My Dad was a you-beaut handyman, and owner built all three of our family homes in perfect style. I admired him so much so trying to follow in his footsteps. Mind you, maybe there is a reason he went crazy, haha.
Owner Building has been a much slower (and more expensive) process than I anticipated, but with our meager, half-wage, it probably is the only way for us to go.
We bought our land in Oct 2005, for $10,000 (reduced by $5,000 on the generous offer of the vendor, as he knew our budget was very tight, and he also wanted to sell ASAP. To give credit where it is due, the man wished us well with Christian blessings. I know God has been blessing us immensely through this whole process to make an impossible dream possible for us).
Getting in Early with the Owner Builder Course & Licence
If you're thinking of doing owner building, I would recommend that you do your owner builder course shortly after buying your land, before you commit to the kit home (that was our mistake). The OB course gives great guidelines for controlling your project. Also, it takes about a week to do the course and get your certificate (if you do the course in a day, you still need to factor in posting things) .
Then it can take up to another month after you have applied for the Owner Builder Licence until they issue your OB licence. I'd recommend you give youself two months to complete the process of becoming an owner builder. I had no idea it would take this long, and the result is that we will most likely lose the 5% Christmas discount we would have got from the kit home people if we had gotten all the Council approvals done before the end of the 14 week contract period.
Letting go of control... embracing the faith and adventure!
My Dad was a complete control freak. The poor man was stressed out of his brain trying to control things perfectly and that was his undoing. Thanks to some intervention from God, and a lot of prayer, I've been able to moderate my paternally inherited perfectionistic bent, and consider the journey an adventure.
Perfection is no longer my goal (and Barry Schwartz has some interesting things to say about that). Blessings come... not perfect blessings, but in this world, perfection of human processes is really never going to become a reality. So I've accepted that I'm not perfect, my building process is not perfect... and that is all perfectly acceptable! It's an adventure, and it's been a source of great joy to me to learn, step by step, that God is helping me all of the way.
I know my prayers are answered, and knowing this, I prayed on Wednesday for God to help us so that the neighbour's fence would get finished. Thursday, I was mowing and the man who I've seen next door, on occasion, came over to the boundary and said that he was there helping his daughter out, and he was going to ask the owner (with whom they are friends) if she could fund the completion of the fence. He then proceeded to reef out of the old collapsed fence, clean out the rubbish beside the fence (on the neighbour's side) and I was finally able to mow that section of my yard with great hopes that soon I can be stocking my yard with hoppity miniature goats.
Incidentally, we also have 30m of fencing of our own, acquired through freecycle when we lived in Brisbane. For gates, I'm thinking of using the frame of our black metal sofa bed... :-D
Well, that's enough from me for now. And I'll leave you with a picture of my favourite flower (more pics later, once I've gotten a bit more organised).
