Regrets, I’ve had a few…

Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention.

Those of you north of 100 will have no difficulty in knowing what I’m talking about.

Not because you may have had some regrets over your century on this earth, but because you may have been in your prime when Old Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra, was in the charts (minus the brief period in the 90s when he passed away and his greatest hits album charted).

Why am I paraphrasing Sinatra? Because there really isn’t a more succinct way to say that while there are a few regrets, for the most part we’re very happy with the choices we’ve made and the product Eden Brae delivered.

Nevertheless, I will mention my regrets in the hopes that it may help others in their own house building adventure.

So without further ado:

Regret 1. Not considering orientation when assigning air conditioning zone.

It may sound obvious, but it is the height of stupidity to assign an air conditioning zone consisting of one room that faces southeast and another northwest. These rooms will get sun at different times of the day and will therefore heat up at different times of the day. Blasting the aircon to cool occupants of our northwest facing study causes the southeast facing cinema room to turn into refrigerator, and its occupants icy poles.

Regret 2. Orientating solar panels west (rather than east).

Most people place the bulk of their solar panels on the northern facing side of their roof as this will yield the most power. When you run out of space on the northern side, I would prioritise western facing panels rather than eastern. Why? Because then you get more power during the later afternoon when (1) you likely need more power to cool your rapidly heating home and (2) the afternoon is when power is at its most expensive with 12pm-8pm attracting peak pricing per kWh.

Regret 3. Not getting sound insulation between floors.

We got a quote for this, and passed on it because I was penny pinching. The budget was rapidly escalating beyond our comfort level and I made a call to remove it. If you have little boys like we do, you will know that all attempts to tell them to walk rather than run, to stop jumping up and down, are as futile as Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the election result in the courts.

Regret 4. Not enlarging our kitchen island by an additional 300mm.

Again, we got this quoted and we cheaped out. The kitchen upgrades without this one additional were starting to feel as comfortable as a kidney stone, so we discarded this particular upgrade. It’s a regret because once you account for the sink, there isn’t a lot of space for the unfortunate person who gets stuck on this part of the island for breakfast. Also, the extra bench width adds a touch of Luxury.

5. Not getting a kitchen sink mixer with a pull out spray arm.

On the day of the selections, we simply lacked the mental energy to think about this, and opted to go with the standard Dorf Jovian inclusion which looked nice enough. Having used it for a few weeks now, the Jovian feels slightly too short despite its ample length. This is because the double sink is so large, and the mixer’s placement at the centre between the two bowls means that it is never able to reach out into the middle of either bowl. Eden Brae replaced our erroneously chosen bathroom mixer in the galley kitchen with a proper kitchen mixer with a pull out spray arm, and its fabulous. So fabulous that I’m seriously considering just biting the bullet and replacing the main kitchen mixer with one of these bad boys:

6. Not tiling under the stairs.

We don’t really use this space aside from storage of random bits and bobs. But every time someone opens the door under the staircase, they ask why the floor isn’t finished. The answer is that the builder doesn’t include this and we didn’t bother asking for it because it seemed unnecessary. Little did I know that I’d have to answer this question every time someone looks at it and then see their expression of disbelief that we would not finish the interior properly. Not having this Groundhog Day conversation is totally worth the few hundred dollars it would have cost to tile the floor.