u/Nervous-Marsupial-82

Very excited to be moving home back from the USA to Brisbane in about a month.

Be moving into a house I bought before I left in the Bardon/ Paddington/auchenflower area. I'll be moving back with a wife and two young kids who are roughly 3 and 1. Curious how easy it will be to make friends. I do understand that I'll have to make most of the effort up front. Hoping it helps having young kids in preschool or whatever.

Any ideas or pointers? I'll have a remote job so that won't help me. I'm generally pretty social though. I just don't know if I can start many of my hobbies up again with the kids being so young still.

My wife is a stay at home mum. And I do have some friends that have moved to Brisbane, but I only live there for about 2 years before I left, and that was about 6 years ago that I left

Very excited to be coming back home to Australia. Bought a house in Bardon/Paddington area before I left as a place for me and now have a wife and a couple of young kids a handful of years later.

So housing is sorted, I'm wondering what things I should check out for the first week or two that are good with kids (3 and 1). I have never lived in Brisbane with a family, looking for some recommendations.

We will initially stay in South bank, so lots of walking around there, check out the beach. Take the ferry down to eat street. Membership to lone pine. What else?

I will rent a car.

Have a quote from a builder, the amount is just under 100k and they are saying they need a 50% deposit before work can start for jobs over $1000. As well as longer than 7 days to pay final installment will result in 10% interest rate per day (yes day).

Now I have the cash, but Gemini very quickly points out this is totally illegal, and a red flag or two. What is the typical these days? This is in Brisbane btw. Law says they legally can't ask for more than 5% apparently.

Thoughts?

Edit: thanks everyone, emailed the builder. He doesn't seem dodgy at all, this might just be a default he has on quotes. Will see what he says and update

I am currently remote trying to make sense for things for another couple of months. Likely will just engage a structural engineer anyway, but trying to see if someone can help me make sense of this.

I am trying to remove from walls as shown below:

https://preview.redd.it/64jub0dj4q3h1.png?width=1282&format=png&auto=webp&s=2142746139ec3473b02b49c66a818ec6fe346192

The one on the right in the living room is a false wall, so its fine. But a builder I was able to get look at the foyer said: "Those RHS walls in the Foyer are load bearing. When your home was built, they pitched the roof framing. This relied on resting ceiling joists over the external and internal walls, install bearers onto of the ceiling joists and pitching from there. In the photo you can see the ceiling joists, the a strutting bearer, struts then under purlin."

The photo is below, and I believe its looking towards the living room with the entrance/porch on the right.

https://preview.redd.it/1jzd0lxw4q3h1.png?width=752&format=png&auto=webp&s=20973cfc99d1505d3524c8f603512da3442cf681

Trying to talk to the builder, but does this make sense to anyone? I dont fully understand with the context I have.

Hey,

Bought a house (Paddington, Brisbane) as a single man, but now have 2 small kids and work from home. Looking to add an extra bedroom, dont want to spend a lot as we might end just knocking the house down eventually (maximising height would give amazing views). Curious on people's thoughts on the layout changes we think.

Here is the original showing removals:

https://preview.redd.it/ufoktj0vlsyg1.png?width=560&format=png&auto=webp&s=918ddf9c9678f3b9ae646f9b3bc422c1e2d2bd9e

Here is the proposed on top of the first.

https://preview.redd.it/dm5nstnylsyg1.png?width=648&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea2651d8dff89eeece173aee1f7c461c5f4630f0

Likely make that study at the front a bit bigger, but you get the idea. North is basically exactly up. Backyard at the back, from of the house is one floor up. In the breakfast nook we would put a round table for our main eating.

Curious on what people think?