McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread

patriot · Sep 06, 2012 8:34 pm

Edited

monz21 · Sep 06, 2012 9:10 pm

nickle_31

Hi Monz21 - we did our electrical appt today it took 1.5 hours approx although some of that time we took to get a couple of extra photos of our bathroom selections which we forgot to take last time - it was pretty straight forward but we had a fairly good idea of what we wanted to get and we came in under budget so I got to get my up down lights on my front pillars which I was happy about!! Hope tomorrow goes smoothly for you!!

thanks nickle_31! Did you have to sign off right away? We want to have a look around on the weekend before we sign off..
That's great that you come under budget. We are also thinking of doing most of the electrical work after handover, but still unsure of which ones aside from downlights.

monz21 · Sep 06, 2012 9:17 pm

Patriot - wow, that's really bad. I do hope that MJH will take care of those issues soon. I heard that they monitor the forums so maybe they'll pay attention again now.

nickle_31 · Sep 06, 2012 10:04 pm

monz21

thanks nickle_31! Did you have to sign off right away? We want to have a look around on the weekend before we sign off..
That's great that you come under budget. We are also thinking of doing most of the electrical work after handover, but still unsure of which ones aside from downlights.

We did sign off straight away but I'm not sure if you have to - we are doing a few things after handover like alarm, antenna, downlights , we did per-wiring for IXL's in ensuite and main and fan in Alfresco but we will put the actual fans etc in after handover! Good luck!!

duskdarterrest · Sep 06, 2012 11:11 pm

budgnbear - congratulations on getting the keys to your house... you must be so excited

all the best with your floors, did you say you were doing them yourself? if so, what are you putting in? all the best with that and the big move!

you guys have picked some lovely colours for your home.. i feel working out the colours for the inside will be tad easier (well hoping) than the bloody bricks.. really over this part of the decision making..
mandz - i do love boral vict blue bricks. .but its going to cost us another $5,000 for that particular brick..so we have gone back to standard brick and at this stage leaning more towards i think its everyday living - mahogany.. what we orginally liked..

patriot - am really sorry to hear about your home, that just sux.. and i hope you can find an answer to all the crap that you guys have gone through.. can i ask what has gone wrong? was it just the buiders or mjh as well? have you thought of actually going the founder or MJH? and see if the can help out?

we got our latest quote in, and its like its copy paste from last quote without the changes being made, so we went through it, knocked of another couple thousand off it, updated it and sent email back to the construction dude.
we just cant believe they like to change a few things around eg we are M classification for soil - as come back from surveyor what the developer already knew and yet in this quote they changed it back to H1 classification and wacked $3,500 (arounds about) on the quote.. we have a baliness resort facade, and they are still charginging us for the classic facade with deletion of brick stack and eaves put on - another $2,000 on top of price..

you do need to read through your quotes before you sign.. i was so hoping that we could sign it off this weekend.. but there goes another wasted week.. but in sayng this, its giving us more time to look at doors, bricks and dont mind they putting back the time before it starts to get built - as i really dont want to move our son out of school halfway through the year.. rather him start beginning of year at new school

budgnbear · Sep 07, 2012 11:56 am

duskdarterrest

budgnbear - congratulations on getting the keys to your house... you must be so excited

all the best with your floors, did you say you were doing them yourself? if so, what are you putting in? all the best with that and the big move!

Thanks !

We went with carpet in bedrooms & study, spotted gum solid timber floors in living / entrance ways, option 2 with MDH. The sander/polisher just finished yesterday & I am going up tomorrow to have a look. The sander reckons they look 'awesome' & said he'll be very disappointed if we don't agree. In hindsight, although I'm really excited about the floors, I'm on the fence about the MDH flooring option. Essentially, we paid $3k to allow for solid timber, I got the impression this would mean the slab would be 'raised' to allow for 38mm thickness of the boards - ie not have such a big 'drop' into the carpetted areas - but the 3k under option 2 only covers adjustment of frame & door jambs. This means to try & achieve close to level floors between rooms, we are going to have to really build up the underlay when laying carpet, and have the carpet layers install a little 'ramp' along the doorways. I'm hoping this will ease things & although it's not something that most people would notice, it's the fine point & aesthetics that I figured paying $3k would be worth.

Anyway, I am really happy we got solid timber, I just wish MJH offered it because I'd rather have gone through them & have them take full responsibility for such issues as levels. We came close to getting bamboo but in the end after seeing a full bamboo floor in a retail store, decided I didn't like it as much as spotted gum (significantly more expensive of course but we figured it's an investment !).

monaco2 · Sep 07, 2012 1:38 pm

Long time reader, first time poster. I have been looking at the photo's and blogs and the houses look amazing! It is such an exciting time for everyone.

A little bit about me - We are building the Monaco 2

I know, I am not very creative lol near Penrith.

I had a question, how long is the wait normally for the deposit variation to come through after changes? We have made some minor adjustments and that was 10 days ago. I was just wondering if this is normal?

Thanks in advance for your help.

agetator · Sep 07, 2012 3:07 pm

We had our PCI today just a few minor things to be done the house looks fantastic and should have the keys next Thursday well done MJH and a outstanding build .Thanks to for the hamper may just pop that cork when we get our keys.

kopite1892 · Sep 07, 2012 4:03 pm

budgnbear

duskdarterrest

budgnbear - congratulations on getting the keys to your house... you must be so excited

all the best with your floors, did you say you were doing them yourself? if so, what are you putting in? all the best with that and the big move!

Thanks !

We went with carpet in bedrooms & study, spotted gum solid timber floors in living / entrance ways, option 2 with MDH. The sander/polisher just finished yesterday & I am going up tomorrow to have a look. The sander reckons they look 'awesome' & said he'll be very disappointed if we don't agree. In hindsight, although I'm really excited about the floors, I'm on the fence about the MDH flooring option. Essentially, we paid $3k to allow for solid timber, I got the impression this would mean the slab would be 'raised' to allow for 38mm thickness of the boards - ie not have such a big 'drop' into the carpetted areas - but the 3k under option 2 only covers adjustment of frame & door jambs. This means to try & achieve close to level floors between rooms, we are going to have to really build up the underlay when laying carpet, and have the carpet layers install a little 'ramp' along the doorways. I'm hoping this will ease things & although it's not something that most people would notice, it's the fine point & aesthetics that I figured paying $3k would be worth.

Anyway, I am really happy we got solid timber, I just wish MJH offered it because I'd rather have gone through them & have them take full responsibility for such issues as levels. We came close to getting bamboo but in the end after seeing a full bamboo floor in a retail store, decided I didn't like it as much as spotted gum (significantly more expensive of course but we figured it's an investment !).

you could always screed the bedrooms and study before you lay the carpets....?

budgnbear · Sep 07, 2012 6:36 pm

agetator

We had our PCI today just a few minor things to be done the house looks fantastic and should have the keys next Thursday well done MJH and a outstanding build .Thanks to for the hamper may just pop that cork when we get our keys.

Congrats agetator !! That is great news .... we put the hamper in a draw for when we move in !!!

monz21 · Sep 07, 2012 7:12 pm

Finally finished our electrical appointment. Took us just a bit more than 2 hours! And we still not sure if we made the right decision! We asked for a day to think before signing off but we couldn't do that

So we stick with just standard lights and going to do all downlights and outdoor lights after handover.
For those who Did their lighhts afterhandover without any prewiring, how long does it take for the electrician to do the downlights?

nickle_31 · Sep 07, 2012 9:57 pm

monz21

Finally finished our electrical appointment. Took us just a bit more than 2 hours! And we still not sure if we made the right decision! We asked for a day to think before signing off but we couldn't do that

So we stick with just standard lights and going to do all downlights and outdoor lights after handover.
For those who Did their lighhts afterhandover without any prewiring, how long does it take for the electrician to do the downlights?

I'm surprised they made you sign straight away - I'm sure you have covered enough to move in with and I'm pretty sure downlights are pretty easy without the pre-wire for an electrician (I've got no idea how long tho)!!

monaco2 · Sep 08, 2012 8:30 am

Well we received our DV. YAY!

Now the exciting part, colours lol. There are way too many options.

Congrats to everyone that have got their keys or about to get their keys.

duskdarterrest · Sep 08, 2012 3:31 pm

[/quote]
Thanks !

We went with carpet in bedrooms & study, spotted gum solid timber floors in living / entrance ways, option 2 with MDH.
thanx budgnbear.. spotted gum timber flooring is very pretty, im sure it came up really nice? have you got any photos? can i ask how much it was to put through the house? cant remember if you had mentioned it or not?

FOr those who have moved pasted the colour selection appointment.. what are the options with flooring with MDH? i dont remember seeing or them telling us what they do offer on the pre colour selection appointment.. unless its in that huge folder they gave us?
I do love the idea of timber flooring, my cousin has tassie oak and she wouldnt recommend it - very soft and damaged/dints easily.. not sure if this is the case with other hard timber flooring?
we half thinking of maybe opt for the laminate flooring for the time being in 10 plus years time when we have settled (not so broke) then ripped up the laminate flooring and put in timber flooring??

has anyone got bamboo flooring and happy with it? friends have it - its very noisy at their place, but they have no mats, nothing on the walls.. so the noise just echos..

hopefully the construction dude will have our tender quote fixed up by the time we go out tomorrow, otherwise it will be another week.. starting to feel its dragging out, only for they keep stuffing up the quotes - even if only typo errors..
i would hate to sign it off, to find out down the track its not what we wanted.. are we being unreasonable?

we havent signed our tender as yet for the construction, quotation keeps coming through as wrong, we are hoping by tomorrow afternoon it will be all fixed up and we can sign and start the next step..
its starting to get frustrating, but am trying to remain positve..

KTKTKT · Sep 08, 2012 4:16 pm

All action stations at our place. Painters and tilers working this weekend. Looking great! Can anyone tell me when we can expect to get a date for PCI?

soccermum · Sep 08, 2012 7:09 pm

Tiling finished on 27th July for us and painters started on 2nd August. We have PCI next week so maybe allow 4-5 weeks?

KTKTKT · Sep 09, 2012 7:07 am

Thanks Soccermum. That's what I was hoping. Did MJ do your floors?

soccermum · Sep 09, 2012 2:51 pm

Yes, we got tiles in hallway kitchen and dining, carpet everywhere else by MJH. Our tiler was so good he came back to do our alfresco and front porch

Lady Dragonfly · Sep 09, 2012 4:55 pm

monz21

Finally finished our electrical appointment. Took us just a bit more than 2 hours! And we still not sure if we made the right decision! We asked for a day to think before signing off but we couldn't do that

So we stick with just standard lights and going to do all downlights and outdoor lights after handover.
For those who Did their lighhts afterhandover without any prewiring, how long does it take for the electrician to do the downlights?

Monz21 - I hear your pain... we have our electrical appointment this Thursday. I am nervous about getting it as right as possible. Our thinking is... we want to make a contempary but country style home so probably not too many downlights and rather than just enough to get by we should do just enough to light up the house to suite the design. I think I have developed a stomach ulcer thinking about this! ::wornout::

KTKTKT · Sep 09, 2012 5:33 pm

soccermum

Our tiler was so good he came back to do our alfresco and front porch

Was this Todd? We are thinking of doing the same. What sort of tiles did you get for the al fresco and porch. We were just out looking today.