updates on home improvement plans

Just updates to our home improvement goals.

Gutter
The gutter cleaning guy charged us $60. Overall, the gutter's health is good but I suppose from here on out we'll have to be good about water blasting it. Not sure how we'll do that cos we don't have a water blaster and a high ladder. :-P

Garden patch
The first quote for cleaning up our front garden patch is $270 inclusive of GST. The job entails taking out all vegetation and throwing them into the tip. The job will take all morning for 2 men. I made calls to 2 more companies and I hope that they could return to me by Friday so that we can make a decision by the weekend. J thinks that's too much money but I believe it's reasonable giving how dense that patch is.

Bathroom leak
A coworker suggested that I call his plumber, which I did. Based on my description of the problem, he said that it is most likely that the problem is not a leak in the pipes but a bath lining issue. Based on his experience, he suggested that we get a builder to look at the problem. So I immediately posted for the job on Builderscrack and I really hope to hear from someone really soon. We intend to upgrade the bathroom but not too much. We might even be able to take it out of our insurance cos it's a problem anyway.


Kitchen upgrade
The last few days have been productive cos J and I have a better perspective of how the changes would happen. Here they are:

1. Strip the kitchen floor
2. Take out all carpeting in the bedrooms
3. Polish the floor of the entire house. Yes, bare floor boards everywhere!
4. Install new kitchen

Using Mitre 10's Flat Pack Kitchen Planner, we came up with an initial design and the cost is about $6k including a ceramic stove top and a wall oven. I stumbled upon Great Deals Direct that sells kitchen and bath appliances for way less and they deliver for free AND they offer combo deals! J also has discount vouchers at Plumbing World and Carter's that he got from work. There's a good chance that we might just spend less than $6k for the kitchen, wall oven, and stove top with all the good source of deals we got.

Immigration app
The second part of the requirements were already asked from us and they should be sent out by Friday. After that it's probably the medical stuff then interview.

Whew! Too much going on!