The cost of owning a house

[DumbStick 13]

It is difficult yes and design sense is not really one of my skills! But I do know what I like and don't like.

Over the last few weeks I have taken some photos of other houses - "looks" that I liked - and shown them to the building company.

From what I gather the sidings company themselves actually come up with a computer-generated image of what the house would look like.

Hopefully they'll come up with something that looks nice.

[snowdude 44]

Original design.

 

Sounds like fun.

 

I can imagine it's a headache trying to decide though with so many. And with very few houses being the same, makes it more difficult.

 

snowdude, is yours an original design you came up with or a template kind of house, you might have mentioned way back sorry!

[DumbStick 13]

Got tons more catalogues tonight including a massive one of wallpaper. Wow. This is a full time job. Of course all the ones we like are "extra"* (totally expected!)

 

[DumbStick 13]

Went to a Yamaha kitchen showroom today.

Some really beautiful kitchens.

Scarily more expensive than what we have in our estimate, but clearly of a better quality.

Really extremely nice indeed everything about it.

 

Unfortunately, or not, not sure which, we both really want to go with what we saw today.

Might regret going!!

 

[NoFakie 45]

In for a penny...

 

When we built our place, the one my missus liked best was a Panasonic (Matsushita) kitchen. Their brand is called NAIS. They're really sleek and we were quite taken by one of theirs made of black walnut veneer. It looked wicked in the catalogue, but the estimate came in crazy expensive for the large kitchen we wanted. In the end, we just put in the shaker one Ikea do. I didn't especially want an Ikea kitchen, but I didn't want to pay much more for something that would still be a compromise relative to what we wanted. The upper range Ikea ones have solid wood doors, so they're quite good value. Ikea do modular units so you can make good use of your space. Many Japanese ones are made to predecided lengths and/or don't have such a good range of units with different widths. Our kitchen is U-shaped, and some Japanese manufacturers don't even make corner units, or only do so in a preset L configuration.

 

For your wallpaper, presumably a cheap one will cost the same to put up as an expensive one, so once you factor in labour, a paper that is twice as expensive won't end up costing twice as much. It might be easier to stomach if you focus on the total decorating bill, not just the price of materials.

[DumbStick 13]

Actually, Mr Wiggles, we found the choice of combinations a bit mind blowing, there were are tons of variations.

We are going for a U kind of shape too, and a big kitchen.

Quick estimate coming to over 2.5 million yen.

But of course that will come down hopefully a lot via the builder as they have that relationship.

I'm keen to see by how much!

 

All fun!

[griller 9]

2.5 million! Yikes. I doubt the one in my apartment was that much

[7-11 2]

Well thinking about it, it's probably the biggest thing in the house isn't it. And something you use a lot every single day.

If I were building a house I'm make sure the kitchen and bathroom were good quality.

[muikabochi 208]

Mr Wiggles..... 'the shaker one'?

[NoFakie 45]

Shaker is simple, utilitarian wooden furniture with little or no ornamentation. You've almost certainly seen it without knowing what it was called.

 

http://en.wikipedia....haker_furniture

 

For a kitchen, it usually means paneled doors, which may or may not be painted. Ikea's has one of their wacky Swedish names, but the design is basically shaker in light oak. Here's an example of the same units I found online.

 

 

 

The estimate we had done for the walnut kitchen came in at five million (!) In the end, the units from Ikea and the hob, extractor, sinks, taps etc. I bought separately all came to about 1.1 million yen delivered. Of the stuff we bought, the hob cost the most. We wanted four rings and that meant a branded imported one.

[DumbStick 13]

5 million!

Blimey, and I thought our estimate was over the top expensive.

Wonder have prices come down any since you did it....

Did you install all of that yourself or get someone to do it for you? Looks nice.

[DumbStick 13]

Silly me left off a whole section.... 3.5 million yen, not 2.5 million yen.

[NoFakie 45]

Our kitchen is large, a U shape with nearly eight meters of counter, but part of the big price on that estimate will have been the walnut material of the doors. Black walnut is well pricey. There is also a company in Japan called Chardonnay who do order-made kitchens out of it, and they'll be even more expensive. We went to their showroom once and some of their stuff was gorgeous.

 

 

We had the kitchen fitted as part of the house, so I dunno how much the labour was. I was busy at the time, so I didn't do any of the assembly, though I did actually want to. The carpenters said the Ikea instructions were crap, as in the running jokes about them, but a couple of them managed it in two or three days.

[pie-eater 207]

Kitchens are great.

 

They deserve to be good.

[DumbStick 13]

Yes I agree, I think the kitchen deserves to be good.

 

There is such a think as going overboard though. Tempting as it is!

[JA2340 16]

Having built a cottage and our house that is as in owner builder - doing all the trade work we could [apart from electrical, plumbing - both legal matters - and the fibrous plaster interior wall linings - plasterers are insane] I have installed plenty of Ikea kit, both kitchens are Ikea, and there are Ikea bits in laundries, bathrooms, toilets as well. Don't understand the instructions, but FFS, it ain't rocket science! Easy as!

 

Any primary school student could assemble the most complex Ikea kit, given just the basic tools (battery screwdriver and hammer)

[NoFakie 45]

In Japan you can forget about resale value so its all about what you want and how much you want to pay. In the UK, resale value is the main reason blamed for developers building nothing but mock Tudor and mock Georgian houses with tiny rooms so they qualify as "four bedroom" on the sales blurb. Likewise bedrooms that are too small for a double bed and have no storage, but have a cramped shower and toilet so they can be "ensuite".

 

I could have assembled the kitchen myself, though I doubt the installation would have been as square and neat as it is. I had work in from my regular people, so I was happy to pay the carpenters. In case anyone has built an Ikea chest of drawers before, the kitchens are much more hard wearing than them. The bits you can't see are still made of particle board, but that's fairly standard for kitchens and its thicker and much stronger than their drawers. Put a few jumpers in one of them and the bottom will soon bow and pop out. None of them come with solid wood fronts either. Solid wood takes bumps and scrapes way better than coated particle board or MDF.

[pie-eater 207]

In Japan you can forget about resale value...

 

I kind of know this to be the case, but why did we get here?

Explaining it to people back home is rather difficult.

[DumbStick 13]

One reason probably is rubbish awful old houses. I wouldn't want to buy lots of the ones that I saw at the estate agents!

 

Wonder what % of those get bought for the land, knocked down and rebuilt as new houses.

[oo 1]

House loan rates increasing today, did I just hear on the news?

[NoFakie 45]

Yes, by 0.05% it would seem. That's also off record low rates so nothing to worry about just yet.

 

Second hand apartments went up in price during the Bubble, so it can happen if the conditions are right. It might take a while for it to happen again though!

[DumbStick 13]

I'm not thinking about future value at all. I'm just thinking about making a really nice place that we want to live in.

It's a real education, I have learnt so much since we started this.

It's interesting how our expectation levels have risen along with that, taking a few jump ups in the process.

Good job we added that 'contingency' ne.

[DumbStick 13]

This is the month of house building スタート！

 

Almost nervouse somehow

[rach 1]

Good luck with it all, house making people!

 

[DumbStick 13]

Thanks rach!