SITE START!!!!

So today I visited the block in my lunch break... and found the scrape had started!!! Site start was officially 11th November.

So exciting to finally start building! Can only hope it all goes smoothly now =)

Sorry no pics yet as I forgot my camera and phone... ooops

Going on holidays for a few days.. Will try to get some pics middle of next week! Might even have some pipes by then!

Some more land pics...

Just a couple of new pics from our visit to Alamanda on Friday afternoon.

First is from the back of our block looking towards the street (and my car.. lol)


Second is of the wetlands progressing down the back of the estate (a few houses down from me). They are really starting to come along and look great! I can't wait to see the finished product :)


Also noticed the other day that the block a few down from ours has a temporary fence already!! Quick starters, especially seeing as our land only titled 2 weeks ago!

Progress....

There has been plenty of progress in the last couple of weeks!

First we learnt that the land had been titled, then 2 weeks later (Monday 26th) we had settlement. The land is now officially ours!!! Along with the ownership of the land came the mortgage...

Have been in contact with bank this week. Our loan manager has been fantastic. She is going to progress our home loan quickly to ensure we have no problems with the builders. Should be all organised within 2 weeks. Also learnt that she will be getting the keys to her Carlisle house next week! How exciting =D

We have also been speaking to our CLE, "M", a fair amount this week. She is also great! We now have our site scrape booked in for the 13th November!! Less than 3 weeks after settlement. I am impressed that they are going to get going so quickly! They are also going to stand by the original contract price we were given for an October site start even though we are a few weeks late... Thanks Carlisle!

Can't wait to see something happening on the block!!! (besides grass growing.. lol)

LAND TITLED!

Our land titled on the 10th October! Was very excited to hear it had been titled, especially after so many months of waiting! *fingers crossed* we start building ASAP

Rang the council today and found out our street number! Was also happy to find that out... seems that small things make me happy.. Don't know what will happen once I actually see something on our land!

Settlement is booked for next Monday 24th. Then the land will be OURS!! =D

Waiting...

A few dramas over the past month or two...

Firstly, our CLE "moved on" from Carlisle Homes. We were left without a CLE for a good month (in which we had to speak to various different people about getting things organised for the house). We have just been allocated a new CLE "J". She comes across as being a lot more helpful than previous CLE, so hopefully this is actually the case!

Our land has also been delayed even more. I think it was originally supposed to titled in May when we brought the block. That quickly went to June, then July, then August, then start of September and now the end of September! *Fingers crossed* we actually get our land by the end of September. We have been booked for an October site start with the builder and will possibly incur penalties if we don't start in October =(

On the plus side, we heard that our plans have been approved by Alamanda design panel. Hopefully they pass through council ok when the land gets titled so we can start building ASAP! Lucky we are not in a HUGE rush for the house to be built at this stage...

Can we start building already?? Land!

Another update post for today.... Two in one day!

We have also been visiting our land quite often...

Most recently we found that our land is basically ready to build on!! Our land is all flattened and we have street signs, lamp posts, foot paths, driveways and asphalt roads! I think we should just start building now :)

Our land should title at the end of August however. There was a hold up in the previous section with laying a main sewer. This problem has been resolved and now the previous stage needs to catch up and be titled at the same time.

Now for some pics!!!

Our land - with our driveway!

A park nearby. This is going to be a prep - 9 school and have a main sports oval at the back. We are about 2 blocks away from this area.

Our street sign!! How exciting.. hehe

Looking down Tobago drive - near our street

Looking down our street :) Those aren't our tyre marks by the way! We are about halfway down

Looking over stage 7 land

Fire hydrant on our front nature strip :(... not happy! But we will have to deal with it. Lucky we have an 18m frontage so hopefully still some space for parking on nature strip if required.

Fingers crossed for settlement at end of August. Hopefully it all goes through without a hitch! Apparently our loan manager already has the loan papers for the land :)

Updates Galore! - Display Home Pics and Contract!!

Plenty has happened since my last update.

Firstly, we signed our contract!!! Originally we were due to sign the contract in May, but managed to delay the signing until July to allow us to get an extra $6k in FHOG!! yay!

There were a few changes in the end
- changed colours for laundry - 'green tea' wall tiles with white over bench cupboards and benchtop, and burnished wood underbench cupboards. Inspiration for 'green tea' tiles came from Jo (doghouse on homeone). Her laundry looks fantastic with them!

- changed the window colour to black. This will look a lot better on the inside and should match the outside fine as the roof tiles are black.

Now for some pics of the display home to get an idea of layout :)

Back area - "Rumpus" in plan. Half wall in this photo is removed. Will have big family area in the right hand side of this picture and dining area to the left

Current dining area. This will be taken up by living area and just open space! lol

Kitchen - our colours are basically the same, except the island bench is also burnished wood. We have moved the oven to next to the pantry and the sink to the island bench.

Looking down the entrance passage. Minor bedrooms down passage to the left, feature niche either side of opening with lounge a bit further down. This will be enclosed and will become the home theatre room!

First thing you see when you look in the front door. Need to find something really nice for tthis feature hob. Any suggestions??

Ensuite - with awesome spa!

Laundry

Master Bedroom - love the niche again!

More colour selections pics...

Have decided to add a few more pictures of colours...


Here are the laundry colours together.. the top 2 are the kitchen colours


Here is a real picture of the carpet and timber laminate together..

Here is a pic of the brick with the exterior colours and front door (red)

A pic of the bathroom/ensuite/powder room colours. The floor tile is on the left, with the white tiles at the top and bottom being the wall tiles. The feature tile is in the centre and the laminates on the right.
The feature tile contans 10cm (w) by 1.5cm (h) tiles alternating between opaque perspex, stone and shiny glass tiles (if you can understand what I mean!)

Colour Selection

We completed colour selection on Friday 27/3. After our colour browse the previous weekend we thought we were fairly well prepared. Flew through the selections for everything... except the bathroom... it has been so hard to decide how to so the bathroom (partly due to the fact I don't really like beige... chocolate is alright and maybe a bit of cream... but not beige... ). Anyway it turns out I didn't really get my own way with the beige thing but I think it should look alright.

So now for the choices!

EXTERIOR

Bricks - Boral Mocha (*UPGRADE*)

Mortar - Offwhite (*UPGRADE)

Roof - Sambuca in Elabana profile (Basically black in the curvy profile)

Gutters/Fascia/Downpipes/Windows/Meter box - Jasper

Render to the BED2 robe projection feature wall - Dune
Garage Door - Dune (Madison profile)



(Jasper, Dune)

(Madison profile garage door)

Feature Stone to portico - Rock n' Roll Delhi Bronze (at the moment... subject to cost!)
(*UPGRADE)

Front Door - Manor Red

Front Door Style (1020mm wide)-

MISC
Carpet - Maybrook Villa 575

Timber laminate - Tru-loc Oak (*UPGRADE*)

Tiles for wet areas - Hampton Putty (light beige... I lost on this one... I didn't want white either!)

Paint (for walls, roof etc) - Cargo River 1/4 (slight offwhite... same as monaco display in Lyndhurst)

Door handles - Elena lever

KITCHEN

Benchtop - Ice Snow Caeserstone

Underbench Cupboards - Polar White

Pantry, Wine Rack, Island bench cupboards, Fridge Space, Overhead cupboards - Burnished Wood (this turns up black but is dark wood)

Door to overhead cupboard - Platinum Pearlescent Perspex

Oven - seperate Technika underbench oven and cooktop

Kickrail - Stainless steel

Glass splashback - Starfire (same colour as walls) (*UPGRADE*)

ENSUITE, BATHROOM, POWDER ROOM
Vanity, Bath wall tiles - 100 x 300 Icecream (offwhite) horizontal

Shower wall tiles - 200 x 300 Icecream horizontal

Feature tile - Mosaic Glasstone Tan Brown 15x100 laid in vertical strip in shower and above vanity (between vanity and mirror)

Vanity benchtop - Burnished wood laminate (see kitchen)

Vanity cupboards - Oyster linea laminate (no cupboards in powder room)

LAUNDRY

Underbench cupboards - Oyster Linea

Benchtop - Burnished Wood

Splashback - 100 x 300 Icecream (offwhite) horizontal tiles

Overhead cupboards - Polar white

I think I have posted everything? If I have missed anything just ask!

P.S. I will upload a photo of the feature tile and bathroom colours next time =)

From the beginning....

A bit of background about ourselves. I am an engineer working in the oil and gas industry and Glen works for a small IT company installing software for various companies. We are both young (22/24) and have our whole lives ahead (I hope!). Thought it would be good to try and get a bit of a head start and build our own house before we have too many responsibilities/debts (that didn't last long!). We aren't what most people would call typical first home buyers. We have chosen a relatively large house and aren't going too easy on the upgrades... as you will see!

In December we began looking at different estates in the West and decided Point Cook was the place we wanted to live. We were lucky to find a cheap block of land up for resale in Alamanda estate, which we snapped up right away. The estate is fantastic with a few parks and open spaces as well as a residents club with a swimming pool, tennis courts and gym. It gives the estate a real community feel =)


We then began our search for the perfect home....

We signed an initial agreement with Carlisle Homes on the 7th Feb 2009 (a.k.a. "Black Saturday"). We were sitting in the Carlisle displays in Lyndhurst and could see a massive plume of smoke in the background as the Bunyip fire began... scary! Anyway on that day we put down a deposit to build the Monaco 32. Our sales consultant, "N", has been fantastic even with all of our silly questions and requests!

We love this plan mostly due to the open plan living area. The back of the house is completely open, with a beautiful kitchen looking out onto a corner alfresco.




We are making a few changes to the floorplan...
1. Delete the walls of the rumpus room to create one large open living area at the back of the house. We will probably move the dining to where the 'family' is in the plan and make a large family/lounge area where the rumpus room was.
2. Eextend the lounge room wall out to the line of the house. we will make this room a home theatre room (with sound insulation and double doors). Also moving the internal wall approx 1m towards the back of the house, in line with the ensuite shower.
3. Extend the garage out 1.5m to allow some extra storage/work space in the garage. We will also add a roller door at the back to provide rear access. We are lucky to have a wider block which allows this!
4. In the kitchen, we are moving around the appliances. Moving the sink to the island bench (in place of stovetop). The cooktop and underbench oven will go in next to the pantry.
5. Sliding door from meals to alfresco to allow the back corner to open up (can't afford to fork out for bifolds!)
6. Change the window in the home theatre to a long high light window.
7. 1020mm front door
8. Upgrade the island bench to the same as the display home (sink section is higher and slightly wider).
9. Add 450mm eaves

We were lucky to pick up a promo which included caeserstone benchtops, carpets and tiles for $2999. We are upgrading the tiles to timber laminate however.

We had our colour appointment today. I will post the colour selections soon, along with some elevations =)