Wandered back over to the development again this evening. Partly to wander around the show-home again. We’ve seen so many houses over the past 4 weeks or so that it’s important to take the time and make sure that the one we’ve chosen really is the one we want.

And we think it is — a lot of the others have had niggles. Like the one we saw last Friday night; quite a big place, nice garden, but let down by some details which you’d think would be obvious. For example:

* One small recessed light in the big ensuite bathroom, which also featured a shower tucked away between a screen. That’s just going to be too dark, and fixing it would require digging up in to the ceiling after buying the place.

* A utility room off the kitchen that’s only got space for a single under-the-counter appliance. So you can have your washing machine or your tumble drier in there, but not both of them (and there’s no place in the kitchen as designed to put the other appliance)

* Only four plug sockets in the lounge. I mean, really.

But the Persimmon design does work. And we’ve reassured ourselves on that again. That, and the finish (at least the visible part of it) still holds up to scrutiny. The finish on some of the show homes that we’ve seen has been atrocious (yes, McCann Homes, I’m looking at you) so we know they can get the finish right at least some of the time.

The other reason for going up there was to look at the actual plot and get a feel for the size of the garden, and all the other bits and pieces that you don’t get just looking at a plan.

This has highlighted a handful of areas of concern. For one thing, we’re responsible for a large chunk of the shared road in to our little cul-de-sac, which might prove costly. And we’re not too sure how the edge of the property boundary is going to be finished — is there going to be a fence, or a wall? Do we get any say in it? So these and other questions have all been written down and we’ll tackle Persimmon with them when the final valuation’s in.

In the meantime we’re hedging our bets. We’ve found another Persimmon development which has some houses of the same design available in case things go wrong with this one, and we’ve identified a couple of other new build sites and designs which, on paper at least, could work. So we’ll call the developers tomorrow to get more information.