A Wall is Painted

Part of the deal is that HRH gets to paint a wall in her room. I am told that it's called a 'feature wall'. So, off we went to the local paint shop. After picking a bunch of colours and a lengthy narrowing-down process (well, it seemed lengthy to me), this is the colour she chose, Dulux Island Sea.

And here are HRH and her friend in painting action.

And here is the finished wall. I think that they did an excellent job.

Michaelangelo, eat your heart out!

The 'Before' Unit

This is what the unit looked like in the advertising and during the Saturday morning inspections. It has been a rental property for some years and the stuff you see belonged to the current tenant at the time.

Here, we have the lounge room (living room) ...

... Bedroom #1 that will eventually become my bedroom ...

... Bedroom #2 which will become HRH's room ...

... and the kitchen ...

... and, finally, the study.

Now, remember what these rooms look like because the next lot of photos will look nothing like these. Watch this space!

The Floor Plan

This is the floor plan for our unit. I've included the room measurements in metres for reference. The back of the unit (the left side of the floor plan) faces north, or close enough to north. Those of us in the Southern Hemisphere know that that is where you get the most sun and that much northern exposure is a good thing.

Those of you from overseas will be struck with just how small the unit is. To help put things into perspective, for Sydney, this is a good sized unit. No common walls ... another big plus. And the the garage, bathtub and study are excellent features to find this close to the city.

Rest of the Outside Tour

Here are more views of the gardens along the front of the building, which runs the length of the property from the street to the laneway out the back.

And the these pictures are from the laneway as you walk back towards the front entrance and the street.

Here is the view from the back of the property, standing near the street and our garage and looking down towards the laneway. Up the blue steps is our back door and kitchen, as well as the common back stairs for the other units in our part of the building.

Further down the back of the property, past the common laundry room and clotheslines, is a common BBQ area, which opens onto the laneway out the back.
Here is the view from the BBQ area.

Yes, sports fans, that is the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the skyline of the Sydney CBD. We got ourselves a top possie, eh!

(Translations: CBD = Central Business District, aka 'the city', and top possie = good position)

So, Just What is the Body Corporate?

Some clarifications around my last post have been requested.

The body corporate is like an owners committee or condo committee. The owners of each unit in the building are collectively responsible for the common areas of the property, like the gardens, common laundry area, the common BBQ area and the outside of the buildings including drains, downpipes, windows and painting of the building.

This is a pretty common thing in Australia, especially in New South Wales, the state I live in. Each state has its own regulations controlling how the body corporate works and what they can and can not do. These regulations also spell out the rights and obligations of the unit owners.

In general, each owner is responsible for everything in their unit inside their property lines in the building. For example, I can get more powerpoints (electrical plugs) put in my unit or rip up the carpets and polish the floor boards without the need to get permission from the body corporate. Communal living issues, like parking, garbage, noise and pets, are handled by the body corporate.

Owners pay a strata fee quarterly to fund general property maintenance and improvements, insurance, water, council rates (taxes) and the like, with special levies for one-off special stuff like getting the outsides of the windows painted or replacing the rain gutters or putting in rainwater tanks. There are regular meetings of the body corporate (the unit owners) to decide on matters around the building or property or any communal living issues.

Fees and voting are on a pro rata basis, usually determined by the relative size of each unit. In my building, the units are all different sizes and shapes and some have garages and some don't, but the variations are that great between biggest and smallest so it usually isn't a problem.

Not Happy, Mum

When we were house hunting, HRH made her requirements very clear: new, glass, chrome, somewhere cool with a lift, a pool and views of the city. Old, funky, weird: no way, Jose!

When we found the place we ended up getting, she did a quick walk through during a Saturday morning inspection, turned up her nose and forbid me to buy it. When we didn't get it the first time round (someone else signed a contract before I could make an offer), she made a feeble and brief effort to hide her relief.

When that deal fell through and my second attempt at an offer was successful, one of us was relieved, over the moon and shell-shocked, all in repeated rapid succession. The other of us was not happy and had a bit of a sulk. She complained that her friends would be too embarrassed to come visit her someplace so dumpy and dowdy and her social life would be over! I struggled to find the downside and to keep a straight face.

But she is Her Mother's Daughter and, once she realised that the deal was done, she started negotiating to make the best of a bad situation. After a couple of days of haggling, she proposed the following terms:

1. She gets a double bed to replace her single bed and double bed sized manchester (bed linens)
   
2. She gets a proper built-in in her room instead of a wardrobe (closets, an institution in some countries, are not common in Australian homes built in the 1940s) and built to her specifications around hanging space, shelves, drawers and storage
3. She gets to paint one wall in her room the colour of her choice
   
4. She gets final say about where things were put in the new place because she had a better interior design sense than I did. Sort of hard not to take that the wrong way, eh?
5. The mini-blinds in all the windows get replace with roller blinds which are much cooler and more modern than mini-blinds
6. Foxtel (cable TV) in her room
7. She gets a cat and/or a dog
   

There were some discussions about the first 4 and we did reach agreement, although only in principle for item #4. Item #5 has been put on hold until after we move in. Item #6 is still being discussed with some fundamental agreements in principle reached pending a final decision. Item #7 is on hold for the foreseeable future pending discussions with the body corporate.

In our building, the body corporate has to agree before you get a pet. There are already cats living in the other units of the building so it shouldn't be a problem, but a dog is a slightly different matter. We'll have to go through the process.

Seems that HRH is not only come to terms with living in the new place but is starting to get excited about it. Her friends have all given it a big thumbs up so maybe it's not so dumpy and dowdy after all.