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It's a rainy Sunday morning - perfect for cooking and packing. There's been lots to think about this week so thought I would do a blog update first.
Wednesday afternoon we had a bank appointment at Westpac. It wasn't as productive as I was hoping. I think I actually went away with more questions than answers, but that's okay. We discussed the structure of our loan and talked about different ways we could do it. It's split into two parts - the land and the building side. So basically we can choose to put the land on fixed or floating. The building side has to be floating until the house is completed. Karla worked out some different scenarios so we could see what our payments would look like. We really need to sit down and work out what will be best for us, then documents can be sent off to our solicitor. We also talked about life insurance - so many big questions to answer! Again, we have taken away documents to look at.
Paul needs to make another appointment to open his Westpac account. From there we can set up a joint account, under both our names. We've decided to continue to have separate bank accounts and to put everything for the house into our joint account e.g. mortgage payments, rates, general household bills etc.
On Saturday we took Dad out to look at the caravan. We also paid our deposit. After paying our deposit we found out that the caravan doesn't have its own water tank and motor, or if it does it's no longer active. All the long term caravans have been set up so that they require some sort of pressurised supply of water. This threw us a bit as we had planned to gravity feed water from a new water trough to the caravan. We told her that we didn't think it would be a go, but had already put down our deposit. Dad then asked about the power lead they supply, only to find out that it didn't have a circuit breaker. Luckily Dad has an RCD at home so that wouldn't prove to be much of a problem, though he pointed out that he was sure not having a circuit breaker was now illegal.
We then went across to the caravan so Dad could check out where to hook up the power and water. Paul and Dad also measured the length and the width of the caravan to make sure that it would fit down by Dad's shed. After that we had a second look through the caravan and noticed a small leak in the front window. There's more storage space than I though, which is a positive. However; it really is quite old inside. We also discovered that the wind down feet are broken and so the caravan has to sit on blocks. Something else we hadn't considered was the fact that we will be cooking on a gas stove, which means Ollie can't be in the caravan. Paul suggested that we could possibly put Ollie in Dad's shed for a couple of hours while we cook dinner at night. We're really not sure what we're going to do to set up our water. Dad's going to see if he can run an alkathene pipe from his house water tank, down to the caravan. Luckily he hadn't purchased the new water trough yet.
Later Saturday night Mum rang and I was telling her about what had happened with the caravan. She suggested hiring a cabin. I'd already looked into that, but had only found cabins that were a single room - no kitchen or shower facilities. No long after we got off the phone she rang back saying that she had found some that did have a kitchenette, shower and toilet. I had a look at the wesbite - www.cabinstogo.co.nz, then clicked on 'Cabins to Rent'. They were so much cleaner and tidier than the run down caravans we had looked at. I was pretty frustrated with myself for missing seeing this website. They're slightly more expensive, but would be so worth the little bit extra. The Kestrel Cabin is a single room with a kitchenette (sink and gas stove), ensuite porta potti toilet and shower. The size of the cabin is 6 m x 2.4 m. To hire the cabin for 6 months it's $155 per week (compared to $130 for the caravan). You also have to pay a $500 bond, a $250 booking fee and delivery costs between $150-$300 (depending on where it needs to be delivered to).
I was talking to Dad about the cabins on the phone this morning. We will still need to be able to hook up to a pressurised water supply so Dad is going to look into that tomorrow for us. The only down side is that we have already paid a deposit for the caravan, that I don't think we will be able to get back. We're not going to ring the couple who hire out the caravans until Dad has found out a couple more things tomorrow. Like Dad said, there's no point in 'jumping from the frying pan into the fire'. Paul is also going to ring up some guy he knows that makes water tanks. We're hoping we can get a better deal through him. Dad is also going to check out what the guy in Kaiwaka charges. Apparently they do really good quality tanks too. We've got Tony (the Earthworks guy) lined up to do the Earthworks pretty soon after our settlement date. Dad thinks the best thing to do is to get the water tank, septic tank and effluent field all done while Tony is there doing the Earthworks. Would be lost without Dad's help at the moment.
Hopefully things will work out and we'll be able to organise a cabin. I've emailed Cabins to Go to see how much it would cost to get one delivered. We're also in the process of organising a container to store our things in. Paul rang the guy that Jos got his one off and they've got five that are similar, available. They're painted with a light colour to stop them from getting too hot and have a wooden floor. Suppose I better go and make my truffles, then start organising what I can start packing.
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