Madison 35 by Clarendon Homes - Handover!!

Post #50! And to celebrate, we’ve now received the contract from Clarendon. The plans look pretty good; there are only a couple of things we need to clarify. The most irritating thing is the HIA contract… 35 pages of clauses, jargon and other nonsense. I understand its purpose, but man alive it’s a mind-numbing read.

I’ll put some pictures up shortly. Mrs KingTaco (QueenTaco?) is cautious about signing the contract straight away, so hopefully I can give her encouragement to sign it soon and we can crack on with the selections and approvals.

Clarendon think a mid-December start is still possible. While that would be nice, I’m anticipating (with the Christmas closure) a mid-January start will probably be more realistic.

These are the updated drawings. For some reason the media room has flipped - the platform is now at the back of the house. I wonder if it's because the waste stack runs down the right hand corner, and that's the closest point to the bathroom... will soon find out!

* Image deleted

On Saturday (17th) we managed to jag a cancellation, and got an early appointment with Beaumont at Arundel. The girl there was extremely helpful - particularly since we'd been sent the selection list from a lower category, which meant our preplanned shortlist was thrown out the window.

We were mostly happy with what was included in the Silver range.

The upgrade cost was slightly over $3,000, but we would have been just as happy not upgrading anything.

I can't remember the names, but clockwise starting from right:

- Timber look tile - this will be our ground floor, including powder room (olive grout)

- On top is the backsplash tile for the laundry, WIP and the sides of the window backsplash in the kitchen (white grout I think?). You can't see it here, but it has a cool 3D shape

- Left charcoal is the floor tile in the ensuite, bathroom and upstairs powder. Inside the shower come standard with a smaller tile, but it was only $11 to increase it to stay larger throughout (black grout)

- On top is the wall tile for the upstairs wet areas and downstairs powder (white grout)

- The hexagonal tiles are for the ensuite backsplash, between the mirror and vanity - will have black grout also

The grout colours are those small bars on or next to the tiles.

On Thursday last week we had our Colour Selection.

I thought we were fairly well prepared going in, but still used up every minute of the 5 hours given. It was a full on day, with lots of decisions and little bit of second guessing, but our consultant was very good and we ended up with some very nice things.

A few pricing guides:

Upgrade from Bronze to Silver carpet - $1555
Bank of 3 drawers in ensuite/bathroom - $255
Set of 3 pot drawers - $360
Upgrade standard double cavity sliders to solid core - $310

Our total upgrade cost at colours was just over $4,000

With only electrical to go, we've spent about $5,500 since signing the contract. We now have pricing on a/c upgrade and security screens/doors, so that'll hike the price considerably.

We've had an update from Clarendon - Building approval has come through, so now we're just waiting on developer approval and the authority to commence from the lender.

Our CSC advised the build 2 lots down from us isn't that far ahead, and they want to get our approvals through ASAP so they can run the trades on the two builds straight after each other.

The sooner we start the better, but really the best we can hope for is probably just a site scrape prior to the Christmas shut down. We'll see, but either way it's been some welcome news.

I forgot to put in what our selections were from the Colour appointment, so here they are.


Exterior colours




Kitchen & Pantry




Ensuite, Bathroom and Powder Rooms




Laundry + internal wall paint colour throughout the house




We took a bit of a punt and went for this as the front door colour

Very interesting king taco, j am looking to build starting after the middle of the year.have paid deposit on section in flagstone.
I noticed that in one of your posts when you were asked of the final price you responded by saying our final price on our BA came in at $484,000. Was this a misprint. Should it be $374,000. I like the design and layout of a couple of their houses but had not decided who to build with so will be watching this space very carefully.

Hi Stephen

That was actually the price of TiredHalo's build (Sheridan 41), which is a bigger house and will have a higher level of finishing, starting with the Diamond kitchen.

My contract price came back at $361,000, but with upgrades I'm not sitting at $369,000, with fencing, driveways, gardens, security screens and window furnishings still to come. We did some modification to the house too, so it's about 345m2, up from the standard 320m2.

Flagstone will be a good investment - with the train station to come, plus all the development there and at Yarrabilba, it should be quite convenient

Hey Kingtaco
Cool thread, I’m interested to see how if it all goes for you. We just started the site investigations with Clarendon, now we have to wait 4 weeks for the tender and initial proposal plans... ugh!
I think the waiting is killing me most haha.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this one and good luck!

Thanks Rhetti!

Hopefully it goes quickly for you - Clarendon were actually pretty quick through those first couple of stages for us. The waiting is brutal - I'd read that this admin stage prior to the build starting was hard. I had no idea! haha

What plan are you going with?

We've gone with the Fairmont 35, but the 5th bedroom has been removed and whole ensuite has been shifted to the side. It makes the master about 6m x 4.5m #luxury

We have gone with the Hamptons façade minus the front balcony, slightly tweaked though. That + site costs (knock down rebuild) have added almost 50K to the whole build price....

Which façade did you go with?

Lurking in this thread too...

Have paid 2k deposit on modified Fairmont 35 which is fairly modified. Rhetti are you doing the boston 35 version of the hamptons or the Maddison City 40 one? We are getting the Maddison City hamptons facade fitted to the fairmont. I am a bit worried how it will turn out but have found it really hard to find facades we like (with any builder).

I work in a Design and Urban Planning company for my daily job. I managed to get a copy of the Fairmont 35 front elevations and had someone in my office mock up a design. The salesman was super helpful and put together a rough design and costing on my own Hamptons façade. I have attached it to the Fairmont 35. It's costed in around 18k - I think.

It's more of a fusion between a double gable QLDer and a hamptons.

I'm happy to share the hand sketch with you via email or PM - its very very rough.

If you could PM it that would be great. I'll share the version we were supplied with and the updated floor plan when i get home tonight. It sounds like you're aiming for the same result, I am hoping for more of a qlder look rather than Hamptons also.

Fairmont is a great design - we tossed up between it and the Madison. That's going to be one heck of a master! And the Hamptons is a really nice look. I'll be interested to see some plans when they're done

We went the the Oxford facade - it actually comes with render over the whole front of downstairs, but we liked how it appears on the Clarendon website with the mix of brick render and timber, so got the extra render removed.

Great looking house design
Congrats
All the best with the build
I like the walk in pantry, looks massive.
And lots of bench space in l"dry , most peoples L'dry gets cluttered

We've started! Site scrape/excavation was completed on 25/01/2019. This week should be piering and underground plumbing/electrical, followed by slab next week. Two houses down is another Clarendon build and they look to be about 2 weeks in front.



Before






After

Bricks delivered (out of shot at the front are the render bricks), sediment fence installed and gravel laid





Underground plumbing and electrical complete and construction fence erected.

Nice. It is odd, we still don't have a fence or any signage to indicate our build is a Clarendon one. Maybe once the frame goes up we'll get one. Could be that we don't have bricks too.

Are you on acreage at all? You're definitely on a larger block, but I wonder if that makes any difference? But you're probably right, while it's everything up to the slab, there's nothing other than the bricks that's really steal-able with any great ease

Kind of funny though, the Clarendon build two houses down from us only has fencing on the front and left side... I guess WH&S and security have fairly low limits!