Our build with Stylemaster homes

So we are building our first home for our family of 5. We are building the Claremont 24 with Stylemaster homes in springfield lakes. Its been a lonnnnnnng process (mostly with titles being delayed which ive now realised is not as uncommon as I thought!) but it finally started last week!

This is our timeline so far:
July 21 2013- Initial Deposit on Land
August 30 2013- Approval in Principal received
September 3 2013- Initial House deposit
September 5 2013- Second Land Payment
April 28 2014- Land Settlement
May 21 2014- House Contracts signed & Second House Payment
June 9 2014- Final House contribution Paid
August 6 2014- Site Scrapped
August 7 2014- Site Surveyed
August 8 2014- Piers & Footings
August 13 2014- Drainage & Pipework
August 14 2014- Slab Frame
August 15 2014- Slab poured!!!

Floor Plan. We have flipped the house from behind the garage (leaving the master garage & study in the same positions) so that the alfresco looks onto the back yard.



Anyway Photos:

Its somewhere in there over to the right lol

Nearly completed street! (peering through a fence lol)

Finished street

Portaloo!!!

Pipework

Slab frame

Products & colours for inside the house:



The kitchen bench we chose


Cupboard handles (middle one)


And we finally got slabbed today!!!!




Anyway that's it for now

congrats on your slab
area looks lovely

Love the Claremont 24, was on our list too! Good luck

Hi there,

I Just thought I would check our your build. Yes it's very similar to our floor plan and we do have similar tastes! LOVE your kitchen bench! Good Luck with your build, your new home will be lovely.

Sallie

Nothing much happening atm, still waiting for the frames which they weren't able to schedule in until the 29th. I hate waiting im so impatient! Good to see SOMETHING finally happening and be able to show family pics of the house we've been talking about for the past year but have had no updates for lol.
Thought Id update with pics of what colours we chose at prestart:

Roof tile. Top is window frames, middle is fascia & downpipes, bottom is colour of garage door, plus guttering.

This is kitchen. Bottom is floor tile, The grey square is our glass splashback, left Is cabinets & right is benchtop. We decided to pay a bit extra and get 40mm benchtop instead of the 20mm standard & waterfall for the island. (this & the glass splashback were very important to my husband despite me being the one in the kitchen all the time!)

This is the laundry & bathrooms so again floor tile, cabinets & benchtop same as kitchen & wall tiles are glossy white.

This is the brick we have chosen. We wanted something really light & the sales lady convinced us this was perfect so I realllllly hope she was right.

The carpet we are going with is Redbook Harmonia II Natural Stone I forgot to get a photo of that when we chose it

My best friend was incredulous when I showed her and was like OMG its all white how boring I like the plainer cupboards, benchtops etc so I can add colour with furniture and rugs etc so its easier if I decide I want to change the colour! I think we might paint feature walls tho just to put a bit of colour in, the kids rooms are definitely getting a colour feature wall. I also have a 'friend' who has already made remarks on how tiny our place is- who is going to accidentally have her invite to the housewarming lost in the post!

We did most of our changes/upgrades before we went to prestart. They had a few bonus specials going on at the time so we are getting free ducted air conditioning (which wasn't a big seller to us as my dad installs them & could have got it dirt cheap anyway- but hey if its not any extra why not), ceiling height upgraded to 2590mm from 2440mm & half price carpet & flooring. We are also getting double hinged doors put on the media room (hubby wanted room to be able to be totally dark to watch movies lol). We also paid a bit more to upgrade the carpet as I didn't like the feel of any of the included ones, got a couple extra TV points put in and extra power points etc. Just a few little things, but prestart still cost us an extra 3k! (I know most people spend more but like I said we did a lot of our changes prior to this I think overall we prob spent about an extra 20-30k on top of the base house price)

I am confused about one thing though. The builder didn't mention to us at any point that we needed wiring done in the house for opticomm to connect so someone contacted me the other day to organise a quote (which now has to be paid out of our own pocket grr) & it says the quote doesn't include a communications cabinet in the garage and we would need to get an electrician to put this in. Ive never had NBN before so no idea what this does?

Also Im trying to work out where to put our data & phone point. We are only getting one as we don't have numerous things that would need to hook up & would just connect most things by wifi anyway. The obvious spot would be the study however I work from home & my work will install a separate data/phone point in there so needs to go somewhere else. Where would you put it? I was thinking somewhere in the kitchen but theres not really a spot next to the bench or anywhere a phone could sit like in our current rental. Suggestions?

Congratulations on your slab - You must be so excited! I had a look on the internet - what a beautiful development and area to build in. I really like your fences too and you already have street trees and planted verges - wow

I love your selections - we too will go for neutral colours - it makes much more sense and is also much less likely to date and go out of fashion. As you say a rug or cushion or even a painted feature wall can add colour if you think it needed it - I personally like plain!

We also flipped the house around behind the garage - and when we did this bed1 and the media rooms were next to each other so we could flip them around too! Your house doesn't look small to me at all - to me it sounds like both your "friends" might be a bit jealous I think I'm in love with your ensuite layout - so clever and it'll look huge and light - is that window a full length one?

Can't help with NBN sorry - that is something we'll have to find out about too. But I'm sure someone else will be able to help you.

Regarding the phone and data point - I know lots of peopled have their router or whatever in the garage or even in the roof space. Phone points nowadays don't really have to be used as is either so put it anywhere - perhaps the master bedroom - and get cordless ones in places where you want them. The data point could probably go in the MPR?

I'm looking forward to following the rest of your build - fingers crossed it all goes smoothly!

Do most places not have those things? We've never built so I have no idea whats normally included lol. We had to wait until the street was fully completed before we even got access so completed rds & even plants along the rd!



See that's my thinking, I said to DH if we chose a really out there colour it might also make it harder to sell as peoples tastes are so different. I just hope it doesn't look too boring. Think I might go buy a bright blue toaster & kettle to go in the kitchen haha! Think you might be onto something with jealous friends.



I love my ensuite too I hate using the main toilet the kids use LOL but don't like going to the toilet when DH is in the shower so at least this way he wont be able to see me! haha yeah window is floor length.

There is absolutely no better excuse to get a brightly coloured toaster and/or kettle - I'm aiming to one day have an excuse for an apple green kitchen aid! Even though I'm a coeliac and don't really (at all!) bake (See LeanneR's thread for the very same one I'm lusting after (and very many other lovely things - she has a beautiful home viewtopic.php?f=31&t=62019 ))

Regarding fences - we'll have colorbond fences in our development I think, and though it may be practical and less maintenance to worry about I do like timber fences like you'll have much more. I have no idea what the usual thing is with regards to planting the verges. But as part of our plot promotion we have front garden included - if we follow the design guidelines. When they come do do that - after moving in - they'll also do the verge which we'll then be responsible for.

Congrats on the build, we are looking at Stylemaster also. We seen the Claremont 24 at North Lakes and looks like a nice home and big enough having grown up in breeder box this looks like a mansion.
I was looking on the web for building experiences with them before fully committing as we have only done the 1500 deposit, as we did the same with another (Big M) and they didn't even do soil tests or site survey and sent us plans back using the developers contours which is amateur.

We are looking at the Bayside 30 which is like the Baybreeze just sideways as this will hopefully fit our block. One thing I noticed on your plan and we asked to do was to take the rooms out by 1/2 mtr and was a lot cheaper than I thought and makes a difference and was only 1500 for the bedrooms so would be good to get feedback from anyone on what can be achieved for asking questions that they may not ask....ta

My plan is not to dissimilar to yours, I am looking at the display homes as they are done by interior decorators and have a lot of things the builder does not actually do and see what we can do to replicate it. Clearly some of the upgrade packages make a difference but they have a habit of extending walls and patios without telling anyone to make it look better and bigger.
Looking at the feature walls in the homes they don't do as they look great, wallpaper if back by the looks of it. Some of the cabinetry could be done cheaper but also make the house look different. Those casings they have around the fridges look great also so will look into those and apparently aren't that expensive. When I ask the price on something I always get the "its not a million dollars" response but each one of these will add up to a $1m eventually. The Sales guy so far seems like a nice guy, time will tell.

Not sure about the NBN, if you estate has it then get it done. We were quote 995 for it but we are not even on the NBN site map so wont do it, the router I would stick in the study near the desk in case wireless fails and you can connect a Ethernet cable to it. I am sure you can hide it there somewhere behind the desk etc. Phone point you could put in the same place a get a cordless phone one for the study and one for anywhere else in the house, find these days the only people that ring you are from India and I don't know anyone there...

Will watch your build and if you could let us know of any pointers before we commit that would be good. I have already heard of one site supervisor not to get but he is Northside so I think you would be safe.

We're building in Springfield Lakes too. I think all of your colour choices look great! We are going to be sticking to a very neutral colour scheme too.

Sorry I've got no advice on the Opticomm. We were quoted $1250 to get the Hills Home Hub installed, but still not sure if that is the way to go, so still researching that.

This looks awfully familiar

I'm following on here now

Haha B Ive been stalking urs since u linked me

Hi firstbuild14, how is your build progressing? Our build with SM is going to start shortly, so interested to see how the process is going for you! Looks like we have chosen similar colour schemes as well

So Ive been completely hopeless with keeping this updated, everything has been so hectic!!! We are SOOOOO close to being finished I can taste it! Site supervisor has said handover will be the last week before Christmas so cutting it very fine. Havent got a set date yet but he said he will get us one by the end of the week! Which means max 4 weeks til handover OMG!!!!
We're pretty lucky actually there hasn't been any major issues, everything seems to have gone pretty smoothly which is what we were hoping for! At this point we are only waiting for Painting, Carpet, electrical & plumbing & appliances & aircon... I think that's it lol. Then we are getting the solar & landscaping & concreting (patio & driveway & shed slab) done externally which will prob have us move only a few days before Christmas haha. Hubby & I are having a disagreement on what to do about handover though. The issue is, if there are any problems with the house & we don't want to do handover til they are fixed we need to delay it til next year. And I really wanted my house as my Christmas present lol So ive said to hubby, if they are only minor to do handover anyway and get them to fix them once we're moved in. I know people say not to handover til ur 150% happy but I really really want to move in! They have to fix it eventually don't they??? Plus we cant afford to keep paying 95% of our mortgage & our rent!!! Im just hoping there are no issues and we don't have to talk about it haha.
Anyway photos.....

Frame

Roof & Sarking

Air con

Windows

Bricks & garage door

Plastering

Cabinetry (through windows as we got locked out!!!)

Tiles (floor tiles look a lot darker in pics they are a light glossy grey)

Skirting

Benchtops

Ive got a million more photos but photobucket is being uncooperative today!!
Going to visit the house today so hopefully something has happened.

wont be long now before you move in looks great

Hey Jess, how is your build going?? Handover?? Pics??

We have keys!!!!!!! I'm a bit slow as it was last Friday but gosh things have been hectic. I'll put pics up a bit later but I just wanted to come on and ask, does anyone know what the responsibility of the cabinet maker is when it comes to the holes in the cabinet for the cords etc for the washing machine??? We have a front lower which goes under the bench, and the taps and power point is is the cupboard but there's no holes to put it thru!!! Of course being so close to Christmas stylemaster closed the day we had handover and we didn't realise til we tried to put our washing machine in. We were going to put holes ourselves and then wondered if there would be an issue if we did it ourself? We can't use our washing machine!!!

Yay for keys!! Congrats, sooooo exciting - can't wait to see pics!! You would think the cabinet holes would be pretty standard... Do you have your SS mobile no. to send him a quick message about it? Please let me know how you go, because we will probably have the same issue... I wouldn't see a problem with you making your own holes, it just wouldn't be covered under any warranty if something went wrong I guess, and depends whether you have the proper equipment to do a nice job of it that you will be happy with?

I do but I wasn't sure if he would respond given that he's now on leave til 19th Jan. We were going to buy all the tools for it but it wasn't going to be cheap and I figured we prob wouldn't use them again so if it was supposed to be done by them we should get it done for free. Just means the washing machine will have to sit in front of the cupboard to work!!! I just wasn't sure if it was supposed to be included

Definitely preferable to get them to sort it if they should... Maybe late morning tomorrow send him a "sorry to bother you..." and just explain you just quickly want to confirm it is their responsibility to sort after the break, as you don't want to wait the several weeks only to find out it is something you have to do yourself? If he is a nice enough guy he shouldn't mind