The site that no-one wanted...
Full disclosure - this is not a blog by a builder. It's not a blog by a handyman, a tradesman, or anyone else involved in the building process. This is a blog by someone who is building a house from scratch, coming into it with no knowledge about the building process and no ability to wield a hammer. It's a blog by a layperson for laypeople. A step by step trip through our journey from deciding to build, to choosing a section, and having Building Logic create the house for us. We'll try to take you through the highs and lows of the process, point out things you should be aware of along the way, and hopefully arm you with some knowledge that we definitely didn't have on day one. By the end of this blog, we're hoping that we'll be in a beautiful new home - and you'll be able to make some smart decisions in your own building adventure.
As I write this blog, we have consent granted and a Building contract in hand - but to really start this journey, we need to rewind back to the end of lockdown 2020 when it felt like every kiwi decided that instead of taking a holiday this year, they were going to renovate, build or buy a home. At that stage, we were living in a one bedroom apartment that managed to squeeze the living room, a home office, a kitchen and a dining room all into space that would be smaller than most garages. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely apartment and suited us well for the last few years, but both of us sharing that space to work and live in over lockdown definitely pushed us into looking for a new home earlier than we may have previously been thinking. We scoured TradeMe and quickly realised that for the budget we had in mind we were going to have to look further afield than our 'ideal' neighbourhoods, and even doing that, our initial budget may need to jump up a bit. But, with our filters on a lower price bracket, sections popped up in the search result, and on a whim we decided to go take a nosey at one in particular.
Almost immediately we fell in love with the section. It was surrounded by trees, close to town, had some outlook....and in the craziness of the property market, the price seemed extremely reasonable. In fact, it had been sitting on the market for a while, and there were other sections around it that were also for sale - so if we wanted it...there wouldn't be a bidding war. The one big catch - it was an extremely steep section. Unworried, we had a couple of builder friends (including Matt Symonds of Building Logic) come out to site to give us a rough idea of building costs. Neither of them were completely scared off, and so after comparing the rough cost to build they gave us, with what we could buy already built in the current market, we took the plunge and decided that we were going to build.
That's where this journey starts, back in August 2020 - exasperated by the cost of decent quality housing available and a gut instinct that we'd be able to build something cool on a section no one else wanted. Next up...we bought the section.
Disclaimer: Building Logic is constructing the home of the author - Jamie Twigg. Jamie is friends with Matt Symonds (of Building Logic), and the founder of 543 Website Design - which created the Building Logic website. This is not a sponsored post - and is an honest reflection on how the build process goes for a keyboard jockey and newbie to construction. As such, nothing in this blog post should be considered expert advice.
As I write this blog, we have consent granted and a Building contract in hand - but to really start this journey, we need to rewind back to the end of lockdown 2020 when it felt like every kiwi decided that instead of taking a holiday this year, they were going to renovate, build or buy a home. At that stage, we were living in a one bedroom apartment that managed to squeeze the living room, a home office, a kitchen and a dining room all into space that would be smaller than most garages. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely apartment and suited us well for the last few years, but both of us sharing that space to work and live in over lockdown definitely pushed us into looking for a new home earlier than we may have previously been thinking. We scoured TradeMe and quickly realised that for the budget we had in mind we were going to have to look further afield than our 'ideal' neighbourhoods, and even doing that, our initial budget may need to jump up a bit. But, with our filters on a lower price bracket, sections popped up in the search result, and on a whim we decided to go take a nosey at one in particular.
Almost immediately we fell in love with the section. It was surrounded by trees, close to town, had some outlook....and in the craziness of the property market, the price seemed extremely reasonable. In fact, it had been sitting on the market for a while, and there were other sections around it that were also for sale - so if we wanted it...there wouldn't be a bidding war. The one big catch - it was an extremely steep section. Unworried, we had a couple of builder friends (including Matt Symonds of Building Logic) come out to site to give us a rough idea of building costs. Neither of them were completely scared off, and so after comparing the rough cost to build they gave us, with what we could buy already built in the current market, we took the plunge and decided that we were going to build.
That's where this journey starts, back in August 2020 - exasperated by the cost of decent quality housing available and a gut instinct that we'd be able to build something cool on a section no one else wanted. Next up...we bought the section.
Disclaimer: Building Logic is constructing the home of the author - Jamie Twigg. Jamie is friends with Matt Symonds (of Building Logic), and the founder of 543 Website Design - which created the Building Logic website. This is not a sponsored post - and is an honest reflection on how the build process goes for a keyboard jockey and newbie to construction. As such, nothing in this blog post should be considered expert advice.
