B & D's First build with HGWA

I've loved loved following everyone's build stories over the last few months & thought it was finally time to start one of our own. We've recently signed up with Homegroup WA to build a modified version of The Michigan in Highbury Park, Baldivis. We had finance approved on our block yesterday, so settlement should be within the month & now just waiting to for the working drawings to be completed to get to prestart. ?

This is the original plan

Wow what a shower!! Looks great, love your door to the Alfresco. X

Welcome to HGWA builds
Lovely plan nice big alfresco.

And this is our modified version. We've flipped it to get the most of the natural sunlight, removed the study to move the laundry from being in the centre of the house & added a 3rd garage.

Also changed the ensuite shower & toilet to the rear of the vanity (I hate cleaning glass! lol)

Hi Dee
Welcome aboard!

I like what you've done there with the laundry and scullery, although I didn't mind the way they had the laundry in the middle!
You're living area looks nice and big and the powder room, and minor Bedrooms have good space too.

Nice big block, what size is it?

Love your plan! It's gorgeous!

Thanks! I liked the laundry too, it's gorgeous in the display, but there was no light, and I was a bit worried about ventilation when using the dryer, plus changing it gave us a way bigger wil & pantry.
The block is 557m3. Its worked out perfectly, we wanted a little bit of a garden but no too much to have to look after. The allowance was 50% we managed to use 49.3%

Nice changes and plan.. Following your build now

Great plan! I love the open plan living and the big alfresco And Highbury Park is a lovely estate, a friend of mine lives there! Good luck with your building journey.

Love your plan - especially the kitchen/scullery/laundry area

Love your plan and look forward to following your build

Just a question, did any of you have trouble with mistakes Homegroup have made on your plans? I picked up countless mistakes going through the quotation process on our sketch (wrong house size in the beginning, wrong door heights, missing ceiling recesses, wrong windows etc) We have paid our deposit & received contracts & I've now noticed that they have made our fridge recess 1.5 mtr wide? This is way too big, but apparently as we've signed the quote, we need to pay for the extra stone bench needed to fill the gap. At what point should they be made to take ownership of this sort of stuff? I only picked it up as I measured everything with a scale ruler & we had previously discussed the sizing with the rep, who told us it only needed to be around 1 mtr.

I'm starting to loose my patience with all of this stuff as we've been mislead on some pretty major aspects of our house & I really don't think it should be me picking up all of their discrepancies?

They should be able to fix the issues that you have picked up. As long as you have not signed final plans, you can always ask them to correct issues.

But yep pretty poor if they keep making mistakes.

We had a very good sales rep. He did all our changes and there was a lot. We only had very minor things such as finger grips left of laundry overheads.
Perhaps it depends on who you get in the drafting stage. So sorry it's been a pain for you. We've had a great build hopefully you will too.

Our rep has been great so far, so fingers crossed it shouldn't be an issue I'm refusing to sign contracts until we have working drawings though. The way I see it, there's been so many little mistakes that I've picked up, I'm not signing my approval until I can see the actual plan that shows that all of our quoted items are in there

Good idea!

I think it's wise not to sign anything until you're satisfied with the drawings. Just keep in mind that small internal things can be changed at pre-start (ie: you decide to put in a bulkhead somewhere or widen an internal door). But you definitely want to make sure the house size and all exterior dimensions are correct and any large fancy internal things are priced in up front.