Building a Waldorf or Marriot by Porter Davis

UPDATE - cabinetry has been put in and our new door is on!!!!

Bad news is that some of the kitchen cabinetry is wrong! so galley and island bench will have to be ripped out and reinstalled correctly. We have a hidden cupboard in the island bench (side facing the dining room) and the appliance tower in the galley kitchen was installed on the wrong side! I'm just grizzly as we had specified the placement of the appliance tower at tender, then at contract we noticed it wasn't right so our CSC clarified placement and spoke to the drafting team while we were there (and i had a followup call the evening from the drafting department to clarify on the hidden cupboard), then when we had to sign off construction drawings noticed it STILL wasn't right and brought it to the attention of the CSC (who was brilliant in fixing this after she liaised with the draftsperson). The construction drawings we signed off on in the end were all correct. I just don't understand how the trades that are engaged to do the work would have wrong plans??? wouldn't they be issued plans going off the "signed off" construction drawings? Sorry for the vent but I wonder what would have happened if i hadn't driven by, seen the front door of the house WIDE open, decide to go in to make sure everything is alright and hadn't seen the error? Would have been a very expensive Woopsie for PD...

Rapt with the colour choices we made though, can really envisage it now. And loving our laundry and master ensuite Our SS said we are on track (even with this hiccup) to have PCI on the 24th October...fingers crossed everything else runs smoothly

I dont' understand as well why they uses the wrong plans. I've noticed that they rely on the BCB stamed plans and not your final signed construction plans. End of the day they are wasting their money on items.

Glad to hear that your still on track for PCI

WOW... my Ms will like that..

hey guys,

Today I went to see the new Waldorf at Bernly Gardens. I must say the it's a really nice display.

I'll post pics up tomorrow.

Hi puppyso,
Wow, that’s amazing. I love crystals and chandeliers, very glamorous – now I can see why you would need to get the trusses re-enforced! Can’t wait to see them in your house now! Ebony

Just an update regarding my fridge space jutting out from under the stairs.

PD initially came back and said they will not fix it as they built it as per contract. After pushing, they said they will allow it at this late stage but stung us with the price for doing so. We had no choice but to agree as this cannot be done after handover. We didn't want it to be a point of contention as we walk into our beautiful dream home.

What I' not happy about is that they did not even take any responsibility for this. We were not provided with elevation drawings for the stairs, from the ground floor drawings, its hard to tell if it will jut out (coz it could be hidden by the stairs height). Everyone else building the Waldorf has been advised not to extend their fridge space. We were recommended to do so by our sales consultant and no one warned us that it will stick out. If it is so obvious from the plans (and our fault we did not pick it up), wouldn't it have been so obvious to our CSC/drafter/estimator etc (as they look at plans all the time)?

Pups,
Love your chandelier. Its great that PD decided to honour their contract and strengthen the roof trusses.

Can’t believe they charged you to change it back to the original dimensions. That’s crap, they are already making a huge profit from your build and little amendments like this should be rectified instantly. Did they sting you with a big fee?

Can’t believe they charged you to change it back to the original dimensions. That’s crap, they are already making a huge profit from your build and little amendments like this should be rectified instantly. Did they sting you with a big fee?[/quote]

Yes, huge... $1400. Definitely not happy. I spoke to Consumer Affairs and they wanted me to lodge a formal complaint. They reckon I have a case under a lack of duty of care by their staff.

What would you do?

It’s a hard one, what do the plans say? Does it show a portion of the wall sticking out of the staircase? The construction drawings should show an outline of all walls.

If you cannot tell on the plans, I would be having a spat..

This is what the plans show.

I couldn't tell that it would stick out at ground level. I was not given any elevations of the stairs. Bearing in mind that I have 2740 high ceilings. And also the fact that it was the sales consultant who suggested I extended my fridge space and no one at admin bringing up that it would jut out.

take them on JPZ.. ACCC

I would have assumed the bit that sticks out would have extended up to the ceiling of the first floor as well. Without the elevation of the stairs, how would you have know that not to be the case? I think PD should have advised you of this (duty of care - and how many times have PD built this house?); and your supervisor should have brought this up during construction (and how many times has he built this house?); so an amendment could have been made there and then. Our S has been excellent during our build and making sure things are right. He always checks with us first when something doesn't look right or something has to be altered slightly. It is hard to check everything is correct in your plans; even when you go over them again and again.

I thought the protruding wall went up to the ceiling? That’s what the drawing show or that’s how a common person would have interpreted it.
JPZ I would take them on... couldn’t believe that they stung you with a $1,400 charge.

About time Porter Davis has opened a Waldorf display home in the South East (Berwick – Bernly Gardens). No more travelling to the other side of the world to view this display.

Personally this is my favourite Waldorf display as it looks and feels fantastic and PD has finished it off with all the trimmings. One small improvement is that store room, which has been converted to a wine room, is accessible from the theatre. The display at Kingsford has the wine room assess from the laundry which looked cheap and tacky. Imagining showing your friends your wine room and walking past your dirty laundry (someone has used their brains).

Well done PD, another beautiful home.

If your interest in seeing pics I took of this display please check out my blog.

I wish I took pics of the sandpiper display. All I can say is that is HOT!

I'm still waiting for the building variation for reverting to the original fridge space...

I think they expect me to be rapt that it is now getting fixed, despite the cost. I'm really not happy.

Hi all,
We went to visit the new displays at Bernly Gardens on the weekend and I must say, it is absolutely beautiful.... So inspiring...
Was looking thru the new promo list and notice that it now comes with a designer kitted out master BIR/WIR. Does anyone have the plans of this?
We hadn't thought about it before. Obviously its too late now for a BV but I'm thinking of retrofitting it after handover.
Has anyone had it done after handover and what designs did you come up with and by whom?

Hi JPZ,

We have had quotes done by Creative by Design and U-nique Storage. Very different systems. Creative by Design constructs like a kitchen and U-nique uses the clip on ladder design. Both cost around the same if you go for white melamine.

We are building the Sandpiper, the quotes were for master WIR, 2 BIR and 1 smaller WIR. We have shelves, short hanging, long hanging, drawers, tie drawers, shoe drawers and soft close. This came to about 6k.

If you go for it, tell PD not to install anything in these robes.

No progress will happen this week as the brickies are away waiting for the scaffolding to be erected before they can continue working on our house. I went to the site last night and to my surprise scaffolding was delivered ready for installation today. Brickies are scheduled to come back on Monday to finish of the remaining brick work and couple of weeks after I will be in lock-up, which mean that a major invoice will need to be paid. At lock up we would have paid PD 70% of the construction costs but it doesn’t look like the house is 70% complete (PD manages their cash flow very well). The risk is if PD goes broke right now I would find it extremely difficult (actually impossible) to find a builder to finish off the remaining works for 30% of the total contract price. Also, imagine the nightmare dealing with insurance to pick up the bill; it would set us back at least a year.

Also delivered were the plaster boards (Gyprock) and our 75mm cornices. I noticed that the plaster board were 6 metres long which means less joins and hopefully no cracks in the future. Going upstairs I am fathomed on how they managed to get the plaster boards up there (still scratching my head) they couldn’t have carried the boards on by one as this would be inefficient.
My new lovely pivot door frame was also delivered, SS managed to fix this error swiftly. So far I have had a trouble free build and I’m extremely happy with the quality of the build. Keep it up PD.
I’ll post some pics up on the weekend for those interested.