So, maybe we should think about landscaping?

So we've been away a little while on holidays - we hadn't taken any holidays since we started this whole redevelopment adventure back at the start of 2009!

We've pretty much finished with the house interior, just a few minor things to procrastinate further about of little consequence. Got a letter from Metricon while we were away, stating that the "90 day service items are now finished" with the exception of fixing our dodgy ensuite door, which is still bowed and scraping. That only took about... 11 months? And with still the bowed doorframe outstanding. Gotta get back in touch with them to find out how they're going to fix things.

Anyway, with the insides done, we might now have a think about getting the outside done. First admission upfront - we know NOTHING about outdoors, gardens, landscaping, stuff like that. If it wasn't for the dog we probably wouldn't go into our backyard at all. I had some excess soil dumped in our front yard months ago, spent an hour or so shovelling that and carting it to the backyard yesterday and didn't enjoy that at all, and it's only 1/4 done. Meh.

Seeing as it was a nice day, we headed down Bulleen way where there's a couple of outdoor-thingy stores and had a wander around.

Perhaps some of these big grey rectangular things along the side of the house where the laundry is?


And a whole lot of these little rocky grey things to go around the big grey things above?


And some bigger square things, which conceivably could cover our bare portico concrete. Grey of course.


Does anyone reading this have any clues on landscaping? f you can point me to any useful landscape resources to read, that'd be good (Except the homeone landscaping forum, I tried reading that and it's like an infant (me) reading a nuclear science manual. Too many complicated words and not enough bright pretty pictures).

I know I'd like some kind of raised vege/herb garden at the back of the house, except it doesn't get much sun there. And the less grass the better - unless someone's invented a new kind of grass that cuts itself, sweeps itself away and puts $25 into my pocket each time.

T&T

The Big Winter Chill

So it's been getting a little cool in Melbourne. temperatures around 12 during the day and half that at night. The heater has been getting a bit of a workout, and all seems to be good!



Some observations on planning heating in your new house;

• We upgraded to a dual zone heater with a better gas efficiency rating. We can heat the whole house, or just downstairs. For a while we were just heating downstairs, but then our master bedroom is an absolute fridge, so we're back to heating the whole house instead of using zones. Might be more useful in a single storey house to have zoned heatin.
• In the rooms which aren't used much, we've closed off the heating vents and shut the doors if these rooms have one. We also added a big sliding door between the open plan living area and the front of the house, which keeps that area nice and warm! If you're planning your house design, think of adding cavity doors in places. Open plan areas look great in display homes, but in a real-life home, you will want to close off areas for noise, heating/cooling etc. Cavity doors almost disappear into the walls when not used, but are effective in closing off areas when needed.
  
• We set the temperature around 19-20, sometimes 21 for a while if it's really cold.
• The last gas bill was about $100 I think, not too bad! Our energy rating turned out to be just over 5 star. We have put roller blinds over most of the windows, if we used heavy drapes or curtains, I think that would keep the heat in better.
  
• Might have been nice to add a heating outlet in our large ensuite, though we're planning to put in a 3-in-1 like an IXL or equivalent once we choose what light fittings to be put in (still haven't got around to that!)

On that note, does anyone have any recommendations for lighting shops in Melbourne? Apart from Beacon there doesn't seem to be much else. Maybe head back to my favourite shop, eBay :)

T&T

Annoying salespeople coming to your door?

So I was talking with someone at work, who complained that her elderly mum-in-law (who lives by herself) had dodgy salespeople talking their way into her house. Certainly a safety and security risk and there's plenty of unscrupulous people out there who will take advantage of those at risk.

Anyway, after a bit of googling, I found a website that have identified this problem and give away "do not knock" stickers.


I ordered a few, one for our front door, one for my friend's mum-in-law, and some to hand out to the rest of our family. I'm not sure how effective these will be, but in out old house there was always someone knocking on the door at dinnertime trying to get us to switch our phone, gas, water, electricity.

Now if they come knocking after this sticker is up, I'll simply take all their details, and find someone to report them to. Apparently if you have this sticker, then it's illegal for door-to-door salesmen to annoy you (though charitable organisations are exempt).

Free DO NOT KNOCK stickers available here from Victoria Legal Aid.

I'm also going through our stash of old clothes and stuff this weekend as I'm hoping to find some blankets to donate to RSPCA Burwood. Don't throw them out, puppies and doggies need winter warmth!

T&T

Would you buy an actual display home?

So, while browsing around, came across a Metricon display house for sale in Point Cook.


Asking 625-650k, on 512sqm, with immediate possession available.

Let's say you wanted to buy a new car, but was told it could be a 6-12 month wait. Not uncommon - the current Golf GTi apparently has a waiting list this long! But... you could grab an "executive driven demonstrator" model immediately, with a few thousand bucks off. In my eyes, certainly a good dealm as you avoid a long wait plus manage to avoid some of the immediate huge depreciation when buying a new car. I bought a new car, once upon a time... never again!

Anyway, this case is slightly different when buying a house. Let's think about some of the aspects of buying a ex-display home vs building from scratch.

• Stamp duty will be considerable more on a completed house, compared to a vacant block of land.
• The house is built - you can inspect it, walk around it, and move into it straight after settlement.... instead of waiting for land to be titled (and we've all heard horror stories about land titling 6-12 months later than it was meant to!)
• It should come fully landscaped, with floor coverings, window coverings etc. A huge difference to when we moved in - with bare concrete floors, bare yellowtongue flooring upstairs, mud and crap everywhere and no driveway!
• If you purchase an ex-display home while it's still functioning as a display home, often the vendor will give a decent return (7-8% not uncommon) while the house is being used.
• All fittings and colours will be as displayed - if you don't like it, bad luck. Up to you to repaint or replace fittings after settlement. Display homes usually have had a lot of thought put into their interior design, and to be honest Metricon have some of the best display home interiors that we've checked out. Hopefully matches up with your own tastes.
  
• Being a display house, there would've been some amount of wear and tear of the property due to stickybeaks opening, shutting and banging around everything possible. Buyer beware!
• Usually display houses are optioned up hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the basic home - whether or not they're to your taste, and the price premium put on the sale price of the property is up to you to calculate.
• The location of display homes is typically in the higher-traffic area of the development, simply because display home builders want more passing traffic to check them out. Could be in a noisier location than other homes - assess carefully.

Anyway, if you wanted to check out this particular Fairhaven for sale, click here.


Or here's another display home for sale, but from Porter Davis on the East side of town, asking $520-550k.

T&T

The Home Building Insurance SCAM.

Just a note - thanks for everyone for visiting, somehow this blog has clocked up 200,000 hits!

The Age recently published an article about the home building insurance scam.

In case you didn't know, if you're building a new house or doing a renovation, you're also paying an insurance premium on home building insurance. It doesn't show up as an item in your renovation quote or new home contract, but it's built into your building contract.

Anyway, it's basically money thrown away. The article states that in the last year, 53,000 Victorians paid up insurance premiums, but only 3 people made successful claims.

3 claims in 53,000. Almost makes the insurers refusing to pay out on Queensland flooding look good.

Anyway, this is one massive rort - its so corrupt from beginning to end, there's basically no way to even start to fix it. As "customers", we must pay the premium, like it or not, and there's stuff all chance of us ever seeing a cent of it, should any dodgy work be seen further down the track. "Government" will promise to fix things, but since their fingers are deep in the pie, there's no chance of that.

Hence, while all builders will proudly state there's a 7 year guarantee on their work, based on the existince of this so called home building insurance scheme, NONE will admit that this guarantee is a fraud.

Be an educated consumer. Don't accept any dodgy work from your builder, whoever it is. Spend the dollars to get an independent inspector to go through building stages - and of course, don't accept that the builder's "independent" inspector is anything but a stooge.

Yet another grumpy mood right now obviously - and if you're the moron in the right lane who decided to swerve into my lane outside of Doncaster Shoppingtown today at about 6pm, you're damn lucky I had the reflexes to avoid hitting you, 'cause one way or another I would've made sure you ended up in emergency with a broken neck, ya f'wit.

T&T