All That Negativity

My family thinks I am overly pessimistic - I like to think of it as being realistic. But I have to admit that my whining and complaining has reached new heights - greater than what even I thought was possible.

Then someone sent me a forwarded email about a carrot, an egg and coffee beans. The gist of the story is when all three are placed in boiling water, the hard and stiff carrot becomes soft and mushy. The egg yolk becomes hard and the coffee beans change the water completely.

In other words, once subjected to heat, was I going to wilt under the pressure, become hard and angry or turn into something good (at least for coffee lovers)?

We are not millionaires and no matter how much I want the SieMatic kitchen cabinets, we will not spend most of our money on just a tiny part of the house.

The solution? I will tackle this project in the same manner that we dealt with the wedding plans. The challenge will be that I won't have a chat group about house suppliers to help me out. Unlike when we were planning for the wedding, the Weddings At Work chat group was extremely useful in vetting possible suppliers.

This is going to be exciting!

While Waiting...

The new Patrice model unit was supposed to be launched last April 19, 2009. I had been waiting for this with great anticipation for the following reasons:

Old Model Unit
- Floor area was three to four square meters less than what's stated on the contract.
- There were no interior partitions.
- Only one bathroom instead of the two that's supposed to come with the standard unit.

Basically, it's more or less how the property will be turned over had we bought the basic unit.

New Model Unit
- Floor area will be based on specifications (according to Mich, our sales agent).
- All interior partitions installed according to the floor plan described in the brochure and the website.
- New layout for the ground floor bathroom.
- Entire house will be furnished and decorated by an interior designer.

This means that we can get ideas on what the house can look like. Which is good as do not wish to pay for the fees asked by interior decorators.

But like most everything in the Philippines, the launch was postponed to sometime in May. When did they announce the delay? A day before the launch.

Actually, they didn't announce it as the April 19 launch date is still posted on their website. It was Raquel from Avida who informed me via text message. Well, what else is new? I cannot say I'm surprised. Though when she sent me a text message two days prior confirming the launch, I was thinking, "Wow, they're on time?"

And the Winner Is...

Option 2.

We had a meeting with Avida coordinator Christine F and their architect Cathy L earlier this afternoon in their Makati office. Earl and I were also joined by architect Mario A (technically Uncle Mayong as he is Earl's uncle).

All in all it went well - better than I had envisioned (which involved flying chairs and tables). They did not agree to Option 1 (refer to House Model and Floor Plan) explaining that it would not be fair as they have turned down other requests. Fair enough.

Though if they had explained it that way in the first place instead of what I perceived to be a "take or leave it" attitude (see An Exercise in Frustration), this issue would have been resolved a long time ago. Also, since they already made up their minds way before the meeting, I think they could have saved us all time and sent the decision with the explanation in another email.

They did agree to not installing the maid's room partition - this area will now become the kitchen. Again, they will just give us the materials for us to with as we please.

They've also done a few more changes to the house structure which I think is for the better. One is that ground floor bathroom has a much better lay-out than the original. Two, the wall system they will use is no longer the tex block system. This means all the walls will have a smoother finish as the "joints" will no longer be sticking out.

I am starting to get really excited again. Not that I've ever stopped being excited but there was some apprehension over the lay-out of the house.