Step one: moving out

Last weekend we packed up the house and moved into our tiny tiny flat down the road. Moving is horrible and wonderful, both. I love the cathartic, cleansing nature of the whole process - picking up every object we own and deciding: is it rubbish, is it for Vinnies, do we take it to the tiny tiny flat, or store it? That decision for every item in every cupboard in the house. I think we divested ourselves of about one fifth of all the stuff we owned, which feels fabulous.

Our house now has a portaloo, which is ridiculously exciting. Nothing doing aside from that, though. We're running two timelines: construction and money. At the moment both are running late by about two weeks.

The money has been harder than anyone expected because some new credit rules came into being from 1 Jan which require any lender to be incredibly conservative about calculating the borrower's cashflow. Assets don't matter so much as cash income now, so our lovely broker, Sarah, is jumping through hoops getting all manner of paperwork to the bank. We've secured a construction loan but it'll be up to 2 weeks before the builder gets access to the money.

Luckily (from one perspective), the builder stuffed up the Construction Certificate paperwork so we're still awaiting CC. Then the certifier proved to be more meticulous than usual, and he's asked for a heap of changes to the plans so Bill's back on the job redrawing them. More days lost, more money paid. We may have to lift the entire roof a smidge to achieve 2/3 ceiling height over 2.4metres - one of the certifier's issues. It's a perfect example of how opaque this process is to me: Bill should have known the code and drawn compliant plans, so why are we paying him again to fix them?

No big deal really, and in some ways an unexpected blessing as we don't have the money to start the job yet. Kim politely noted today that some would say that signing a $236,000 building contract when you don't have a bank loan is risky. She may have something there.

So there's a tension between our desire to see builders on site and Finally Get Started - especially since we moved into the tiny tiny flat - and our practical need for the builders not to be in a position to start before we have the money.

Surprising costs this week:
Council CC fees $2500
More Council CC fees: $885
Engineering report: $1800
Dilapidation report 1: $400
Bill''s extra drafting: $180