In New Zealand, the building sector has been crazy for a decade. The country was for sale, signs everywhere advertising for the best building spot, the best house to renovate, the blank canvas..It was said that finding a builder in all that building/renovating party would be a nightmare…So at an early stage, we started to look around for a builder that could build our house in the time frame we had set for our project. The first reflex for computer addicts like us was to go on the internet. There are quite a few builder websites out there, all trying to convince you that their listings are free of building ‘cowboys’. One of the more serious sites, the registered builder association, had a little section on Coromandel builders. From this list we chose one that seemed to be well established and professional, we rang him and had an appointment the next week-end on the land.

Our first meeting was full of promise. The Builder seemed very confident , knowledgeable, trustworthy and his schedule seemed to match perfectly with ours. “What a pick”, we thought! The first one we meet is the one, how lucky we are!

Thanks to him, we found our architect and had a great time designing our house. In the meantime, the earth movers cleared the land, we built the shed, and the consent process was started. Then came the quoting time…

We provided the Builder with plans, specifications, and our choice of materials. According to the budget we drafted, from speaking with people and doing research on the Internet, we had a good idea of how much we were going to have to invest to get to the lockup stage. After weeks of delays due to slow responses from the material providers, the Builder sent us his quote.

We fell from our chairs.

The Builders quote was 40% more than we estimated and we were stunned. Were we being totally unrealistic with our budget? We thought it could be this or perhaps he didn’t really want the job…or even that he was taking advantage of the fact that we’re not kiwis and (gasp!) that we’re Aucklanders. Not only were the figures excessive for ‘travel to site’, ‘insurance’ or ‘preliminary work’(?) but we would have to pay a solicitor extra to lock the money into a trust account and sign up a complete set of contracts and appendix.

A storm of thoughts and talks went through our place. We then decided to do what we should have done from the beginning…ask for other quotes. We decided to talk with builders on the Coromandel side instead of Whitianga. After many unsuccessful calls, we managed to find two builders to come up to our land the next week-end. Our hopes were up again!

Builder 2 and Builder 3 arrived on time that Saturday. After a brief look at the site, the plans and the schedule, it seemed each of them could jump on board. The questions then were…when and for how much!

That next week, the wait was unbearable. Eventually, on Thursday, Builder 2 rang and gave us a price that was perfectly inline with our budget and with what our research told us we should expect to pay. We were thrilled and at the same time cautious. “Is that material AND labour included?” All included, as per plans, and he could start early September. A faxed confirmation later and this time we were jumping from the chair!

Unlike the first builder, Builder 2 was very keen to show us his work and we were excited to see it. Considering the difference in his price from the first quote we also thought it best to see the handiwork of the magician we were going to give our dream project to, so we popped over to his place on the way to Coromandel Town the following weekend. Our first impression was that his house and lifestyle agreed with us. He took us for a ride around the area, showing us the many houses he built - half of the town really - and then he took us to his masterpiece. Hidden in a valley, he proudly guided us to a huge American Barn which took him a year to build. It was gorgeous and enormous. We spent half an hour admiring the job, inside out. All beautifully hand crafted in timber, from floor to roof. We couldn’t have been happier after seeing his work and especially the barn.

Not only did we like the guy, but he didn’t require a contract or financial securities, in a good old kiwi style. We felt very comfortable with him. In an effort to minimize any misunderstandings we did draft up a short contract that he signed with a grin.

On Tuesday 18th of September 2008, the house started to rise from the ground…

When we started to have this idea of a house in the bush, we wanted something genuine, not a box with plastic cladding and aluminum windows. We didn’t want an ‘airport’ as we call the outrageous black and grey concrete platforms city people tend to build on beautiful coastal slopes. We wanted to go back in time, when early pioneers had to cut their section in the wild and build small places for themselves and their families. Two options were at hand. Buy and move an existing house, or build a new house. Unfortunately, the size and configuration of our driveway wouldn’t allow a house to come through so we had to move to the second option.[singlepic=315,320,240,,right]

If you don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest, there is the ‘kitset home’ option. Many providers out there have catalogues and can even customize the plans to your requirements. It is a fun process going through all shapes and styles and debating what kitset could provide a good base to our dream. We played with the American Barn, the Polynesian cabin, the typical cottage and more to eventually find the one. A business in the Wairarapa was making settler’s cottages in 4 different sizes and after we saw them we decided that’s what we would build.

On a business trip to Wellington, we escaped by train to Masterton where we visited the cottages at different stages. Their shape was close to what we wanted but there would have been too much work on their plans to make it to our requirements. But the most essential aspect to consider was the building consent process. The plans they provided were council ready in the Wairarapa, but not in the Coromandel! What seemed a cheaper option at first could end up being a more expensive one if things went wrong there. So in the end we decided to use the kitsets for inspiration and go for a local drafter, who was familiar with the Coromandel Council and would straight away know what to do and what not to do.

At an early stage, after we decided on a design, we then started our hunt for windows and doors. It has been an exciting - yet sometimes painful - process. We visited demolition yards, spent a lot of time on trademe searching for the quaint windows and doors that would achieve our goal. One after the other, we bought doors and windows, some very cheap, some not. We found out the hard way that an untidy window would eventually require hours or days of work to be restored. We then spent week-ends sawing, drilling, sanding, scraping and painting. Overall, the result is amazing! On some, we have recovered and exposed beautiful kauri timber, which will be fantastic when installed. Now safely stored in a storage unit, they are impatient to have a second life!

Silly enough, we started this process even before we had bought the land, were sure our design could be done on the land, or found a drafter! We were convinced that we knew what we wanted to do that, here or anywhere. We were also lucky not to do that at the end of the year… As it seems a new law will require double glazing on all new building - which will be fatal to any recycling project in a near future (very sad).

Lucky enough, and after some research on the Internet, we identified a builder living in Whitianga, who seemed available at the projected building period, and he referred us to a local drafter, who was also available. All seemed to fit in nicely. We met the next week-end with the drafter, Trevor, on the land - amidst the clearing of our land, knee deep in clay and power cables - and went through our detailed plans Seb had meticulously drawn on millimeter paper. He seemed fine with our ideas and was able to start the following week. After we gave him all the dimensions of our doors and windows and three weeks later we were delighted to have the first draft and really see our dream finally unveiling.

When you buy a piece of land somewhere in a remote place, you will usually need more than a shovel to make your way in and get a building site! As we were impatient to start working on the property we had identified local tradesmen to help us move some dirt and install power. The dirt moving part went quite well, minus the unfortunate problems occurring (truck getting stuck, tools breaking, rain, etc.) making everything twice as long as planned, and a bit more expensive. Alan James and his team were always very helpful and did the jobs in the time frame we needed it to be done. The earthworks were just a matter of agreeing on what to dig, where to flatten land, where to dispose of dirt and trees, and give a hand when needed. The clearing of the building site was like opening a present at Christmas, with Dave the digger operator in the role of Santa. Can you dig a bit more the parking area? Can you make this area flat? Just ask and Dave will do it. Karen had to laugh at those boys with big toys. After the building site, the driveway had a face-lift. It was surprisingly in very good shape for not having been maintained for so many years. Its shape had not moved and the water table was still doing the job. So it seemed an easy and fast job to the earth moving company. But, burying a thick cable 80 centimeters in the ground and graveling 150 meters in one day happened to be very optimistic - with the odd issue arising - so it took 3+ days and a number of truckloads to make it to a drivable standard.

The power in itself occupied me almost full time for a long time! Before purchasing, we had discovered that the transformer was not there. So to make it from this box on the road 200 meters from our driveway to our building site 150 meters down the driveway there was quite a lot of project management to be done! It involved sorting who has to do what from installing the transformer, to finding the buried cables at our driveway entrance, to burying our cables and connecting the whole lot. I had to spend hours on the phone with Powerco (the infrastructure people), Energex, Tenix, Metering System, Power and Gas Commission of Wellington, and 2 local electricians. We discovered, after fruitless negotiations that we would have to pay for the transformer, but not own it. Not owning the transformer has been extremely frustrating as this means the two lots near us that will depend on our transformer are not actually obliged to assist with the cost of the transformer. We had looked into going off the grid (solar) but that would have cost us at least $30,000 to start. After quotes from all (ouch $18,000) and choosing the right team, it involved getting them to fit in the schedule with diggers, cabling and rain. It eventually went well, with everyone coming and doing their job mostly as planned.

We couldn’t be there for all of the work so one Friday night, after completion, we were surprised to find that power was connected to our temporary box on the building site. Yeah!