Artful69

That's why I wrote it all out! ... I couldn't believe it! ... Even if you wanted to write a thriller or something and put all this in there ... you'd be rethinking the storyline because no-one would be able to suspend belief to get into the story ... Weird ... but we should be all good now ... I hope! Rog

Part 5. I've been a bit busy this weekend so far ... so not much time to update. As of the 22nd at about 9.30pm ... I'm hungry, the move is completed ... the removalists truck is now working so they are winding up ... I've paid what I agreed to pay ... and that's it ... I jump in my car and head off to McDonalds to get something to fill me a little. The 23rd dawns and aside from a couple of chores I need to get on with at the new house the conversation between Jane and I turns to her move to Australia and her change of employment status with her current employer ... there's a few things to work through there and since the meat supply industry really ramps up over the Christmas period - that conversation is put off until after Christmas. I had to head back up to main suburbia on Christmas eve ... primarily to spend time with mum on Christmas day ... but also to pick up paint and supplies on Christmas Eve to commence painting the new place. Drama then ensues on the 26th December when Janes Cousin ... living with her Australian Husband over east advises her that she needs to attend a guidance and counselling program (GCP) seminar run by the CFO (Commission to Filipinos Overseas) and attain a certificate before immigration will allow her to leave the Philippines. This is particularly annoying since our own legal team had never heard of this and we had a less than 50% strike rate on Google looking for it. It is legitimate though! Jane immediately called the nearest branch of the CFO (in another city) and was advised that there was a seminar actually running that day (26th is not a holiday in the Philippines) - but it was too late for Jane to enrol - let alone travel there. The earliest she could book was for when the seminar was next scheduled - the 2nd of January. The seminar itself is free ... but Jane had to pay return bus fare from General Santos City to Davao and eat there - while taking a day off work. Meanwhile I had to send off a pile of documentation and a certificate that I had to pay $140 for and retrieve in person - from the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry. The there was the rescheduled air fare which cost us the same amount again on top of the original amount that we paid! Jane arrives here on the 8th in the late afternoon. Meanwhile I have installed 1 of the 2 side gates ... ... the other being too large for the opening 😒 - my measurements were off somewhere?!?! ... A few more working parts to consider though with a blanking panel needed to ensure clearance between the gate and either the tap or the meter box. So now Jane and I will have to wait until we can afford a replacement (as this is the only workaround available) ... meanwhile I will see if the leftover panel can find a use (I think it can!!) Cheers Rog

Part 4 ... So the week starts nicely on the 16th December ... and continues to roll on through to handover - for which, my manager has blocked out the time on calendar for me to head into West Perth for a meeting with the builder ... It all goes off without a hitch. I get an text from the removalist on Friday asking to confirm the job ... during which I remind them to bring a step ramp so their moving trolley does not damage the wall render at the door base at the destination. They text back that they have no door ramp, to which I reply that they will not be allowed to use a trolley without the render being adequately protected. ... and that was it. Sunday morning 22nd December arrives ... and I'm up early to prep the final bits and pieces at my Mums place ... The Itinerary is: Collect items at my mothers abode ... head down to my storage units 30-45 mins travel ... spend 2-3 hours emptying those out ... head down to my house 1-1.5 hours travel ... Unload everything ... Voila!! The removalist is a no-show at 7am ... I call at 7.10am to find out where they are ... find out at 7.15am that they have cancelled the job. About 2-3hrs of frantic ringing around ensues - trying to find someone who will do the job. Finally the original removalist calls back with many apologies and tells me that a truck will arrive at 1pm to start ... in 43 degree heat (I mean I'm used to heat in WA summers - but it is boiling out there!!). There's a couple of small innocuous incidents during the day, now ... but the best one is that we are at the new place ... they are unloading the truck ... about halfway through - the electric/hydraulic tail gate ramp stops working. I go for a drive for about 30+ mins hunting for a fuse - in my car ... every service station for Km's around has none ... until the 5th one has just 1 packet!! ... I head back ... Job finishes ... company tries to overcharge me ... then they try to negotiate ... Then they settle for the originally budgeted amount which was overs anyway ... ... Well at least I'm moved in now, right? Rog

Sorry for the cliffhangers fellas ... I can only type for so long before I have to get on with some chores ... Time for Part 3 So ... I conducted my PCI (Practical Completion Inspection) pretty much a week after I returned home. Meanwhile Jane is asking me about when to book her flight - My answer is that: I can only arrange a date with her once I have a job and the house has been handed over so she'll have a roof over her head when she arrives. Meanwhile I'm looking to try to get into some more FIFO work ... See - my budget says that to live reasonably stress free, while paying off the mortgage etc ... I will need $90Kpa as an absolute minimum (pre tax income). Janes asking me - why I can't just go back to work for my last employer (I was doing ok there for 12 years) ... to which I said that the problem is that even with a decent amount of overtime, I'm only pulling about $80-$85Kpa ... A week later I'm still getting nowhere on the job front and the builder is pushing for Handover meeting prior to Christmas. At this point I'm praying and asking what I'm supposed to do. It's during another chat with Jane that she mentions transferring over to work for her employer here when she arrives. She works as a remote customer service agent (she handles web orders and email enquiries that the bots can't) for an Australian company. We are in the middle of discussing what her renumeration package should be when the light bulb moment happens!! Jane will be earning money here too ... Probably somewhere between $50 and $60kpa ... so my annual doesn't need to be so high! I decided to give it a few more days and then gave my old manager a call ... Straight away I'm onboard!! ... I start the following Monday and have 1 week before Christmas break. The builder then calls and schedules handover for the Thursday evening. Jane meanwhile books a flight for 29th December so she can get here and start earning Aussie currency before my savings are entirely gone. Handover happens on the Thursday ... I have a removalist booked for Sunday 22nd of December ... Suddenly everything looks rosy again ... except it isn't ... because Murphy has a couple of additional laws in motion!! Rog

Part 2 ... I have to tell the story in parts because there's a bit to tell ... and also I've been busy!! ... Previously, on "A different kind of build thread" .... 🤣 Always wanted to do that ... but suffice to say that with being packed up and sent home halfway through the fortnightly swing and everything coming ready to go all at once, the pressure was on!! ----- In a flashback scene here to the exit interview with the Visa legal team (end of June this year), we were advised that the visa application was strong, but in order to make it undeniable we should do two things ... strengthen the financial commitment and spend some more time together. Since I had made financial plans that gave me a nice "buffer" heading into the new home once complete - and the house had entered the construction phase, these suggestions were a little annoying ... and uncomfortable as they were obviously going to eat into said buffer. The financial one was a little easier ... less money sent more often - no problem. Nevertheless Jane and I got into planning a 19 day trip to the Philippines ... Everything was finalised and I'm getting ready on Wednesday morning to fly out to work for my last two weeks before leave, when an email arrives from the legal team outlining a request for further information from the Home Office. Drama ensues for the next couple of weeks while I'm away at work ... but I fly home, have a few days in Perth and then fly out to the Phils ... It was the best time I've had in a few years ... relaxing, happy and well needed! ----- And this is relevant because??? ... The trip ate away at my financial buffer ... my recently 'previous' employer found a way to drop me like a hot potato without any notice ... so all I got from them was outstanding days worked and any annual leave accumulated. To be honest, I'm really relieved that I'm not working for that company anymore ... It was the worst place I've worked at in 30-odd years. But it does leave me with a problem at that point ... After handover the building loan from the bank turns over into principal and interest (while up until that time it has been interest only on whatever the balance has been) - which means the payment amount goes north by a margin. Ergo - I have no time to waste ... Jane is wondering when her flight should be booked for and I'm wondering if I'll have a house for her to live in!! ... So for Jane, I'm waiting on two things - a job to pay the bills ... and the house being handed over! Meanwhile I contacted my former employer to borrow a ladder so I could complete the inspection of the new house (Roof cavity) while scrambling around looking for employment. More to come later ... Rog

It was indeed ... Rog

Time for an Update ... ... PART 1 No pics in this edition though, as there's no real eye candy that you haven't seen already. They say moving house is stressful ... So I must have survived a multiple of it!! I met Jane in 2019 through mutual friends in the Philippines ... after a month over there with her and we were starting rudimentary plans for a future in Australia. Jane took on 2 jobs to start packing away cash for the visa app ... and the debacle that was COVID the Claytons Pandemic started up (Inside Aussie joke there!). I came close to getting into a house of my own ... then the Government threw a stack of money at the industry - and I missed out again. I took the risk of quitting my job of 12 years and jumped into the FIFO lifestyle to get an income stream that would yield a property and a house ... It did so and not a moment too soon as interest rates started to climb - the obvious result of forcefully shutting down the country's economy for over a year and then releasing all that pent up demand with no supply (I mean, what did they think would happen??). Suffice to say that largely due to my conservative nature when it comes to committing to long term debt arrangements, there was enough of a buffer to handle any payment increases. Meanwhile Jane and I first consulted - and then hired a migration legal specialist. Besides packing away a great deal of money to compile and then submit a visa, The Home Office tends to be less critical of legally backed submissions ... not that you don't have to fulfil select criteria - just that they tend to be less critical of the information submitted. When the builder moved from administration to construction and started building the house in May this year, the target for completion was 10-11 months ... handover in March or April 2025. 75% of Subclass 300 (Prospective Marriage visas are processed between 9 and 18 months. Jane and I submitted ours a few days out before the end of the financial year ... and at the exit interview the legal team advised us that someone would probably take a look at it in about 5 months time and make a request for further documentation at that time - meanwhile we should organise to meet again and we should keep a regular financial connection ... Jane and I switched to planning time together in the Phils (easiest option and best bang for buck yield). Next thing we know, 2 weeks out before I fly there (Sept 30th) were getting a request for further documentation from Home Office ... This is whack! - That's 2 and a half months after lodging!! Meanwhile the builder is also trying to set a new world record to finish the house. This would all be quite exciting normally ... except the company I was working for was making my life extremely increasingly unpleasant over a 6 - 12 month period. After another request for documentation from Home office in November, Janes visa was approved ... at the same time, the builder sent me a notice advising that the PCI (practical completion inspection was due) ... which is the last thing done before final payment and Handover! A week after starting my swing at the mine site, 2 days after Janes visa was approved, I was fired ... To be continued ... in Part 2! Mwah-ha-ha!! Rog

Actually there's quite a few I could name ... I missed the Carlos Saintz era with the dodgy-illegal, yet brilliant Celicas ... Most of my interest was directed toward the era of the battles between Subaru and Mitsubishi ... and my love of the Evo with fond memories of Tommi Mäkinen driving like he stole it! Rog

Lol ... not sure about the toilets ... as long as they flush in the general direction of AWAY, I'm happy!! Well ... yes and it's by choice ... I'll fill you in with the details on my answer to Martin below 👇 Choices have been limited here for about 15-20 years now. Doing inspections, I was able to see first hand when investors became the primary market driver here in Australia. Investors are 'coached' that any colours outside of what they term are 'neutral' are a bad idea for resale valuation purposes - as preference becomes an influence. 20 or so years ago you'd be likely to get blue, pink or apricot coloured tiles in the ensuite along with coloured cabinetry and in some more daring cases - coloured porcelain sinks and toilets! Slowly that sort of thing faded to neutral colours ... White, off white, cream, beige, brown and various greys. They still manage to get houses to look decent enough, with a little smudge of character, using things like wood grain finish etc. The last middle finger at mediocrity that I saw was a run of styles during the era 2010-2015 where people would select a feature colour ... this colour would then be distributed around the house in a variety of ways ... a strip of tiles vertically down the shower well, a glass splash-back in the kitchen, a painted feature wall in a living area or a wall paper with a design featuring that colour as the main contrast. Some of these colours were subtle, some glaringly obvious. It dates the property now - but somehow it also still works when you walk into a property where it's been done. The short answer is ... I'm doing the paintwork although the builder could have. To give you a better answer we have to go back to the beginning of the process ... The first stop in doing the whole house and land purchase/build thing - is to the broker. Find out how much I can borrow in order to do this - then marry that up with what a house (that I can live with) will cost and find a block of land to build it on. Of course if the income stream will allow for a bigger plan than what I actually want, I can probably just go out and buy any large block of land available ... but when you're on a budget 🤷‍♂️ ... So I work out what size of building the builders will build and with what inclusions I want to get a handle on pricing ... There's a bit of negotiating involved ... but there a LOT of investors out there with industry connections - so its not beyond the realm of possibility that a builder can just build a shell, ofttimes - with the purchaser hiring trades (on the side) to fill in the blanks, resulting in a much cheaper build. With me ... I had to work out what jobs will cost if they are included vs not (here the sales rep will more often than not, point you in the right direction if they are are good) Alby told me right from the start, Painting, additional brick paving and landscape works is not something that the builder is 'interested' in doing. Meaning: if you include these you'll get screwed over! ... Compare the painting cost example below to 'additional' tiles I paid for in the wet areas ... Half height tiling cost me about $600 in the ensuite from memory ... certainly better that I could DIY or get an external quote on! I buy all the paint and materials and DIY the job (which I'm relatively good at - just a bit slower than a skilled painter) and it costs me about $1500 I do the above and hire a skilled painter (if I can find one because we're in the middle of a property boom here) $3500-$4000 It's a similar exercise with brick paving. I get the builder to include it in the build price of the house and it'll be $10-15K (because they'll have to pay premium prices for a painter also and then there's always the builders margin!) ... and you can quickly see that a build contract that has all the 'inclusions' that I want - sans wall painting, full brick paving and landscaping fills a budget that would have been about $50K more otherwise. I've learned so many neat little tricks to building a home on a budget through this experience! Rog

A lot has happened in the last week or so ... When the smoke clears, perhaps I'll share more, but in the meantime the builder booked for a PCI (Practical Completion Inspection) this morning at 7.30am. This means that ... excepting a few little repair issues here and there, the house is fit for living in. From now ... I wait for the invoice claiming final payment. I will sign this and forward it to my broker for payment through the bank. Meanwhile I will organise Home and Contents insurance and obtain a certificate of currency for the builder / bank. Once payment has cleared with the builder I will attend "Hand Over" and receive keys etc for the house. From that point I will install gates, security screens and shutters ... and obtain paint and equipment for application. Arriving, I see that house in its final form (at least from the builder). Both front and rear garage doors are in place. First time entering through the front door for a while now ... Turn around, shut the door and there's a view of the front office ... Turn around again and walk toward the back of the house and the next door on the left is the entry to the main bedroom ... A look either side at the walk in robes ... and then straight ahead into the bedroom ... Then over to the ensuite bathroom ... Back out and into the main living area ... ... Then into the secondary bedrooms at the rear ... Look right ... Bedroom 2 then the bathroom next door ... Then to the left ... Bedroom 3 A few photos of the the theatre, living are and kitchen (with repaired cabinetry) Laundry and walk in linen ... Hopefully my next post will be my improvements being made ... Rog

Before moving on ... at my meeting with the supervisor today (next post) ... I was given the accurate 'bench replacement' story ... The bench timbers were swollen and cracked when he did a run through inspection - he didn't know how it happened because nothing was obviously wet or damp. He ordered them to be replaced and - because the trades have to disconnect and reconnect everything (plumbers, electricians etc) prior to the components being changed out, they were asked to check over their installation before reconnecting the services. Apparently nothing was reported. Steve suspects that there might have been a leak that was spotted by a trade earlier (perhaps when the plumbers were doing their final appliance fit and check?) - and then repaired prior to his 'look around'. He said the house would have been handed over sooner if it wasn't for that hiccup. Martin ... Carpets are one of the last items to be installed ... I don't know what you mean about the walls not being finished? ... they were finished off as soon as the windows were glazed and the house was locked up, a few months back. Rog

I dropped by the block on November 8th for a look at progress ... It's getting quite close to finished - and my next Perth window is November 27th to December 4th and there is a distinct possibility that the builder will want me to attend the PCI (Practical Completion Inspection) which happens just prior to official handover ... Arriving at the site, the brick paving is down ... a very warm sunny day and no angle that I am trying to take the pic from will prevent the glare! Just a quick note here: The drainage gutter across the driveway is the front of my block ... the section of land between the road and the drainage gutter is called the 'crossover' A clearer picture of the verandah - with paving now ... and you can see the vertical blinds have been installed in the front window. The Front door has it's new electronic security door handle/lock installed. Went to grab a snap through the kitchen window to get a look at my cook top ... and see half the island bench dismantled ... ... a view from the alfresco door ... The story is that one of the water pipes burst, flooding the cabinet, causing damage to the cabinet woodwork ... So there's a delay while that issue is resolved. Meanwhile the rest of the paving to the alfresco is completed I should have noticed out front but fly-screens all fitted also ... A photo from the Home Theatre window reveals that the carpets are now installed ... Bedrooms 3 & 4 ... Master Bedroom and a couple of extra front shots before leaving ... Rog

A few days ago the builder sent though these pictures showing the state of completion reached on the house ... As you can see here ... The paving bricks have been delivered ... these were not on my photos, above. Now we get to tour inside The entrance ... The Master bedrooms ensuite ... The rear bathroom ... The Kitchen / Living area ... ... and toward the Laundry ... Can't wait to get back next week ... apparently there's a lot happening before mid November! Rog :)

Well … we don’t have Home Depot (Despot 🤣🤣 - I saw what you did there!) … but we do have Bunnings … I will have a go at most things and am reasonably patient … getting epoxy right though requires skill - and if you mess it up there’s no going back!! DIY painting though?? I can do that easy!! I just needed guidance from Dulux as to the correct product. Gas powers the HWS and the stove top … electricity powers the oven and everything else The Dulux expert walked me through what I need to do … so hopefully no peeling paint - though I’ve been advised that theres a 7 day curing period after the top coat Rog

Hey all ... Just back from getting engaged in the Philippines ... I took another visit down to the block ... and there's some subtle changes ... Before the update, though ... just answering a question: I was ... and then the outrageous pricing had me backtracking very quickly!! It's a painting job now! _________________ Rocking up ... there's another dump of brickie's sand at the front ... and it's spread out waiting for paving to be started. The painting looks a little fuller and finished off. A quick look into the laundry has the tap-ware fitted A blurred photo due to the dirty glass not allowing the lens to focus properly ... but enough to show the tap-ware stove and light fittings as well as power-points etc. A clearer image showing aircon vents, light fittings and switches, power-points and the aircon controller on the far wall. External shots of the rear LHS corner where the Gas bottles will go ... and the 10Kw air-conditioner compressor and the instantaneous gas hot water heater. Photos of the rear bedrooms show the aircon vents, power points, LED downlight and the mirrored doors fitted to the wardrobes ... The interior doors also appear to be glossed now ... A wide angled shot through the Master bedroom window shows the tiling, tap-ware, power fittings, lights and aircon vents. Meter boxes painted and external tap fitted ... Toilets were also fitted but I can't get access for photos ... the evidence of them is via the empty boxes at the rubbish bin though Rog