I've been hanging around on here reading about everyone else's builds and admiring their pictures, for the last few months. It appears that something may happen with ours shortly, so I figured it was time to start my own thread.

My boyfriend and I are building a house with Statesman Homes in SA. In November 09 we placed a hold on a block of land that was owned by our builder, and signed the building contract. We signed the land contract in December 09 and were told that land settlement should be in February 10.

By early February, we had received the master plan and construction footings report back, and the application went to council. No sign of land settlement yet.

We did colour selections early April. By mid April we started contacting the builder about council approval. We had been told it would take between 6 and 12 weeks, and we were already 10 weeks into it. After numerous emails to client liaison, with no response, I contacted the council direct. They advised that the land hadn't been subdivided yet, and until that had happened, they wouldn't even look at our application.

Anyway after months of waiting, on 30 June we finally got council approval. Land settlement is booked for tomorrow. It seems like we might actually be getting somewhere.

I will put our plan up when I work out how to.

Hi Carlswil

Congratulations on your approval - and on starting your own thread!

Look forward to seeing your plans and selections

Hi Carlswil, congrats on your thread and hopefully your ok to start.

Hi Carlswil congratulations also on your settlement I hope all goes well. I will be following your thread as we have settlement in a couple of weeks also. Goodluck.

Hi Carlswil,
YAY for starting your own thread. Excellent news on the settlement.
Cant wait to see your plan and colours etc.
Who was your sales consultant?
V

Thanks Stegosaurus and Robinred. I'll put the floor plan up in a minute.



Thanks Lucene. Goodluck with your settlement. Hope it goes well and they start soon after.

Thanks All the Sand. Our sales consultant was Bill Harding. We thought he was fantastic.

Here's our plan. We only made one change to it. Originally the 3rd bedroom was a bedroom and study, but both were really small, so we combined the 2 rooms. It will make a pretty big room, but I'm sure we can make use of it.

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I don't really know what I'm doing, so I hope this attachment worked.

We got our letter today, to apply for the extension for the FHOG. They have said that they won't give us an ok to start date until the extension has been approved. I'm hoping it doesn't take too long. They have also put in the letter that the estimated slab pour date is 4th October. This had better be worst case scenario, because I'm not patient enough to sit around for the next 3 months with nothing happening.

Nice plan Carlswil! 3 living spaces! Wow! Start buying furniture

Totally agree that Bed 3 would have been way too small if it was divided into 2 rooms.

How big is your block of land?

Hope you don't have to wait till October for the slab.

We definately need to buy furniture, but we don't have anywhere to put it just yet. It'll be so nice to start shopping for house things.

Our block is 534 m2

We sent our application off to Revenue SA to get an extension on the FHOG 26 week criteria. Hopefully it doesn't take them to long to assess it.

Here are some of our colour selections. I'll put pictures up of some things, once I've charged my camera. I hope it all comes together ok, i'm a little concerned about how things are going to look.

Exterior:
tiles - Boral shadow grey
bricks - Austral Settlers grey
gutters, downpipes, window frames - paperbark
Roller doors - wilderness
front door - I think wilderness, but can't really remember

Interior:
Kitchen bench - Vulcan stone. We couldn't afford to upgrade, so went with the standard range. I really wanted gloss, but the colour selections lady talked us out of it. I've pretty well regretted that ever since, but worst case if we hate it, we'll change it once we're in

Cupboards - Rock Salt. I'm not sure about these, and haven't seen any pictures on here of them.

I can't remember what we chose for the laundry, bathroom and ensuite. I'll update this when I know.

Paint colour - First Snow. We wanted a neutral colour. I wish we could change it now. We were looking at a display home on the weekend with grey walls (not light grey), and it looked really good.

I wasn't overly pleased with the tile selections we were given. I think we more chose what we disliked the least, rather than what we liked.

Hi carlswil, great to see you have started your own thread. Congratulations on settlement.
I love your house plan and am looking forward to seeing samples of the colours you have chosen.
What a pain if you have to wait until October for a slab, that would drive me insane knowing that the land was ready to go. Fingers crossed it gets brought forward for you.

Thanks Cous1981
I think the builder is waiting for the FHOG extension to be approved (not that this is relevant to them, but they think it is), and then we'll be released to construction. Hopefully this happens soon. I'm not a patient person and I'm sick of waiting.

I am exactly the same, I feel for you.

Heard from the builder today, they will release us to construction on Friday. Finally seems like something might actually happen. Hopefully we don't have to wait too long until they go to site.

Nice plan, have been through this house before, its a good design, furnishing is the fun part.
Good luck with starting construction, its a very exciting time.

We got a letter from Revenue SA today. Our FHOG extension has been granted. That didn't take them very long to approve. When I spoke to them yesterday, they said it would be 2 - 3 weeks before we got a response.

YAY Congratulations

Congratulations! I hope things really start to speed up for you now! I will be watching

Thanks Cous and Lucene. I hope things speed up too. As soon as there is some movement at my block, I will take pics and put them up. Now that will be exciting (well for me anyway)