Fourth day of Christmas

I've been home for 5 days now. Whenever I see little kids, I think of Tommy and Rose. I miss them already.

Manor Place looks great. Dave has done a lot of preparation work and with the undercoat on ceiling, doors, skirtings and scotias, the rooms look light and bright. Dave's progress payment was $2,000, not $1400. He said about 60 hours of his time and 20 for his son, but I think he meant 45 hours of his time and 20 for his son, otherwise it doesn't add up. He mentioned at our meeting yesterday that his son still owes 4 hours of work. Not sure how this will work out but I trust Dave (although I forgot to ask for his itemised account).

David and I had a lunch meeting at Luna (yum) to discuss project before meeting Dave on site. Agreed that we would have a go at 'holiday letting' the property to begin with. If this isn't successful, we'll re-look at other options (renting, B&B/hostel, split into 2 flats, selling). Based on what it has cost so far (approximately $3,000) and extrapolating out, it will cost at least $30,000 to get the rest of the house up to a reasonable standard. Made a list to discuss with Dave: how to deal with the wallpaper/plaster texture disparity downstairs lounge; how many hours to finish downstairs; how/where is the upstairs floor dodgy; do we investigate the missing window; can we work alongside?

We also talked about what I will need to investigate if we are to make this an investment property - rules around tax deductibility. 

Meeting went well and I feel like we're on the same page still (though I didn't cover all my questions). It was really good to have David with me as he brought up things I didn't and clarified some things that he (and so probably me too) wasn't clear on. The result of the meeting was Dave would restart as soon as I have the money in the bank and David and I (or Nick and I) would work along side him, doing full days. David helped clarify that we wanted to do as much of the work as we could do (eg. all the sanding and painting etc.) and have him do the stuff we couldn't, namely the carpentry, plastering and technical expertise.