The house....now 8 months on

There's a scene in the trailer for the upcoming Marvel superhero movie "Ant-Man" where the camera pans back from a dramatic train wreck, presumably involving our hero, to actually show the crash to be a child's 'Thomas the Tank Engine' set. It's very effective and evidently all a matter of perspective.

I had a similar feeling yesterday when Yohana and I went to check on the progress of the house. As those of you who've read the previous blog entries know, we bought the house from viewing plans and a model and it was interesting to get a better perspective.

When we bought the house we knew there was a small piece of land at the back of the house that we would eventually build on. The plans showed it as garden but it really isn't big enough to be that. The length of the house, hell the overall size isn't exactly what we needed, but the location and size of houses that we did want were outside our current budget so this was the compromise. Anyway, we knew that we'd eventually build onto the back but only really on seeing the show house did we truly realise the limited space we'd have to play with, especially in the kitchen area. So it was that Yohana and I started finding prices for the building of a small kitchen extension before the house itself is even finished.

First stop was the developers who are actually building the house and the rest of the cluster. It made sense as for one, they have architects and for two, they're in the middle of building the house! They were really helpful, especially considering that when we first bought the place they told us that small changes to the original design were impossible. Now they were happy to start knocking down walls and adding doors where previously a door couldn't be found. As it was a hypothetical situation we asked about a two story extension that would utilise the spare land at the back of the house. This would give us the extra space in the kitchen, a third upstairs bedroom, bringing the downstairs bedroom into the living room and adding a "maid room". Many families in Indonesia employ maids and whilst we don't have need for this facility ourselves, it would make the house more attractive if it comes to selling it in the future.

The developer came back within a few days to say that it would cost 30% of the original house purchase price. Considering it was giving nowhere near 30% extra size we thanked them for their offer and went away to rethink some stuff.

The culmination of the last few weeks of negotiation have been Yohana meeting with builders to discuss the work and negotiate the prices. The reason for Yohana doing all of this and not involving me in the meetings is trying to avoid 'Harga Bule' which loosely translated means 'westerner price' which sees everyone; contractors, retailers, street hawkers, inflate their prices when they see they're dealing with a westerner. The situation now is the contractor who is building the row of shops on the front of the cluster, as well as the cluster's communal swimming pool, is also building a one level extension to our kitchen and is working alongside the builders of the original developer from whom we bought the house in the first place. The added benefits are that the house will still meet the original December handover date, we won't have to start extending the kitchen after we've moved in, and the cost of the kitchen extension, including all tiling work, is 3% of the original house purchase price.

Pak Haji showing Yohana the kitchen extension while a guy makes what looks like a spear (seriously, it did)

To put the whole 'Harga Bule' thing into some sort of context, this was the first time I've been on-site in two months and while we were there we were offered many additional extras, some of which already come in the agreement! We did agree to a door which will lead to the space where a future maid room may be but which for now will be a small BBQ area and the upstairs above the kitchen extension will have to wait for a bit.

The difference between a house and a home is all about the people, the atmosphere and the decoration so we're now thinking a lot about that side of things (the decor, not the people) and anyone who follows me on Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) can see some ideas of things we like.

Here are some more photos taken yesterday....

Chuffin' Hell It's Cold - UK Trip February 2015 part two

Saying good bye to Uchiel at the gates to the check-in desks, next stop was to find KLM. A quck x-ray of my bag later and I saw an official looking guy and approached him with a look of what I hoped said good day my man, i'm looking for something and i think you can help me, rather than I've just had a run-in with an obnoxious pillock and am still stark raving crazy.

"Can you tell me where KLM is please?" I asked in Bahasa Indonesian. "Gone" replied the man in English while at the same time gesticulating in a way that reminded me of an Italian stereotype rather than an Indonesian one. "You're too late, next one tomorrow" he said with an air of finality and turned to talk to the colleague on his left. "er, no" said I, holding out my e-ticket, but at the same time holding back my exasperation "It's tonight and I need to check in". Obviously annoyed that he'd been challenged, he turned to me once more and glanced suspiciously at this piece of contradictory evidence......

At this point let me just tell you that there was only one flight going out at 01.05am, it was going with Garuda, rather than with KLM due to their partnership and we were stood opposite the Garuda check-in desks.

........"Try down there" he said, pointing to the next departure hall, "they'll know." and so off I wandered in the direction he was pointing. Halfway down the next departure hall, with no sign of KLM, I stopped and asked another airline official. This conversation explained everything I had discussed with the first chap and, excusing himself, this new guy went off to consult his superior due to his perplexion at the information I'd been given.

The culmination of this was that 5 minutes later I was trapsing back to the Garuda desk where I had spoken to the first guy. Looking around with a view to giving him my best Paddington 'Hard Stare', where did I see him? Yes, behind the Garuda check-in desk! You've got to laugh, evidently.

Next stop in the airport process is the passport desk. This is pretty much pot luck as sometimes you get straight through and sometimes you get asked a leftfield question. It's possible you may also be asked to donate to the Injured Passport Officials Holiday Fund. Today fell into the second cateogary.

When you arrive in Indonesia, you retain the departure section of your arrival card for when you exit the country. Mine had actually been stapled into a page of my passport by an incredibly organised immigration guy who saw me in from Singapore. You could be forgiven for thinking that this would be pretty straightforward. "Where's your departure card?" he asked me in Bahasa Indonesian. "There in my passport" I replied in Bahasa Indonesian. "This isn't correct" he shot back at me in Bahasa. At this point I became possessed by a moment of pure Bahasa Indonesian greatness and proceeded to tell him the story of my last entry into Indonesia and how the card came to be there. Whether it was my Bahasa or the fact that he really couldn't argue with the actions of a colleague, he had no choice but to somewhat reluctantly let me through.

The next two hours were spent having a couple of beers and a cigarette in Royals Cafe near the final x-ray check and passing time chatting to a Dutch research scientist and his wife in the departure lounge before being called 30 minutes late for the flight......