How we got where we are now

OK, seeing as I was a bit slow to start this blog and we have been going through the motions for a while now, I thought it would be prudent to draw up a timeline of how we got where we are today.

Oct 2005 - Returned from UK to our small house in Chapel Hill which we had bought 2 years earlier. Immediately after getting back we had grand plans for a major renovation/remodel of the house.

Dec 2005 - Dec 2006 - We met with numerous builders and architects and looked at numerous display homes and the prices for our ambitious reno kept going up. We eventually decided that the costs involved were just not justifiable seeing as there were still going to be compromises witht the eventual build. So we decided to have a look around at buying an already established house.

Jan 2007 - Mar 2007 - Spent this time visiting many open houses and found one house that we really liked. Unfortunately we were slightly too late as it was just under contract. Anyway, during this time Nicole was also trying to persuade me to think about building. I was interested but it seemed like a lot of hard work and a lot of unknowns. After spending a lot of time looking at houses we realised that we weren't going to be able to get exactly what we wanted.

Apr 2007 - It was about this time that things just fell into place. We found out Nicole was pregnant and found the block of land within a couple of weeks of each other. As soon as we saw the land we knew we wanted it. So contract was signed and all went through without a hitch.

May 2007 - June 2007 - Settles on block and after looking at display homes we decided that we didn't want to compromise, so we found an architect.

July 2007 - Oct 2007 - Bit of back and forth with architect to finalise the plans to get something we are really happy with. When we started we had a budget in mind, which the architect designed the house to meet. It was once we started to review the plans that we started to chage things which increased the cost. I guess this is the danger of starting with a blank sheet! It was also about this time that we realised that when you are building you never talk in days, it's always weeks.

Nov 2007 - Dec 2007 - Time to source a builder. To do this we got in contact with our architects again to find out builders they had used in the past. They gave us a list of a few and we had some of our own. We sent off the plans to them and eventually got quotes back from 3! I guess a lot of them were just not interested or are too busy. Anyway, one of them was Kaha Homes who we were most impressed with.

Jan 2008 - Have met with Darryn and Melissa of Kaha a couple of times with questions and have now signed a contract with them.

Now we just can't wait to get started.