Building contracts

For the past few weeks Metricon have been passing around the same excuse - "Oh, we're been having IT issues".  I don't really buy that (or, more accurately, accept that as an "excuse", being that I'm in IT), but as a result all my emails with queries to them have gone unanswered.

At the last minute Monday I had to again call and confirm that we had the contract signing scheduled for yesterday afternoon.  As part of that I also had to say "hey, I haven't actually seen a contract yet, or prices" - so at 7pm, the day before a 1:30pm scheduled contract signing, I finally got those.  Hardly what I'd call "ample time" to go through things and be willing to sign anything.

The short version:

• Finally got a contract and pricing back - the good thing about the pricing is there's been a few additional inclusions I didn't have prices on.  Simple things like both ensuits now have mirrored 15mm deep cabinets, at a cost of $450 each.  Overhead cupboards are included to the kitchen ($840).
• They're still investigating a rebate on some of the power points - if you wanted a double, but a single was standard, instead of charging you a $5 difference, they'd charge you $61 to put a double in, but remove the single, and not credit you the $56.  So I'm asking for a credit of about $400 back.  Small dollars, but it's principle.
• They found a bit of spare money in the slab requirement, so that's dropped by a few k.  Always a good thing.
• But lastly, they've told me that if I can get rid of the rock myself cheaper, they'll refund the difference.  Score - because we can use that for rock garden, and at the same time save $220/m.

The house actually sits about 20mm over the maximum height, due to .... I don't know.  Not digging out dirt or something.  But basically they have to send off a report & consent to the council.  Shouldn't be a big issue.

A few changes I wanted to investigate that they couldn't do:

• Putting a cavity in the shower requires three wall faces in the shower.  Because it's a corner unit, there's only two, so it can't be done.  Makes sense to me.
• A walk-in robe in B3, which I never really thought would be viable, would just mean far too little space in that room, so that's not being looked at further either.
• The sighting of the house can't be any further back - the garage has to be 5m back, so 4.9 meters is all the backyard I'll be getting.

On the day changes:

• For the ensuit I've changed the door to a cavity sliding door - while they can fit it in a 90mm cavity without having to increase the wall width, it means you can't screw in anything like a toilet roll holder to the wall.  That'll have to be adhesive, I guess.
• After conversation it was decided that the doors picked weren't so nice, so I've ditched them and made the bedroom 2 robe a mirrored sliding door rather than the somewhat ugly porous vinyl.

Outstanding changes I don't have an answer on yet:

• I've decided I don't like glossy window and door surrounds, so want to investigate varnished timber.  They need to ring me back on that.
• For some reason, we have Venetians over top of stained privacy glass.  I'm not sure why, but that doesn't make a lot of sense.

All up, we're floating around $201,200, with spare lunch money.  The docs are now in the hand of my solicitor before I'm allowed to sign anything, but it's looking good.