from everything. How many months did we spend comparing kitchen sinks? The thought of all that research, only to get stuck with the wrong sink was depressing.

We've had a good experience with this company, which is why we were so disappointed when they screwed up. The garbage bin and even the handles I could live with but the sink was just WRONG.

Just in case they didn't own up to the mistakes, we went in guns blazing -- invoices, pictures, pdfs... and a back-up plan involving a social media blitz if they refused to own up.

We were pleasantly surprised. Our designer took responsibility for everything. She'd gone on vacation during the process and in the handover, a bunch of things got screwed up. And from her tone, it sounded to me like we weren't the only dissatisfied customers.

They're completely re-doing our kitchen counter to install the right sink, and we're being compensated for the handles and the garbage bin. They'll also pay for our plumber to come back in and re-install the faucet and garbage disposal. Whew!

We celebrated with a delicious lamb dish and rosé at a tapas place called Altar.

Kickass Dinner Party

Our friends Julia and Ian had us over to Julia's apartment for dinner on Sunday night. She made these incredible organic lamb meatballs that were ridic! Today is Wednesday and I am STILL thinking about them. They were done with orzo and feta and a tomato sauce -- I wanted to grab the bowl and go crouch in the corner with it, growling at anyone who approached me. Totally delish. (BTW Julia doesn't read this blog so this is not gratuitous!)

Disclaimer: Pete + Zeke, it did not beat your cooking!

She ended the meal with a homemade cheesecake. Holy MOLY.

In the Closet

It was Waitangi Day on Saturday. This meant that a lot of the stores were closed, forcing us to actually set aside house crap and enjoy the weekend. It's the height of summer -- really hot, really sunny, really awesome.

We went grocery shopping and visited a few tile stores to see if we could find something affordable for our kitchen backsplash.

Answer: no.

Damn!

Looks like more subway tiles... we investigated a glass backsplash, but the price is still the same: $1200+. Since we're already so far over-budget, we'll compromise and get some subways. We'll probably live.

Pictured below is Iain on Saturday while we figured out our upstairs closet configuration. We measured our own closets in the rental and figured out what we think we'll need in the new house.

The closet is going to be a freestanding structure so we're investigating closet companies -- for those of you who immediately leap to your California Closet / Broadcast News / SATC fantasties, you're not alone. This, however, is going to be a basic closet with some shelves.


Boring: the freestanding closet was a big discussion when we first started renovations -- we didn't want to build a closet for fear it would affect resale in case a future owner wanted to use the "dressing room" space for an office or baby room. But you know what? We need to live there, too, so we're revamping a lot of our "resale vs what we actually want" decisions.

(This late-in-the-day decision has left us with a perfect and now useless cable, power, and phone jack right where the closet will go. Brilliant!)

We finally nailed down a good design which I incorporated into Excel and emailed to our closet dude. Done!

Cut to four hours later and we're at Flax in Browns Bay for a late lunch.


We love this place because of its proximity to the beach. It's like being in Miami or LA or... New Zealand!


We ordered some fish cakes instead of something good like the burger and fries. Alas... trying to be healthy. I should've returned mine - it was vile. Iain didn't mind his.

After our 2pm lunch we headed for home for a quiet afternoon of laundry and books.

The Floor's So Clean I Can See My Head Right Through It!

The title of this post is courtesy of an oft-quoted guy named Fred who 3 people who read this blog will remember from Plum Dandy.

Last week, all work on the house came to a standstill as the floor guys went in and did their thing. We are so happy that we didn't choose to stain the floors a different color to cover up the imperfections - it looks great, the imperfections add charm, and the parts that are a bit conspicuous (foyer and hallway leading to bathroom) will fade with age.

We're down to the end here, thank GOD. In the next three weeks, we've got radiators, screens, double-glazing, plumbing, carpet, kitchen backsplash, VANITY AND SHOWER INSTALLATION, kitchen appliance and rangehood install, door-rehanging, blinds, and of course landscaping. Anything else? I cant remember.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day in Auckland. After a Skype call with the 'rents, we quickly ran errands and got home in time to enjoy a few hours in the backyard with our books. The older couple next door had what sounded like Sinatra playing loudly from their home throughout most of the afternoon -- at first we were like, "What the hell is that music?!?!" but as soon as we realized it was them, we relaxed.



Mom and Dad, this is what I was talking about with the screens!

The landscaper starts next Thursday - thank GOD!

Congratulations Dad!

Well, my Dad has retired! Go Dad! Bring on long days outside, unread books, experiments with cooking and laundry, and lots of exploring, even if it's just through Google Earth!

Our 'hood

After a successful party on Sunday, we slept in a little (okay, 11am) on Monday and finally got up. It was threatening to rain again, so we got out as quickly as we could and went for a walk down to Beach Haven Wharf. The wharf is down the street from the new house and we were psyched to see this cool boat taking off. Then we headed out for lunch and a night of rentals before having to go back to work on Tuesday.

Racism

You know the idiots in America who blame everything on the Mexicans and other immigrants? Well, in New Zealand everyone blames the Asians. The moron who wrote this on the bus shelter can't even spell 'Asian' correctly.

BBQ at Sunnyhaven Ave

We had a BBQ on Sunday and nature did NOT cooperate. First, it started pouring approximately 5 minutes after I'd texted back a skeptical guest,"Rain? Nope -- it's fine here!"

We bought a big plastic gazebo and it saved the day! The BBQ took a cue from 1964 and the guys hung outside by the barbecue discussing sports I guess. The ladies all remained inside and talked about guys, pregnancy, families, make-up, and wine -- I'm not joking. Everything was fine until we saw a roach crawling across the coffee table towards the Kiwi dip -- in keeping with the times, I yelled for Iain who had to come in and dispose of it. Iain swears it was a beetle but there are 5 women who disagree.

Despite the uninvited visitor, I think everyone had a good time. Lots of steak, chicken, vegie burgers and pasta salad was had. We also had a surprise dessert courtesy of our friend Kevin's mom who shipped him the ingredients for s'mores all the way from Buffalo! Diet? BLOWN! It was awesome.

It felt good to entertain again (a perfect excuse to clean!) and we can't wait to do it in the new house.

Blue stayed under the bed most of the night but Tama ventured out once or twice to check out the guests.





As the day wore on, some guests left while others braved the increasingly scary-looking weather (see the sky behind Steve) and colder temps until around 11pm.