Masterton Homes - The new thread 3.0

I feel your pain nugget, my mum passed away on 18 Jan. My thoughts are with you and your family.

Hi everyone,

I'm new on here. I have been reading through all the posts on here over the last few weeks and the wealth of information has been invaluable. So many questions were answered and I can't thank you all enough.

We are building the Villina Grande @ Mulgoa Rise. We received the tender last week and have an appointment on Sunday to pay the $3500 and sign off on it.
We have a few alterations to make to the tender but are comfortable that pretty much all upgrades and changes are covered off and we have put in some provisions for electrical etc.

One question though, we have chosen the Contemporary Facade and want to do the brickwork over the verandah in render. Does anyone have a suggestion for how much we should provision? Our SC suggested $4k, at that price for a small area should we look to have it done after handover or just pay M to do it??

Thanks

I remember quoted before for the Morak paint of the front facade, 2 colours for $3376. So yours 4k sounds reasonable, render is more expensive than Morak. But I changed mind to do whole house 2 colours Morak paint for $10300 after bargain. If you consider to do it after handover, please think about the job need scaffold or not. The scaffold is not cheap to rent by the contractor. Hope this could help.

Sorry I am busy at moment. Post some photos to show my building progress.

before roof tiling

after roof tiling

the merbau post of the balcony, will be stain finish, but lots crack made by careless fitting

gutter done

nice tiling job

front of the house

back of the house, the green colour is the base sealer of the morak paint

RHS of the house

LHS of the house

the roof of the granny flat will be started after scaffold move to this side, tennis court is next 2 door

wall expansion joint

ground floor living

1st floor lounge

master bedroom

bedroom 2

bedroom 3, increased BIW after find more space to the door, cost extra $395.5, thanks the M didn't charge me $1000 of the variation service fee

bedroom 4

Thanks Vatche's post regarding the insulation. I reconsidered the insulation and upgraded to sound screen type. I contacted the installer and quoted $6250 for R2.0 sound screen insulation to all external walls and internal walls of the main house and granny flat, R2.0 sound screen insulation to the floor joists of the first floor, R3.5 normal insulation to the garage and alfresco roof. Because I won't get chance to redo these after gyprock fitted.

I agree the electrician contractor overcharge too much. I planed to do the wiring myself, I hold electrician licence for ten years. But the M only return $2000 for the credit. It's just enough for the materials. So I gave up. Finally I paid $6680 for the extra. I still need to do all downlights myself to the first floor, alfresco and granny flat which has excess to the roof.

^^ whats a fire box point?

disappointing week, not a whole lot happen...we do however have a gas box thingy, however it is not connected to the house yet.

nothing pic worthy to post *sad panda*

"Villina at Epping", your build has progressed so much since last time you posted. Last time we saw was just a slab, now you have most of the roof tiles done too.

It is looking very good. Congratulations.

Why carelessness is always apparent in these builds? Are these trades people know what they are doing? Like, why would you screw before you drill into the wood??

Now they have to change the whole wood panel (I hope!).

Having the insulation, now that we have moved in, I would highly recommend. We did not go as far as doing between the floor levels, as we already had a very thick underlay for our laminate floors upstairs. Anyone walking upstairs is not heard downstairs. We close the door, and TV in the other room is not heard loud enough to keep someone awake.

There are always moments like that. Makes you thnk what the hell it's taking so long.

So far, for our vacuum power point saga, we are waiting for the painters to come and paint over the patch (no date has been set). It has been 2 weeks since they started to amend the missing power point.

I wonder how long it will be before they fix our shower door, for missing plastic strip at the bottom, leaking water everywhere every time someone takes shower!

Still missing a cover for the $2.5K worth spa!

Hoping for rangehood cover to be done on Monday. They were set for Friday, but they drive there without it forgotten at the factory!

After service is really hopeless with M.

Our render was painted this week - it looks exactly as I hoped - really happy with the outcome. Unfortunately my son is away (debating in Malaysia!) so pictures will have to wait til next week.

We also had sarking installed for the single storey at the back (surprised it was installed before the tiles) . I am sure it happened the other way around for the upstairs) and the electrician has been and wired all the power points (they all seem to be there), lights and switches. We also have blue markings on the floor which I guess is the tilers.

Fantastic to have some activity this week (though not quite all they were expecting). Here's hoping for good weather this week.

Hope everyone's buildings progress quickly

Hi All,

It's been a while since I made my last update, but although i have been quiet It's been a busy few weeks for us, we will be finalizing the last of our appointments this Wednesday being the much anticipated electrical appointment.

Our file is sitting with the private certifier for CDC approval which we expect to take up to 10 days.

My partner has started up a blog with lots of photos (he's a whiz when it comes to technology unlike me) so feel free to PM me your email address should you be interested in following our build

Between main house and granny flat, the common wall must be fire stop type for the fire barrier. Any power points, switches fitted there must use fire box. That calls fire box point.

Do you know what it looks like? Do you have a photo?

It will make it easy for everyone else in similar situation have some clue what it is.

Thanks for the information

Dear Everyone,

I am a very looooong time lurker who is about to board the M rollercoaster. My sincere thanks to all who have posted on this forum for providing so much help and advice to folks like me at the first step in this process.

Special thanks go to Vatche for being such a wonderful source of info and so generous with your time for others. I have learned more from your video blogs than from any discussion with sales consultants.

We are going to tender in a few days and I would like to ask all of you who received free Smeg appliance upgrades could you please let me know which Smeg model numbers you received? Did you have any choice in freestanding oven or wall oven, etc?

Many thanks.

Thank you Big Mama, for the kind words. I'm more than happy to provide my experience to anyone searching for them.

We did get Smeg appliances for free, and our choice was wall oven. I will try to get you our model numbers (the following page might help you with models we have http://santorinimk2.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/kitchen-appliances.html). This was special "sales" free upgrade and not any M promo special.

Hi all!

Just to add to above -

I noticed cryptic crayon writing on the floors directly opposite each power/speaker/data point, written on the slab on ground floor, and onto the wood floor on 1st floor.

But then, as the build progresses, the writing gets muddied up... but as Vatche says, it's all on the plan, and as long as you stuck to standard heights and fittings at the colours stage, you'll be all good.

Nothing to report at my end, apart from a minor subsidence issue caused during site-scrape which is undermining next door's paved footpath. But they were stVpid enough to pave on top of a tree root, so....

No warranty issues, leakage or major quality concerns. The flyscreen door stacker is a bit annoying as it comes off the rails at a moments notice. But other than that, all good here.

I'm going to try to make some time to take some good photos, for anyone referencing my blog and this forum. We still haven't installed downlights as yet. Wanted to get full occupation certificate and close off the build first.

Peace!

Even though it was correct on the plan, and markings were there, AND I visited the site often, I still ended up gatting 2 power points at the wrong locations, which is annoying. Not sure how I missed them

SO, check and double check the location of the power points, data, TV and lights.

Hey Everyone, sorry it has been so long but the dramas of getting phone and Internet happening have been ridiculous!

We are in our place now and loving it. A few minor things still to be sorted out but generally we couldn't be happier. Although if a magic box fairy could come and unpack everything and find a home for it for me that would be awesome - we are struggling to understand where all the stuff used to fit in our old much smaller house!

Things are really moving along on so many builds now - I can't believe how much has happened in just three weeks!

We were really lucky in that all our appliances, flooring etc was all finished off prior to handover ( I think the appliances are part of the final approvals) so we haven't had those delays to being able to move in.

Jo&Waz thanks for the recommendation of the paper blinds while waiting for your window fixtures - they are amazing and really do make a difference while looking visually far more appealing than sheets would have!

Will put up some pics once the boxes are gone (or reduced at least!

Glad to see you have moved in, and still unpacking and now writing at 2:30am!

We are on the same train here. Lots of boxes and lots of staff to unpack. How the h-e-l-l did we all fit them in our old houses?

Yep, I suspect the unpacking never really stops. After living out of boxes for the last 5 or so years, its become somewhat of a habit.

The paper-blinds are great, although the daily wind-up when 'waking up the house' gets to be a bit of a chore. But they are the best bang-for-buck ever.

We ended up with a combination of timber plantation shutters and blinds. I love the shutters at the front of the house, but I think for bedrooms they tend to make things a little too dark, as the fixed frame uses up a lot of the window light that would've otherwise come into the room. I wouldn't get them again for any bedrooms. Just horizontal blinds next time.

Met up with the new SS today to sort out our damaged fence & subsidence issue. It's something that is affecting our next door neighbour, rather than us. Now that our retaining wall is in, M can go ahead and fix the problem caused at site-scrape stage. Thank the gods for that, as I was avoiding walking out into my front yard for fear of being bailed up daily by our whinging neighbour.

Home this week - I think I'll finally get to organise the garage storage area so we can fit a car in there!