Packing!

Packing has begun. The cats know something's up. Blue refuses to give up his favorite spots, but they can definitely tell we're moving. Again!

Last Photos of an Empty House

We're four days away from the move and I officially can't wait. We're meeting with our builder tomorrow night to go over the last details.

While Iain watched cricket I drove over to the house to check it out. I flicked all of the light switches on and off, turned on every faucet, ran the showers, opened and closed the kitchen drawers. I turned on the ceiling fan upstairs, opened some of the windows (with SCREENS! A rarity in NZ!!), and sat on the carpet. It felt great.

As expected (and warned by friends who've undergone renovations), there's stuff we did wrong. But thankfully nothing is holy-crap-this-looks-like-sh*t standout wrong -- it's all in the details. There's stuff like the positioning of a wall socket... or an outside light. But so far, the important stuff is all there.

The next pictures will be of a completed house!

Weekend

This weekend was going to be all about packing, cleaning, and getting prepared for the move.

So why did we wind up:

1. eating lunch by the beach
2. wandering around the Viaduct
3. visiting friends, Jenny + David and week old baby Max
4. watching rugby (Iain)
5. seeing Precious (me)
6. having drinks with our 85 year old neighbors, Mitch + Lois

Maybe it had something to do with the weather -- spectacular!!

Famous!

I've been in this country two years and I've been featured twice in national magazines! (this might having something to do with the fact that it's a country of slightly over 4 million people.) Here's a picture from this month's issue of MiNDFOOD. It's me with two friends at the Kiehl's launch at Smith + Caughey. Truthfully, we were just there for the free wine and samples.

P.S. They made me hold that magazine.

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.