Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Home Owner?

I was going to write a nice blog about my friends or my boyfriend. Because apparently there are a lot of people I don’t mention here. One of them is Andy and the others are my lovely, lovely friends.

To correct this imbalance I could wax lyrical about ‘the girls’ and how great they are (which, really, they are)… but I’m loathe to speak highly of people at the best of times so I’d rather take the piss out of Andy instead…

You see of Andy’s best characteristics is also his worst - he has “vision”.

Often this is great and, just as often, it is terrifying…

Case in point: We have recently been looking at buying house. Yup just us… and Andy’s brother. Cosy. Anyway, at the weekend we stumbled on to a lovely little North Perth property with gorgeous wooden floors, giant bedrooms… and a craphole kitchen/botched extension out the back.

Now it has been said once or twice, that I’m somewhat, er, cautious when it comes to large sums of money and ways to spend it. There is some truth to this but it hasn’t brought me riches or particularly amazing possessions. It has, however, got me into arguments like this one.

Me: We could fix up the kitchen.
Andy: We could re-brick this back section and extend it out there” (Points to backyard).
Me: Hmm that might be expensive though and we don’t really have the mo…
Andy: And a third bedroom would be good too.
Me: Do you-
Andy: And another bathroom too. Maybe we should have the lounge out here too…

We cut now to several hours later in which Andy has (on paper) transformed this shithole extension/backyard into a new extension including the following:
- a master bedroom
- with an ensuite bathroom
- An indoor water feature
- lounge
–new kitchen

Meanwhile my idea of what to do to the place is best summarised by a scribble on my notebook - 'new kitchen?'

Anyway, we haven't exactly agreed on what needs to be done but we have agreed to put in an offer... $35,000 under asking price. So it's almost sure to be knocked back but I'm crossing my fingers anyway...

3 comments:

sourgrapes said...

water features are highly underated, just ask jamie durie

my name is kate said...

Hey I love the water feature - I'd just like to see you build one either with your bare hands or have someone else build it within our budget my pretty...

Bolton said...

andy, why do i suspect from kate's cynicism that you are not, what they call in management jargon, a "finisher-completer"?

i imagine this extension duly started and never duly finished.

or is it merely that she finds the suggestion of you doing this kind of thing actually physically laughable?

in which case... domestic violence: australia says... eh, she fkn deserved it.