8/11 - Moved in
8/10 - Landscapers started
3/10 - Back deck completed / Kitchen benchtops in
17/9 - Kitchen/Bathroom cabinets arrive
3/9-17/9 - Tiling
27/8 - Lockup
17/8 - Gyprock
22/6 - Scaffolding down
8/6-20/6 - Cladding, rendered, painted
17-18/4 2012- Roof
11-13/4 - Render
13/4/2012 - Tile Selection
9/3 - New Beam erected
21/2-4/4l - Brickwork
6-17/2- Frames
Nov-5/2/12 - Tumbleweeds
7-22/11 piers/brickwork
18/10/11- retaining wall around garage
11-26/10/11 - Pool dug and poured
24 Sept 2011 - Slab
25-26/8/11 - Excavation
15-19/7/11 - Demolition
17/6/11 - Moved out of The Dump
May 2011 - DA approved
April 2011 - Signed up Builder
April 2011 - Development Deferred Approval
November 2010 - DA submitted
August 2010 - Completed house plans
May 2010 - Engaged Architect
December 2009 - Bought The Dump
The story so far....
After over 18months of planning we finally have holes in our walls - YAY!

By way of introduction, 'we' are me, hubby and 9yr old daughter (who's desperate for pool and puppy).

I won't bore everyone here with a long background story (see my blog for that) but in a nutshell, here it is:

* December 2009 - bought the house we were renting - hated the house but loved the area! Leafy quiet street behind my daughter's school.
* Jan-Feb 2010 - realised we couldn't easily fit a project home onto our sloping, small (570sqm) block so started looking @ custom builders
* March- October 2010 - engaged Architect to do plans, Landscape Architect to do Landscape Plans (as council needed those with DA), engaged Arborist to give our huge termite-ridden gum its last rites. Oh, yeah! and signed up a builder.

(Boy, there's a lot of people making money from building houses.)

* November - May 2011 - Council (uuugggghhh!!). Isn't the DA process fun! After lots of changes, including dropping the levels of our house by 30cm, we finally had plans approved in May. Our house in now smaller, shorter and further back on the block than planned (and of course, more expensive) but I guess that's better than Council refusing the DA completely.
* July - Demo team moved in this week and Gum Tree is being chopped down in next couple of weeks.
* July - signed up Pool guy and Landscape Dude.
* Next week - off to see Colour Lady to pick our finishes. I'm actually looking forward to that.
So here's a glimpse at our plans.

Hoping to get lots of feedback and helpful tips from those of you out there who have been there/done that!
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Thanks for joining me on my Big New Adventure!

Hi BNA plans look great!! Looking forward to following your build.

Bye bye little red brick...

It's only taken 3 days and our house is now a pile of rubble... mud and rubble. The rain has kept the demo team away today but they've done a fine job in only a few days.

I've found the demo to be quite exciting and has certainly kept all the neighbours grandkids entertained in the school holidays.
One of our neighbours said it was the best thing to happen in our street for ages.
Here's hoping she keeps that attitude throughout the build - I'm sure the noise and disruption will get to her soon enough.

So here's a couple of piccies...

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It's now been 4 weeks since the house came down and still no movement on our site. Or should I say.... on our bog!

The huge downpour the week after demo has put us behind. The builders should have moved in a few weeks ago but they say it's too wet to excavate and we're waiting for the ground to dry up.

Could be a long wait - it's raining again now!!!

Looking forward to following your build.
Plans look great

After almost 6 weeks of tumbleweeds rolling through our empty (albeit damp) site, we finally had a start last Thursday. The big yellow excavator moved in and started to dig.

Much to our relief, the entire hill did not slip and slide down into the Bay. Instead the big yellow excavator dug a nice neat hole.

Then the phone call we dreaded .... Rock!

Good news = sandstone in nice big chunky bits that were easily dug out so no need for hydraulic hammers and drills.
Bad news = rock meant more loads of fill to take to the tip. Our builder estimated 30 loads @ $650 per load.
Good news = Actually only 20 truckloads - worked out less than I'd expected as I was having nightmares about hydraulic reports + months of drilling.
Bad news = we need an extra retaining wall quick smart to stop the neighbours house from falling in our lovely new hole. (No, not quite that dramatic but just another retaining wall to add to the ever expanding budget.)
Good news = the money we saved on 10 truckloads of rock will pay for the retaining wall.

I think we're ahead! Or at least not as behind as we first thought

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Three months paying rent and all we have is a very expensive hole.

Two weeks since excavation and still no-one but a few scraggy lonely crows flying amongst the tumbleweeds!

Builders have gone AWOL after promising to put the slab down this week. We haven't heard from them for 2 weeks.

So what do we have? 4 days' of demolition and 3 day's of excavation - in three months!
At this rate I"ll be in a nursing home before this house is built

Looking forward to seeing your house grow!

I'm sure you won't have too long to wait now, once they start your build should fly along. I love your plan, can't wait to follow your build

Bugger about the no action hope they get their act into gear and start pouring a slab or something!

Good luck with the build.. Checked out your blog and keen to hear more about why you went with your builder and whether they were happy to work off your plans.. I understand from this builder that they prefer (or dare I say push) their own in house customisation service..

I can see light - the builder has told us he is moving in on Wednesday! That's Wednesday next week! In September! in 2011! Who would have thought? I'll believe it when I see it.

Loftus .... went with this builder for a couple of reasons. We really liked their display home @ Bella Vista. We met the owner out there and he also seemed quite knowledgeable/approachable/all-round-nice-guy. That may sound a bit corny but it's amazing how many
times we walked out of display homes shaking our heads about the hopeless sales people.

Also his company was local so there were no extra expenses getting tradies to work on our site and he was always happy to drop in any time when we needed to pick his brains.

Then I was telling my sister about them and found out he had built her townhouse about 6-7 years ago - so he came with good references.

Having said that, we still wanted to leave our options open and get some quotes from other builders. To do that we needed a plan. A friend recommended an architect and we engaged him.

The Builder didn't push us onto his architect - he definitely recommended that we go with his, but in the end we stood firm. We wanted to be able to take 'our' plans to another builder if we wanted to.

In the end, they all played nicely and helped each other (and us) to get the plans through council.

I guess only time will tell if the builder actually has any problems turning the paper plan into bricks-and-mortar.... stay posted!

Looks like a exciting build , will be watching with interest . Hope you get some more action soon !!

congrats on the slab / builder news!!.. it must be great to get a start date!.. its about time to start filling that hole in the ground

i really appreciate some of your feedback on the builder... i am getting encouraged strongly to go down the path of using their inhouse, but like you, i would really prefer to keep my options open also.. hmm what to do what to do?! .. similarly we liked their display home and their staff seem friendly and helpful (you are right in saying that some builders lose so many potential leads simply by the attitude of their sales staff!)...

i will be keeping a close eye on this build... good luck and keep us in the loop!

We have a slab ... Yippee!!

I never thought I would be so excited about a bit of concrete. The fact that we've had tradies all over our block for 4 days has put a smile on my face! Hubby went past at smoko on Thursday as they were sitting back in their deck chairs - he offered them a nice chardonay and a foot rub! But at least they were there.

They started on Wednesday and had the slab down by Saturday lunchtime.
And it's rained ever since. One step forward....

Photos to follow as soon as I can get photobucket to work properly!

I was so excited 2 weeks ago when the slab went down... remember? "One step forward"?
Well now it's 2 steps back.

The afternoon the slab went in it rained, and rained... and rained. Our slab soon became a swimming pool. Throw in a couple of bags of chlorine and we could save $50K on the pool !

We frantically rang the SS who assured us it was a good thing - water on the slab was OK. So we relaxed a little and expected SS to move back in by the end of the week.

Paid our first payment (ouch!), got a phone call on the Thurs to say they didn't want to start coz "it looked like rain". Then long weekend, then by mid-week still no sign of life.

We had a meeting on site with Pool guys & SS on Tuesday to discuss backyard levels etc but the SS didn't turn up. He rang 3 hours later to say he'd missed the meeting. Hubby 'saw red' and fired off a frustrated email to SS & owner of the Company complaining about their slow progress and unprofessionalism. We've now been paying rent for 4 months and the builders have been on the site approx 9 days in total.

We got a reply to email with the next steps... at least we know what they intend to do now (retaining wall is next). But still not sure on the 'when'.

Oh... and its Friday and about to rain again! Boo Hoo!
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WOW! That is quite a pool you weren't kidding! Well Im glad to see they emailed you back with somewhat of a plan

Wow! That's some water!

you were not joking with the swimming pool reference Hope things start moving for you again very shortly !!!

Gosh, you have already had so many setbacks I hope the rain stops and the builders pull their finger out for you! Good luck