New plans

The plans shown in the previous post were what we were planning to choose the builder on.

In March we went to the land and used sting and pegs to mark the boundaries of the plans and also some of the rooms within them.

This was a very valuable exercise. It gave us more of a feel of the sizes of the house and some of the spaces within them as well as an idea of what the views would be like.

It became apparent that the Yutaka plan would not be big enough and would also not have a deck that would get much sun. Added to this the fact that we like working with the guys from Heartful, we had pretty much decided to go with Heartful.

However, Tsuda-san from Yutaka is very persistent and kept coming round with new plans. Eventually he came up with one that we really liked.

Things have since moved on and we asked for quotes from the builders to help us make our decision.

As always, Yutaka turned up with a quote and samples and picutres of major appliances (bathroom, windows, etc). Heartful, though, took a lot longer and didn't come prepared with such examples. We pushed them on this as we need to know what they are baing their quote on, and after a visit to their office came away with good feelings again.

The result of the quotes is that both are 5% over our budget. Yutaka have gone for lower spec all round, in some places too low. It is still difficult to tell, but we are now leaning towards Yutaka. Next Saturday (May 3rd) we will meet wit Heartful again and there target is to drop their price by that 5%.