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 =)