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Hi everyone, long-term lurker here finally posting my first post as my build thread!
My husband and I are building with Plantation in Ormeau Ridge. This is our first build and also our first home
Apparently Plantation recently removed their "Breakthrough" range, but our build is from that range. We chose a Bronte, flipped the front, and then flipped the whole plan to get the best orientation on our block, which runs southeast at the street -> northwest at the rear. Our design changes mean that our garage is in the south corner of the block, our bedroom is in the east, and our alfresco and living are in the north.
Other changes we made were:
- Replace the window to the alfresco in the living with a slider
- Added barrier screens to both alfresco doors
- Upgrade all the appliances to Bosch
- Various tile upgrades (our package included carpet to bedrooms and tiles everywhere else)
- Moved the window in Bed 3 from rear to side
- Glass kitchen splashback
- Extended our fridge space
- Deleted wardrobe shelf/bar in master (so we can do a custom fitout after handover)
- Added extra power points everywhere. Like, so many. And extra data points too.
- EDIT: Forgot we removed the window and feature shelf in the butler's pantry too - I didn't think it was big enough to justify it.
I'm sure there were others, but can't recall now! We also had to meet a fire rating of 12.5 due to the bushland across the road from us, so we had some upgrades like sarking, aluminium flywire screens, etc. We turned the build into a house and land package so we could fix the site costs and take advantage of their "move in pack" which included the driveway and cut, turf to front, letterbox, and clothesline.
We've had a great experience with Plantation so far, other than a little kerfuffle over what screen doors, exactly, we'd added on the alfresco. Otherwise, very happy, and can't wait to move in!
Here is our "dirt" the day of the site scrape:
Timeline so far:
29/08/2014 - Signed land contract with Stockland
07/09/2014 - Signed quote with Plantation
16/10/2014 - Accepted tender with Plantation
13/11/2014 - Land is registered, but we're still in finance
19/12/2014 - Land settled - proud owners of a pile of dirt!
12/03/2015 - Commencement!
19/03/2015 - First slab date - rain delayed
08/04/2015 - Second slab date - rain delayed, again
14/04/2015 - Yay, slab finally down!
27/04/2015 - Frame and roof trusses complete
13/05/2015 - Wrap and rough-ins done
27/05/2015 - Plastering
13/06/2015 - Cabinetry
23/06/2015 - Brick off!
02/07/2015 - Lock up/Enclosed
10/07/2015 - Painting
23/07/2015 - Fixing
28/07/2015 - Plumbing and electrical fitoff
26/08/2015 - Handover!
Hi there,
Looking good - congratulations on site start.
We also building from the breakthrough range, a Soho. We have our tender on Tuesday. Were you happy with your tender/was there any shock costs/did the bushfire rating amendments cost much?
Looking forward to following your build!
My advice with tender is to read everything really carefully. We had a hiccup with the alfresco doors - we had our colour appointment the same day as tender presentation and asked for barrier screen doors to the alfresco, which were added in the colour document and then into the tender document. But in the tender document they were just inserted as flywire screens. So even though we'd literally just chosen the barriers, they were wrong, and we didn't notice. This wasn't sorted out until right before we went to site, when we had to reconfirm the colour document and it had been changed there to flywire screens in line with the tender.
The bushfire overall was less than $5k I think...They allowed provisional $2500 for window and door upgrades which ended up being only about $350 in the end, so not much at all. And it's stuff that will help make the house solid and well-insulated, so we didn't mind paying.
Our site costs were fixed so we didn't have any major cost surprises. Our original quote was $223,687, our tender price was $242,206 (which included $12k of retaining - not included in the site costs) and we've ended up with post contract variations of about $2700 overall once all the costs and credits work out.
If you upgrade no other appliances, at least upgrade the dishwasher - the Bosch dishwasher is actually cheaper than the Technika!
Make sure when you do your colours that you choose things within the breakthrough range, and if you want to upgrade you get it as a quoted cost so you can decide not to do so if you're not happy with the cost. That way, you still have a "plan B" that is within the included range and that you are happy with, and if the "plan A" is too expensive you can just decline the quote. That will mean it won't be in your tender price (and therefore your finance) though.
Where are you building?
Congrats on your site start ilaeria, looking forward to seeing your home come out of the ground.
Thanks Tribe7, just looking through your thread now, wow that is a big house! But understandable for your big family
And great to hear your land is finally registered.
Here is our colour selection, not a very good photo unfortunately:
The ensuite vanity looks almost blue but it's charcoal. We've gone for all cool tones of grey and charcoal everywhere. And we have a blue front door, I don't have a sample but it's Dulux "Tardis"
And here are our final plans!
Look forward to following your build Ilaeria
Hey,
I've done a proper stalk now and your home will look grand. Love the cool greys and neutral tones we have gone exactly the same way. Can't wait to see your window frames go in as we have selected black as well. Have you got a slab date yet?
What are you doing for your bathroom tiling?
I'm really looking forward to having a home big enough to fit our family but I'm not looking forward to all the mopping and vacuuming
Thanks Tribe7
our slab pour is due for Thursday next week! The setout was supposed to happen today, I can't get out again until the weekend to check though. In our ensuite we have all large rectangular dark tiles laid stack bond on the floor and walls, including the shower and around the vanity. The main bathroom has the light grey square medium tiles for floor and walls, but we have the same dark tile on the bath hob. No feature tiles - in the ensuite the big dark tiles are their own statement and in the main bathroom the dark bath is the feature
I can't wait to see how it comes together!
Yeah I know what you mean about the cleaning although we only have 3 fur babies
not 5 kids to clean up after! the new place is twice as big as our current place!
The tiles are from Beaumont: ensuite is 187014 exile charcoal porcelain lappato rectified 300x600, main bath 49231 lifestyle ice grey 400x400. That one is used for all our flooring in all the living areas.
Great floorplan. Love how the laundry is behind the kitchen i wanted something similar in my house but couldnt work it. Loving charcoals and cools tones. I have also done similar in my house.
Thanks livpal5
Yeah I was really happy with the configuration of this one. I might have preferred a slightly larger laundry (and a bigger linen cupboard as well as a broom/store cupboard) but I like the configuration of the kitchen looking out to the living areas, I'm just hoping its not too dark being so far from the windows. I have under-cupboard lighting on the rear bench and a pair of downlights so hopefully its fine!
Are your living dining areas facing north. It should get enough light if they are. Probably too late for a skylight?!
Ooo under cupboard lighting beautiful!!!
Are your living dining areas facing north. It should get enough light if they are. Probably too late for a skylight?!
Ooo under cupboard lighting beautiful!!!
Yeah, the post on the alfresco pretty much points north
I did a lot of wrangling to get the living areas on the north side!
Perfect im sure there will be enough light.
Did a quick site visit this evening to see if the setout had happened, and got some more pics!
Completed retaining wall (The frame is our rear neighbour, not us
):
Retaining wall has drainage and been filled in. Its not on our boundary, its about 20cm in - our boundary is in line with the large post near the end of the far fence, basically where that orange safety netting is. Our neighbour is *really* close:
Looking down our existing boundary fence, you can see the outline of the slab, we have quite a bit of room down this side (and a charming ensuite):
The view from our front door:
We're supposed to have our slab poured on Thursday but they haven't started drainage yet, so I'm not sure how realistic that is. Fingers crossed!
What a beautiful outlook. Just gorgeous. Everything looking good. Your so close to slab how exciting.
Thanks livpal5, I love it. As soon as I set foot on this block I knew it was ours. That bushland is a gentle slope down to the Pimpama River ("river" being a very generous term, its a tiny choked creek and we have no flood risk) so it's reserved and will never be built out. It's so peaceful there even with all the houses in our stage going up, and lots of birds including kookaburras. Normally I thought having a bedroom at the front would be a dealbreaker for me but with this outlook I don't mind at all
Yeah its ideal to have bedroom at the front. Waking up to that everyday will be lovely.