Building with Redink in Jarrahdale... Keys!

Hi all,

I've been stalking this site for several months now, while trying to decide whether to buy established or build .... I finally decided that the only way to get anything close to what we need is to build.

A quick rundown on things to date - I moved to Perth from Bunbury about a year ago with the plan to save some cash pretty quickly and buy a basic starter home for about $350000. Fast forward twelve months and I am now building a four by two house with attached granny flat.

On the 24th of September I became the proud owner of one fifth of an acre of land in Jarrahdale (with the bank owning the rest), and have just signed up with Redink homes so hopefully in twelve months ish I will have my very own house!!

I have attached a picture of the current lay out (hopefully) and all comments and suggestions would be welcome.

Hi, welcome to H1
I like your plan, and the interesting angle of family room etc and outdoor areas. Also the fact that you have separate entrance to house and flat.
Well done!

What aspect are your living areas facing?

Sadly the wrong way. On the picture above North is --> Means that our solar orientation is not good but we're trying to capture the views which are kind of to the West and South -east. We're also a liitle restricted as to where to put the house as the crossover is already in, and siting the house too far from this means additional driveway ...

And a totally seperate granny flat was essential. While I don't mind living with my dad I don't actually want to be living with my Dad if you know what i mean...

Hello and welcome fellow redinker...

That plan looks great ... cant wait to see your updates

Chelle

It's amazing how many choices you have to make when building a house that you otherwise would never think of ... the block is not on deep sewerage and is in the Serpentine/Jarrahdale water catchment area so traditional septic systems are out.

Has anyone used either a Filtrex or Ecomax atu septic system?? Redink recommends the filtrex system and I will probably go with that, it sounds pretty good, but just wanting to keep my options open and maybe grab some opinions from people actually using the systems .... obviously the salespeople are going to imply that their system is awesome.

Hi, we are getting an ATU but as purchased by developer we don't know which brand will be purchased yet. Still in the pipeline. But the better ones filter out phosphates and something else- some other nasty (can't remember, sorry) while the basic ones don't. Of course the basic ones are cheaper too. That's the sum total of my knowledge to date

we are going with filtrex I think. The council only allowed two brands and one was no longer available. Make sure your builder has included compliance with the new fire legislation. Ours checked with the council who said no need but then when we questioned it they re-checked and yep, it needed to be done. It was less than $2k more so all good.

Hello and welcome to the forum

Jarrahdale is such a lovely spot, we looked at blocks down there before deciding to build in Bedfordale. Your plan is lovely, lots of big rooms

I can't be much help with the ATU as we are going with the traditional septic/leach drain setup but I did look into them a little bit and remember that some of them had higher ongoing costs than others (quarterly services, etc).

I'm looking forward to following your build

Thanks soakedblonde I've been stalking you're thread for a while both the new one and the first aborted journey .... I looked in Bedfordale before settling on Jarrahdale, and have been devouring all the Bedfordale build threads as part of my research as my site works costs etc are similar to what you guys have ...

Kitty i am indeed anxiously waiting to find out how much the fire regs will cost me ... hoping it won't be too much as my block has no trees, the closest are on the block next door ...

Speaking of the block -


From the front left corner - the trees are the neighbour's block


Views, admittedly of the neighbour's sea container at the moment


From front right

Ohhh and I came home from work today to find flowers from Redink

Lovely spot you've picked!

I think you might be happy with the fire reg rating, we were told recently that ours won't be rated as highly as what we had anticipated as the adjoining national forest will have a fire buffer zone, and although in walking distance it's about the width of a 3 acre paddock away. The advice was unofficial so we are awaiting confirmation; but I don't think your neighbour's trees will be too much of a problem. We have different shires of course but ours is tricky, especially after last year's terrible bushfires in the area......so....fingers, toes and eyes crossed for you!

Welcome Fellow Redinker You house plans look fantastic.... I love the idea of the Granny Flat with a separate entrance Your plan looks very similar to our base plan before we changed it up and added to it Cant wait to see your home grow... btw Redink has been fantastic to deal with throughout our whole build

Got an email yesterday. House has been drafted and moved to the prestart department. Should get a phone call booking my interior design consult and prestart appointment within a couple of weeks ... which means I really need to stop dithering and start making some colour choices!!

Yay all the exciting stuff to do!! Also sometimes the most frustrating, hope your interior designer knows how to interpret what you want

So I received my working drawings and contracts in the mail this week, and also got a call from RedInk to book prestart Unfortunately the earliest I could get in was 31st january!! On the plus side that gives me plenty of time to pour over all the drawings and work out what I do and don't want, and also some time to sort out everything else going on at the moment....

I (along with my fur babies) have been renting a room from my sister for the past year. She's just bought a new house so the house looks rather like a packing bomb has exploded ... there are boxes everywhere as we are moving on Thursday. The new house is another fifteen minutes from work, making my daily travel time three hours (on top of a twelve hour shift), so am now doing some costings and working out whether I can afford to rent something a little closer. Not holding out a lot of hope for this though as my puppies aren't exactly little ...

On top of this there's the standard christmas fuss ( which normally I love but this year just seems hard ) and my nanna passed away ( which wasn't unexpected but still very sad)

Anyway, moving back to house stuff - I've made some small inroads into selections and colours. Am currently thinking -

Bricks - 2 course florentine limestone
Roof - Shale grey or dune
Gutters/downpipes/fascia - woodland grey
Window frames - to match gutters
Entrance doors - undecided as would like to upgrade but unsure of cost
Paving - sandstone or pewter?? still debating

Will post some pics and colours etc after we move ... the laptop is one of the few things in the house that hasn't been packed ....

Hi abbycaddaby. My pre start appointment is booked for the same day! Different builder though. I wish i didn't have so much time though - too much time to think and second guess myself. Your selections sound great though. We are thinking dune roof and woodland grey gutters too but may change that as now we are thinking of changing our bricks.

Sorry to hear about your nanna. It is difficult finding a rental when you have pets. We found one only because someone at my dh's work had a place going. Private rentals are the way to go when you have pets.

Thanks SmithiesWife. I absolutely agree about the private rentals - much easier although there don't seem to be as many around in Perth as there were when I was in bunbury ... or maybe they're just harder to find. On the plus side, it's not like I have a set move date to meet so if i don't find anything it won't matter too much, except in time/convenience.

I know what you mean about having prestart so far away, i knew we'd end up with a date in the new year, but was kind of hoping middle of January rather than the end ... especially as RedInk don't send anything to council until after prestart - so once they make any pre start changes required to the contracts we'll then lose some time while my finance is finalised, then everything will go for council approval ... so actual building is still AGES away

But I suppose that means more time to save for all the things that aren't included in the contract

Yes time to save is definitely good. Try gumtree for private rentals. It seems to be the place to go for most things these days.

Had my colour selection this morning, just in time for prestart on Thursday
Feel much more in control and organized now ... The designer was really good, not too pushy and I feel really good about how the house will look. Of course that could all change by morning lol

So here goes -

Roof - dune
Gutters/down pipes/fascia - jasper
Bricks - 2c whitecliffe
Windows - white lustre
Paving - midland brick heavy duty 114 x 230 grey
Garage - the settler - dune

Inside continuing the theme with shades of grey - will post some photos as soon as I get away from the iPad and back to the lap top.

Now just have to finish my list of prestart queries and we're all sorted

your land is fantastic did you upgrade your front door. love the color selections.
and your house design is great

Mornign Abby,

So sorry to hear of your nans passing.

Loving the pics you posted of your block it looks beautiful

Tomorows the 31st,good luck with prestart. Redink has been great for me so far our prestart was painless. Our prestart consultant alison was very helpful and offered ideas and remedies we had not even thought of. Im glad we just had that day at prestart otherwise i think i would have had to many new ideas and blown the budget sky high.
enjoy your day tomorrow.
cheers chelle