Katrina's 2nd home build - Gympie

Hi all

I am so excited to have found this forum.

3 years ago we built a modified Forestdale 164 with GJ Gardner. We love the house, but living in an estate on some 780 odd square metres is doing our heads in. We need more space.

So we recently decided to put the house on the market and do it all again, hopefully building our forever home. Our house is under contract, settling on the 7th of June.

We went to GJ's first, but with the additions we wanted to make to this same home design very quickly went over our budget. We decided to try another local builder, and were absolutely amazed at how much more house we are getting for our money. They are including 2 additional bedrooms, larger scale to the entire house, ceasar stone bench tops, dual shower heads in the master ensuite, a/c to the master, ceiling fans throughout, vinyl plank flooring, increased ceiling heights, the list goes on of things that GJ's considers "extras".

We have a contract on a 3.4 acre block of land 10 mins north of town, that settles simultaneously with the house. We have signed the house contract and separate shed contract, and all the loan docs for the new build with CBA. So now we're just packing and waiting for settlement.

I can't wait to start the new build. Being our forever home, we wanted the spaces as large as possible so that we never outgrow it. I also have a large family that come to visit, so guest spaces were essential. We have 2 boys, one teenaged, and one not far off that. We went quite neutral with colour selections last time, so I'm really hoping to have a bit more personality to the house this time. I will upload pics of the plan and my mood board (not complete yet) as soon as I work out how to.

TIMELINE:
7/6 Simultaneous settlement of prior house and new land purchase
Lots of things happened in the middle here that I can't remember dates for, but we had to wait for the land title to transfer for the bank to pay the house build deposit, then our shed plans were approved and the shed went up. We also installed our own tank to the shed and plumbed it all up, and had a power pole installed inside our boundary and power connected and the shed wired up. Our house plans went through drafting and engineering and were submitted to council.
1/9 Council approval
5/9 Building start date
7/9 Slab poured
12/9 Framing started

Hello!!

GJ can be quite pricey compared to other builders we went with GJ over other project builders but now I look back I think ahh, maybe this wasn't a wise choice as we probably will end up spending $40k more with GJ overall

Looks like a nice use of space with this plan, you won't know yourself on nearly 4 acres after being on a 780sqm

Following along


GJ Gardner Modified Coolum 277
http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=83643

Hi Katrina H, I am about to start building my first home in the Gympie area and am looking at quotes from Oakvale Homes, Stirling Homes and MLB. Did you look at either of those? My site is flat with a soil test "P" and I am opting for low stumps with timber floors, the home is also timber and I have my own plan. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Figtree

How exciting for you. I would have loved a timber home, but my hubby won't have one because he doesn't want to be painting it, and our block is in a bushfire risk area, so not sure that we could even get one approved there anyway. So brick it is.

We are going with Stirling. My in-laws built their home with Stirling, which is a pole home, so they do them. We brought our own plans to Stirling and they are more than happy to draw them up for you. I thought this was great, because at GJ you just choose a plan off the wall.

I refused to go to [email=O@kvale]O@kvale[/email], for silly reasons really. When we were looking to build our last home (when we were first time builders), I went to see them first. I walked in and talked to a lady, told her what I thought our budget would be and pointed to one of their plans and asked if we could afford something like that, and she was incredibly rude to me, saying "No, it costs about a thousand dollars a square metre to build a house you know?" Well, obviously I didn't know that at the time, thanks very much. I walked out and never went back. I'm sure there's absolutely nothing wrong with their builds, I know plenty of people who have built with them, it just came down to customer service for me, if you want to be condescending and make me feel like an idiot, you lose my business. Simple.

What area of Gympie are you building? Would love to see the progress. I love watching people's homes come to life from a bare dirt patch, it's like making music over silence.

I'm in Amamoor on a 20ac block (so plenty of room). We are just having the shed built at the moment so we have taken care of power, treatment plant and water. My husband owns an excavator so the site is also prepped and ready to go. Trying to work out how to reduce the cost by taking care of as much as I can on my own.
This is the style of house we are looking for.

Hi Figtree

Sorry, for some reason I am not getting notifications when you comment. That house is gorgeous. A friend of ours (actually, the builder from our first home, who we've become quite good friends with) has just built himself something similar. I think it's gorgeous, part country farmhouse, part hamptons, which I love.

Who are you building your shed with? We've gone with Just Sheds. Can't wait until it goes up so we can have a bit of room to spread out. Lol, listen to me, we haven't even moved out of our old house yet and I'm already impatient. On a positive note, got an email from the solicitor yesterday that our current house is now unconditional, so it's full steam ahead. Bring on the 7th of June.

Wow, so much has happened since I last posted. Settlement all went through on the last house without any dramas. We have our shed up, and we now have a house slab. I think we'd be pushing it to be in by Christmas, but I guess there is maybe a tiny chance.
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We now have our framing timber on site. Hopefully they get started on that today. We also found out yesterday that our Bushfire Attack Level is 12.5, which we had already allowed for at contract stage, so that's good. It was going to be 19, because our house is only 6m from the boundary of a very overgrown block, so even though i called the council to have the owners come slash it, hubby got out there and cleared it for an extra 24m from the boundary, giving us the clear 30m from the house that we needed to bring us back to BAL12.5.

So this is our full working drawing. We flipped the plan since the last pic I put up.

Sorry. Photo spam. I will probably post pics almost daily because we're lucky enough to be living on site.

I have just ordered these from Beacon lighting for over our kitchen bench. I love them. We are having an all white kitchen, with Urban ceasarstone benchtops and black door handles. I think these will help complete the industrial look i am going for. I really wanted shaker style cabinet doors, but couldn't fit it into the budget.

Oh, and this black sink. And we'll have a black mixer tap aswell.

Came home from work today to half the frame up. If only the whole build was this quick, lol. We are at 8 days in.

Framing almost complete, trusses arrived yesterday and will start going up today. The builder has already sent me the frame stage invoice, but I am reluctant to send it to the bank until the stage is complete, but then worry that we will be going over the builder's terms. Why do they send it so early? Am i wrong to hold it back? Any advice?

Do you have a term on your invoice? If you don't want to cause a fuss, just wait till the 7 days or whatever term is up then submit.

We ended up paying our lock up invoice about 6 weeks ago and we arent even locked up yet I regret that aha.

Love your choices! I love black, so it looks very nice to me so far Can't wait to follow your build.

Thanks for the advice Allblaqk. I spoke to the bank and they pretty much said the same thing, don't submit until we're happy the stage is complete and satisfactory. Do you have a thread, I'd love to follow your build. I'm not very good at this forum stuff, worked out how to get tapatalk but not very good at using it, lol.

I got home from work too late on Friday for a pic. But half the roof trusses are up. I am surprised by how high the roof looks. I'm sure our last house must've had a lower pitch, because it didn't look this high. I'll see if i can find a pic of the old house to put up. Still needs all the robes and the corner pantry in the kitchen to be put up yet, and a window fixed that he has framed up too big. But can't begrudge these guys, they build all the wall frames on site, not prefab, so i think they're doing an amazing job getting to this point in only a week.

This was our first build. I hated the bricks as soon as they went up, so let hubby choose the outside colours this time around, and I'm excited to see how his choices look. And as much as i loved the kitchen, it was very restrictive in terms of changing the house interior colour scheme, that's why we're going for a mostly white kitchen this time around.