Jay & Vicki's 2nd Build

So for the last two weeks, my demolition guy has been promising me that they will get around to demolishing the house. After repeated emails the last one said they will be onsite this Wednesday. So for the last week I’ve been driving around to the house before work and after work just for that slim chance they have come. So today I drove there after work. I couldn’t get there this morning because I had a course to go to. So not expecting much, I usually grab a glimpse of the roof of the house as I drive around the corner of the street. But today was a bit different, I took a peek upon approach, but I couldn’t see it, I wasn’t sure if I missed it, but as I drove up to the street, to my surprise there was an excavator on the property and no sign of the house at all. All I could see was the remnants the concrete foundation and the drive way.

What a hectic week. The past few weekend has been driving from supplier to supplier to work out how we want the finish of the house to look. The builder has a few preferred suppliers for things such as appliances, tapware, electricals, cabinets, bricks, carpet, tiles etc. Since the builder is an independent builder, they do not have their own studio like most project builders have. For some of the selections we must visit a store before hand and select from the range of finishings so that the supplier can quote and once we are happy with the price, they will incorporate the fittings into kitchen/bathroom cabinets. So the builder would give us an allowance on most areas of the house, it was our responsibility to visit the store and spend the allowance. Our aim was to stay as close to that allowance as we could. If the spend was under the allowance, than the builder would keep the remaining amount, if we exceed the allowance, then we would have to pay the excess. The first place we o...

So it begins. The demolition guys used this weeks to start removing the asbestos boards from the house. It is mainly around the eaves and the verandah. Before the demolition was able to begin, power had to be abolished from the property. I can tell you, there was a big drama dealing with the people who organised this. So here in Queensland, the power network is owned by Energex. They are the actual party that do the work, but since they don't deal with the public, the home owners have to deal with a power retailer. So since our power account has been with Origin Energy, we decided to deal with them for this work. The proper process is to open an account with a retailers, the retailer initiates the work order on Energex to abolish the power. Once I was told this I began the process. I opened an account, from here I had to give them my meter number and property address. From here they told me it would take upto 20 working days to complete the work. The lady on the phone said she will...