Bought the land

26th September 2007

We past our cooling off period today so we're committed to our patch of Australia in Peakhurst NSW. We had some last minute worries about whether drainage pipes had been laid in the easements dictated by council as part of DA Approval because our site slopes and has to drain water away from the plot to the street.

Noone seemed keen to give us paperwork showing that the work was completed, and the solicitor didn't want to chase it so I ended up making various calls. The vendor had said weeks ago that pipes were in, but couldn't provide evidence. He then said Sydney water had done it.. they assured me that they hadn't and don't do this sort of work anyway. Council said pipes go in after a build anyway and that no esxcavation permits had ever been granted on the site so it was unlilkely it had happened. To cut a long story short Clarendon guesstimated that the cost would be 1500-2500 to put these in after the event and we sort of decided to go with it.

I get the impression there's going to be alot of that.

At the moment Clarendon are controlling what happens when and we are booked to sign off on the elevations on 5/10. I know sometime after this there is the Colour Scheme wotsit but I don't know if this is the trail round the Your Home centre of the sit down and choose tiles and bricks session or both.

We've become fixated about getting these narrow dark bricks used on the Springvale at Glenwood although despite various mails noone seems to bothered to tell us which ones these are. Plenty of time till brick buying time anyway.

All I know after 3 visits to the Castle Hill Your Home centre is that its no fun with a toddler and there's alot of decisions to be made. Nothing has prices on either which is very frustrating. I've ended up choosing as much as possible from Clarendon's known suppliers offline and I am going to go in there armed with my 1st and 2nd choice of fittings knwoing that one might be totally out of budget...in fact in our current situation anything we choose will be out of budget.

Our baby is due in 3 weeks...phew.. we have alot on.