Monday 26 November 2012

Our Site has been Cut and we are ready to go...

Alot has been happening lately...

We have sold our house and just moved in with the in-laws over the last weekend.

Things are starting to happen on our block of land too...

        -  2 weeks ago we got a Portaloo
        -  Last week we got pegs
        - Yesterday the site was cut ready for piering which we hopefully be on Friday.



We  have also removed our front fence so it looks like a real vacant block of land now.

With the site cut the pool looks like it is set up on a perch and has its own parcel of land so we will be looking at doing a split level type of set up with a nice retaining wall and stairs up to that level (eventually)!

Before


Before

After

After

Monday 29 October 2012

We are on the Construction List!!!

We are on the Construction List.... so what does that mean??
Within 20 working days Construction will commence - so around 21 November 2012!!

In the meantime we have cleared the sheds, gardens and trees from our Block and we have had a fence put up between us and our neighbour.  We haven't yet removed the colorbond fence which is half way up the front of our block as we thought it best to leave it there as long as possible in case anyone decides they want to go for a swim in our very dirty pool!!!  I can't wait to see how long the block looks once that fence is removed though!






Thursday 4 October 2012

We have Council Approval - YAY!!!!



We had a little hold up in Council as we had to have an external consultant make submissions on our behalf as we did not have 50% private outdoor space in accordance with Council's requirements as the Water in our pool does not count!!  It cost a little bit to do but was well worth it as we heard today that Council have approved our Development Application  - which took just under 7 weeks in total.

McDonald Jones will now apply for our Construction Certificate and then we should almost be ready to commence Construction!!!

We were working on our block of land last week getting it ready for construction  - as there are a few old sheds, concrete slabs and gardens we need to remove and we have knocked down the retaining wall for the pool which crossed over our neighbours boundary!

When we were looking inside one of the Sheds  - Dave found a baby brown snake which he had to kill with his shovel!! I am a little concerned about where his mother is but hopefully we don't find her!!  I am hoping that once the builders start there will be too much activity around for any snakes to want to stay around!!

We have also completed our Electrical Appointment and surprisingly we came in under budget - woohoo!!  We have chosen all the basics we will need but will be looking at doing things like our downlights after handover.  I was very excited because I was able to get my up/down lights on our two from pillars which I love because we came in under out budget!!

While we were doing our electrical appointment I also took a photo of the colour selections we had chosen for our bathroom which we had forgotten to take last time so here it is:-


Hopefully the next time I write it will be to add a photo of work commencing!!!

Monday 20 August 2012

We are in Council!!!

So I have just looked at Penrith Council's website and our Plans have been lodged and Council is currently undertaking a pre-assessment!!  My fingers are crossed for a quick and painless turnaround.

There was no water connected to our block so we have now arranged for a plumber and because the main was on the other side of the road we needed an underground bore to arrange the connection. 

Other than that we are busy fixing up our current home ready to sell!!

Monday 30 July 2012

Contracts and more photos of our land

Well we received our Contracts - looks like a lot of reading but I'm excited that we will soon be in Council!!

Here are some more photos of our land as promised...




So as you can see we need to put a fence in between our block and the next door neighbours and then remove all the sheds etc. before building commences. Where the white fence is up the back is where the pool is and behind that is another shed.

Tuesday 24 July 2012

Our Land




I have some photos of the actual land but not on this computer so here is a teaser :-)

Colours Colours Colours

 Above are the Kitchen Colours we have chosen:-

1. Panna Cotta Benchtop
2. Rocco Lini Finegrain for the bottom cupboards;
3. Malt Sheen for the top cupboards; and
4. Orange "Bright Delight" splashback.

Orange is my Favourite colour so this was a little win for me!!!

Our aim was to choose really neutral colours and add splashes of orange throughout the house!



For the Outside we chose:-
1. Urban One Pepper coloured bricks with off-white ironed mortar
2. Woodland Grey Colorbond steel roof with classic cream Fascia.
3. Classic Cream Garage door.
4. White Birch Window Frames;
5. Painters Mix stained front door.
6. Cladding above the door in Mission Brown


The above picture is the kitchen again but also shows the floor tiles we have chosen - on the left are the Ash coloured porcelain tiles we have chosen for the kitchen, meals/family, entry, front porch and Alfresco (which will be 600 x 600).  The other samples are the paint colours we have chosen the lighter one is for the walls "vintage white" and the darker one is for the Alchitraves and Doors "Tombstone"!!!

It is difficult to see and we forgot to take a photo but the tile to the right is for the bathroom -it will be 330 x 330 and will be for the floor and for the wall full height.  It is also an Ash colour but has a browner tone to it which matches the cupboard doors we have chosen better.  The bench in the bathroom will also be Panna Cotta but the cupboards will be lighter in the Gesso Lini (we were bad and forgot to take a photo of this one sorry)



Here is the outside again, which shows the driveway... we didn't end up going with MCJ for the driveway as it was super expensive but we are hoping to get the same colour with whoever we go with!!

We decided to get our tiles through MCJ as they had the ones we really liked and we thought it would be easier but we are going to do the carpet after handover ourselves to save a bit of money!

The other things we upgraded were:-
1. Flyscreens (they were quite reasonably priced)
2. Shower frame to Stainless Steel instead of white
3. Benchtop on the kitchen island to 40mm;
4. We added a Pull out bin where the microwave space was and will just put our microwave in the pantry;
5. We had some boxes made in the overhead kitchen cupboards so we can install downlights later.
6. Dark stained doors with translucent glass to the pantry, children's activity, ensuite and WIR.

We have now also signed off on our plans so we are just waiting for our Contracts to be drawn up.  We specifically chose a house which we didn't need to make any real changes to so the only change we made to the original plans was to add a wall between the toilet and bathroom to make the toilet separate.

All moving along very smoothly so far, but I expect that we will be in Council for a little while as we are building in an established area not an estate but I'll have all my fingers and toes crossed for when we get to that stage!!







Sunday 24 June 2012

Decision made!

So we have made a decision!! We have decided to go with McDonald Jones and 'hopefully' build the very first home we liked (back in December 2011) - the Havana One Side Home Theatre! We have paid our deposit and we are now waiting to receive our intro pack and our consolidated tender! I guess it's now time for the fun to begin!!

Saturday 21 April 2012

Introduction

Welcome to our first Blog!!

We are Nic and Dave - we were married in July last year and we have just purchased a block of land in Emu Heights (near Penrith) in NSW. It is just under 700 sqm and already has a pool as it was previously used as the neighbours backyard!

I have really enjoyed reading others blogs about building so thought I would start our own!!!

So where are we up to in the building process ... The very beginning.... We have looked around a couple of display homes and are now at the point of trying to narrow down the designs. We have decided to try and narrow it down to 5 or 6 companies and designs and then go and look again at the display homes and organize to get some free quotes to compare the inclusions of different companies!!

From here we are going to try and narrow it down to 2 and get fixed price tenders from both and then decide on who to go with.

The process is quite daunting and there are so many different companies and designs and reading different reviews and blogs is also making the decision harder as there are some bad reviews about all companies out there but we have decided to just go with the design we like and do our best not to have too high expectations, expect there to be some things that will go wrong and hopefully enjoy the building process!!!

Anyway that is our introduction - I hope you enjoy reading our blog... lets see where we go from here and how long it will all take!!!!