Time to start my own thread!

After a whirlwind decision 4 months ago to make a seachange to the coast from Melbourne we have decided to build a new house down here. We put our house on the market in June and it sold at auction in July! Very excited as we were really worried about the market. Decided to rent furnished for a little bit til our house settled but now settlement has been brought forward and we've organised another rental to move into next week. Just spent the weekend finalising the pack of our house (got the moving company to do a fragile pack and it's the best money we could have spent!) Truck moving us this coming Thursday and I can't wait to have it finished. In the meantime we've bought a block 700m2 and we went unconditional last week and will settle mid sept.

After looking at lots of floorplans rather than actual display homes we decided on Porter Davis and originally settled on the Waldorf. The more we looked at it built though the more I wanted to change the floorplan which made us rethink our choice. Basically we want a house that can accomodate our family til they are grown up and also take plenty of guests who come to stay. We also had a wish list based on our last build, you know all the things you wished you'd done but couldn't do at the time.....bigger laundry, bigger bedrooms, alfresco etc. We also knew what we loved in our last house....big open living plan, seperate lounge space. As our block will have a bit of a view we picked a design which would make the most of that.

We put the $1,000 down to get a soil test etc and it's come back as a H class and we do have a contour right to left which with my trained eye is about 1m fall. Fingers crossed we don't have too big a retaining wall. Variation appointment done although I already know we need to change more so plenty to go before we get to tender and drawings.

Here is the floor plan

http://www.porterdavis.com.au/#/homeviewer/cayman/46

We've taken a couple of their offered changes to the plan including:

* the spa to main ensuite - this goes where the "his" wardrobe is
* ensuite to Bed 2 - this goes between the computer room and the bedroom. robe relocates to external wall
* Alfresco which comes off the kitchen - Not the grand entertainer option

We've also asked for them to look at filling in the void so that we can have a small sitting area to appreciate the view.

Very new to uploading images etc so bear with me while I figure this all out


JLD

Congratulations JLD,
Your plan looks awesome, lots of great entertaining options.
Look forward to following your build

Thanks gogo, I've been reading your thread over the last few weeks and your builders sound fabulous. Love your plan too


JLD

So annoying just lost my post Take 2.....


Got a phone call today from PD to tell me that our Sales Consultant had resigned and we have a new one. Probably works out best for us as I was having a hard time getting retirn emails etc and I was beginning to wonder if he wanted to sell us the house at all!

Turns out after me pushing to get appts for variations over the last two weeks, the new sales guy tells me that if we are going to make site start by November the file needs to be in Head office by Monday at the latest. He's been lovely though and has offered after hours appts and even a home visit to get us there. Sounds like we're on a winner. In the meantime I need to get my skates on to make sure we've covered as much as we can before it goes to tender.

I went to Hopetoun on Sunday and after many hours of looking, still have no idea what we're going to have. Some decisions were super easy but many were hard especially as we haven't been able to look at floor tiles. Was very disappointed that National Tiles weren't open on Sunday so that we could sort it all out. As we're regional and Hopetoun are only open to us on the weekend it really limits research time. Will go up on Saturday so that we can hopefully get a sample of the tile we like.

I'm loving the floor tile that is in the Sandarah in Point Cook http://www.porterdavis.com.au/#/homeviewer/sandarah/45 but am a little nervous at the cost as it's an imported porcelain it's not too bad.

Oh well back to the research and hope that I've covered everything



JLD

Brace yourself for the tile cost. Sit down with a stiff drink. We built with PD and our upgrade cost was around 10k for our tiles. Ours was a mid range matt porcelain. The range is pretty average compared to other tile places. Fine if you like beige, beige or cream.... anything outside of that and it's very limited.

Love the floorplan. I haven't checked out the display of this home, but it looks fantastic on the PD site.

Thanks Joles, really don't want a tile that's too light. We just sold a house that was white tile and white grout....pick the people who built pre children!

A matte is exactly what we want but don't care if it's porcelain I just like what I like, unfortunately I tend to have expensive taste even when I don't mean to.

Appreciate the warning!

JLD

JLD,

I am assuming you have signed with the Sytle promo so you should get some allowance off the tiles. As for the SC mine told me that they have been there 2 years and their one of the longest serving in PD within Sales. We are looking at a Nov timeframe as well - hoping even earlier Oct....
I love the Cayman layout - just didnt fit oin my block

We should be able to swap war stories as we will be going through the same stages at the same times...

I look forward to following your build..

Cheers Alpal

Yep Alpal, signed (well not haven't technically signed anything yet!) with the Style promo and also the August package. I'm expecting the tiles to cost a bit just hoping that it's not a deal breaking price and that we have to pick something else.

Was a little surprised at the resignation as he sounded like he'd been there for a long time but just rolling with the punches

Definitely will follow your build too Alpal, will be interesting to see who gets delayed first Do you have a thread yet?


JLD

not yet - will get to it when I get a decent block ot time - hard with a 4 and 6 yr old...
to cut a long story short I signed with a builder last year and they went under. But I got right through the contract stage before it went pearshaped. Had tiles done and for 140m2 had a quote for 8K (600x600 por tiles) - these were mid range. I would suspect around the same price with the allowance...
As for the delay my house has been sold and will be relocated (its brick mind you!) should be gone in the next week or so but I can see this being the first roadblock...

in terms of the delay - lets wait and see

Cheers Alpal

Hi JLD,

Good luck with everything, fantastic house.
Those tiles at the Sandarah look a lot like the ones we are getting "Elementi Terra", hard to tell by the picture though. The girls at National Tiles will be able to tell you.

We were told they are one of the more expensive ones, the upgrade cost per meter square was $125 in Feb. We are building the Sandpiper and have used tiles in just the wet areas (ensuite, bathroom, toilet, laundry) and the total was about 5k.

I know the feeling Alpal, I have two about the same age.

What a shame about your builder, it must have been crap after going through the whole hoobala and to have to start again! At least you found out before they started building, now that would have sucked.

You learn something new everyday, I had no idea you could relocate a brick house! Would love to see that being taken away on the truck. Hope you get to site start soon.



Spot on Rups, they are the Elementi but Aqcua (so they tell me). I rang NT and they told me that they only have a couple of m2 in stock but could order it. $125 sqm upgrade sounds hideous considering I want to put it through the downstairs area Oh well, will get it quoted and see how desperately I need it.


JLD

Well just resurfacing for a breath before it's heads down bum up again!

Had *nearly* all our stuff moved from the house we sold in time for settlement on Friday. To cut a long story short they could only get the stuff from the house on the truck and we had to leave everything in storage behind as they sent the wrong size truck. Couldn't be bothered getting angry just left it to deal with tomorrow. Hopefully they're willing to fix it and not leave it to me to pay for.

So it was a lot of unpacking at the new rental and now we just have to get all our stuff together from this rental and we'll be ready to settle in for the build.

After a flat out weekend catching up with Fathers Day visiting and trips to Hopetoun and National Tiles, finally back home to sort out the building.

After getting a call last week saying that the file has to be in at Head Office by Monday afternoon the new sales guy who'd promised me the world was very quiet! After a phone call to him on Wednesday there was a stirring in the camp and it was all systems go again. Our new Sales guy seems to be back on the ball and we've had some emails back and forth trying to sort out the missing information from the previous guy to him.

So with plenty of questions still to be answered we will meet tomorrow morning with the need to finalise the quote same day. I'm beginning to wonder if it's a ridiculous proposition to keep trying to get to a November site start? It's highly amusing considering that we didn't request that date to start and were in no hurry and now seem to be rushing to get it done. I think though that once the file is in tomorrow we'll be back on the "normal" time schedule. At the end of the day we're probably better to just go with it as there's bound to be delays at the other end.

After our visit to National Tiles and confirming that we've chosen the most expensive tile to upgrade to, I'm starting to have a closer look at our budget! I'm looking at the Sales quote as a wish list and then we'll start deciding what to ditch at Tender. It's hard because you know that you want a particular tap which in your brain you know that you could install later for a lot cheaper but I can't bring myself to choose one I don't like because I'd love to walk into the house as finished as I can. I know that we are hopeless at actually making the changes later and I'd end up living with something I wasn't keen on for 10 years

Speaking of taps.....anyone with PD have the vegie sprayer tap in their kitchen? Do you like it? We get it free but I can just envisage my 5 year old grabbing it with gusto and spraying around the kitchen You're probably thinking I should just have better control but I try for risk minimisation first LOL.

OMG I laughed out loud with that one!!
Look on the bright side, he could help you wash your floors, no need for a mop

Hey JLD

Hey JLD

Man, you have me freaked out about now! We were speaking with a few builders when we were recommended PD as the better volume builder in the Geelong area. As I think you know?? we were having trouble getting a response from the Leopold rep so we went up to Willams Landing.

We signed and gave our $1000 on that day and make it crystal clear that we wanted an October site start. We had been fully warned that every day counted in terms of that happening. But we also had a little extra request that was unusual (for PD! lots of other builders had ok'd it on the spot). Don't really want to jinx ourselves so wont talk about it here

Anyway that took about a week to clear up and they said, Nov site start was best that could be done. Anyway we asked for our soil tests to be done as soon as the verdict was back on that ask but we had to wait because there was something in our land contract about a live electricity cable. Despite that I said if it is going to take 2 weeks to get the soil testing done then pls order it and I will sort the cable stuff. Anyway it hasnt happened yet, though I have twice given verbal confirmation that the cable is not live. Anyway long and short is that nothing much is happening, waiting on responses is frustrating and now reading your message has made me doubt about our Nov site start. We keep asking what we need to be doing to make things happen but not really getting much of a response. Can you explain to me where you are at? What do you see as 'the process'. I have the procedure of purchase docs but I need laymans terms.

I'm over waiting on answers already! I run my own business and believe it is commercially prudent to respond to customers within 24hrs.

Excited to have someone building nearby, on a similar time frame to us!

Oh! Ps. Young master 3 would do exactly the same with the free pull out bizzo. We are going to take that and replace with a Franke tap from the UK (so much cheaper) than here.

[quote="JLD"
Speaking of taps.....anyone with PD have the vegie sprayer tap in their kitchen? Do you like it? We get it free but I can just envisage my 5 year old grabbing it with gusto and spraying around the kitchen You're probably thinking I should just have better control but I try for risk minimisation first LOL.[/quote]
We have the vegie sprayer, my DS5 doesn't much go near the kitchen though
Maybe when we get a few stools at the bench he might be able to have a go at spraying the kitchen for me

Hey Bigbuild,

Very exciting to have you building locally and in the same timeframe, will be interesting to see if we have similar issues and tradies etc.

Sorry that you're having trouble with getting off the ground, not at all surprised that you went to Williams Landing, I was just lucky in the end that they responded really quickly to the staff change and my new SC was great. Poor bugger had to come in and try and recreate what had happened which was a non event. After going over the conversations that I'd had with our "friend" pretty much had to start again. Looks like our file is definitely in head office but still waiting to hear from our BC. I emailed the SC the other day to confirm the file had been sent and to ask if they were still talking a November site start and apparently we're still a goer.

We're a bit different in that we asked for soil test etc before we'd even had a variation appt as we had put a condition on our land purchase that was subject to soil test etc so I pushed and pushed the outgoing SC to get it done and he said it was and gave us a result. Hopefully that will help keep things moving for November.

Are you building in Geelong or surrounds? We're actually down on the Bellarine.

Look forward to following your build




Still undecided on that crazy sprayer can see the benefit of having my kitchen sprayed occasionally to give me a kick in the butt to clean the floors on the other hand.......

We are building in Geelong suburbs, not an estate but a small lot of 8 blocks in an established area. We have a 3 year old and 10 mth old baby, just wanted a more functional home (life! ) and everything has fallen into place so far for us to build. It's not so much out dream home, but we are finally letting ourselves get excited.. Its huge compared with the house we have sold and will now be renting back until the build is finished.

Well our land settled today which is great and heard from our BC to schedule in appointments so it's all systems go. We have Tender in a fortnight and Contract 3 weeks after that.

Not a fan of not being able to see Tenders docs before the appointment. Considering they ask for no more structural changes after that date, and some of them will be cost dependant, it seems strange that they wouldn't give you an opportunity to review prior to your appointment.

Anyhoo, away we go





Sounds great Bigbuild. I checked out your blog and saw your design, the floorplan is great. I love the fact that they haven't wasted alot of space with hallways etc. Lucky you being able to rent back your house, we've moved twice already and hopefully not again til we're there.