Hi there!

My partner and I are building our first home with Simonds!! We have chosen the Stamford as we loved the floor plan and is perfect for us. What a learning experience it has been so far, i had no idea just how much was involved in building a home

Anyway it has mostly been a good experience so far... touch wood! While we paid the deposit on our block of land almost 12 months ago, it has been a long time coming! We bought the block from the plan, so had to wait for the titles to be released and then this was delayed a few months that originally expected! But finally, we got our land title late March and settled on 27 April Yay!

To our surprise, they had begun cutting the site and getting it ready for the slab before settlement of the land... and we had no idea!! It was a nice surprise to arrive at our land one day to see things happening

So below is a time line of what has happened on the journey so far since building commenced...

Land settlement: 27.04.12
Slab Poured: 27.04.12
Frame Started: 30.04.12
Roof Trusses and windows in/frame done: 01.05.12
Roof Tiles delivered: 03.05.12
Guttering put on: 06.05.12
Bricks delivered: 07.05.12
Brick laying started: 09.05.12

I couldnt believe how much could be achieved within a week of building!! The first week was the quickest and this week seems to have slowed down a little... There are multiple other Simonds houses going up in the same stage of our estate... All of which were started at about the same time and almost all have the roof already tiled and bricks half done... Not sure why ours is now behind, but i am hoping our roof gets done this week! Need to try and get it to lock up to beat the wintery weather!!

I would put on some pics... but i have no idea how to do it on this forum???

Well anyway, this is my story so far... Will keep posting as our build progresses

Rawh001

Congratulations on starting your build Rawh001! The Stamford is a nice design - seems to be one of their popular ones I think. Which estate are you building in?
I look forward to following your build, but you're going to have to learn to add pics!
You need to get an account on a free image sharing site like photobucket, upload your photos there, then link them here with tags around the link like: [ img ]http:\\yourphotowebsite.com\yourimage.jpg [ \img ] (but without the spaces)

Welcome & Congratulations. Love to see your progress!

Thank you Bronj Yes we thought so too!! We are building in Greenvale Lakes estate

Haha yes i will have to learn how to add pics!! Oh thank you for the info, i will look into that and see how i go

Thank you dazandstace!! We are very excited to be building our first home

I will be sure to check out your thread too!!

Congratulations on your build! I love the Stamford - I fell in love with the design when we were first looking at plans. Cant wait to see some photos of your progress so far

How exciting, I am building the Livorno with Simonds and we only just got the call today to make an appointment for the gallery. Exciting times ahead for us all

hi Rawh001, did you choose the double frontage option with the living area in the front? or the study and 4th bedroom? or did you leave the plan as is? Id love to see your plans. we were considering the stamford when we were looking at designs. looking forward to following your progress.

That's one seriously tight timeline there. How did you manage that - Settlement and slab on the same day?

Thank you kjw7 Its a great floor plan isn't it!!... I will try to work out how to do the photos

Oh thats great Caz76!! Which facade did you go with?? Thats so exciting! I loved the gallery appointment, so much fun but stressful at the same time... Haha! But the staff there are so helpful with everything though Have fun!!

Hi Nayzv We chose the study and 4th bedroom option, which are decent sized rooms! We are actually making the study into a theatre type room and the study will be the 4th bedroom/study. I will try and put a pic up of our plans

Just had a quick read of your blog... hope everything is starting to go to plan for you, the banks can be such a pain!! Where abouts are you building?

Pretty good hey!! Haha!... Our settlement was supposed to go through 2 weeks earlier than it did, but we were held up with the bank... Surprise surprise!! So our broker gave Simonds the go ahead, and they started... which meant we had land settlement and slab poured all on the same day

So i think i have worked out this photo thing... here goes!

Our floor plan...
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Some of the internal colour selections
The very back in gloss: Floor tiles
The next one up: Same as the floor tiles but not in gloss for the bathrooms & laundry.
White Gloss tiles: Splashback in kitchen and laundry.
Decorative tile: A feature in the ensuite and main Showers.
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All ready for the slab...
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We have a slab...
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Frame started...
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Roof Trusses up, windows in...
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Gutters are on...
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Bricks delivered...
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Roof Tiles done, Brick laying being done...
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These are just a few i've taken on the progress so far!! There will be more to come as more progresses

Love your tile selection especially the feature tile. Def a great idea to utilize the study as a second living room. Balances the floorplan nicely.

Hi rawh001 congrats on your build......great to see such quick progress! My partner and I are also building the Stamford. Our land is due to be titled mid June so fingers crossed for end of June start hope our build gets moving as quick as yours has!
Can I ask what color bricks you have? They look very similar to the bricks we have chosen.

We chose the St Ives facade, what did you go with? I am looking forward to the gallery. Did you find any upgrades with Simonds were expensive? We want to change the doors and maybe a couple of small things.

I look forward to seeing more photos as things progress, I bet you are getting excited new you see things moving along.

Thanks dazandstace We decided to stick with neutral colours throughout, stick with safe options!... I thought it would work well with an extra living area, my partner has claimed it as his 'boy' room though! Lol!

Thank you kitkat90 congrats on your up coming build also!! Is it your first home? Where abouts are you building? Hopefully your land titles on time and your build will start as fast as ours Which facade did you go with?

We have chosen the Ash coloured bricks (group 1c) for our house, which i am quite happy with our choice Its so hard to pick from the small samples at the gallery!

Oh very nice! We have gone with the mossman It is good fun!! I thought that some of the upgrades were expensive, things like the extra overhead kitchen cupboards or bigger bathroom cabinets were quite pricey, and also upgrading the shower size etc was a bit expensive too, but small things seemed to be quite reasonable. Our biggest upgrade was to caesar stone kitchen bench tops, other than that we only upgraded a few bits and pieces because we were happy with alot of the standard options we went in with a budget for upgrades though so we didnt get too carried away!

It is exciting to see things happening! It makes all the stress at times worth it