Charlie's Place | PHOTOS! |

charlie · Jul 11, 2009 10:52 am

I'm loving this forum – everyone is so helpful. It has been great to follow all the fun and trauma of everyone's stories over the past few weeks and I've really appreciated all the info!

My hubby and I (and our 2 littlies) are building the Santorini 26 with M3tr!con in Ballarat. So exciting! It's been such a long journey and I can hardly believe we're at this point, but our land settled last week and yesterday we signed the building contract - so it's really happening!! :z:

Happy happy!

We were about to buy our first home 4 years ago but we had to put plans on hold due to health problems. We've been hoarding our deposit waiting to be in a position where we could make that sort of financial commitment again, and when the government became so generous towards first home builders we decided to go for it. I've had my mum's dire warning ringing in my ears ("Building is the quickest road to divorce!") :lol:

, and it has been oh-so-frustrating at times, but we've had heaps of fun!

The biggest problem has been finding a suitable block of land in the area we wanted. Our 870m2 block is not ideal – it’s an odd shape with fairly narrow frontage, a bunch of fill, and a bit of a slope. But we got a good deal and we found a plan to suit, so we’ll make it work!

Here's a photo of the block. I'll post the floorplan & siting etc soon

emilygirl · Jul 11, 2009 7:42 pm

Hi..
we are looking to build the santorini 29...Looked at the one in ballarat and its ideal...
We still need to visit out accountant though to make sure money wise we can and keep our home as well....(we basically own it)....
I hope you post more as Id love to keep an eye on yours...

just Erin · Jul 11, 2009 7:45 pm

What a great size block! Cant wait to see your plans!

charlie · Jul 13, 2009 10:15 pm

emilygirl

I hope you post more as Id love to keep an eye on yours...

I'll be posting for sure - I'm looking forward to tracking the journey.

Emilygirl, we'd have loved to build the San29, that 4th bedroom would have been great. But unfortunately it didn't fit either the block or our budget.

Being so close, we've visited the Ballarat display so much that it's kind of embarrassing! LOL :">

Hope your plans work out and everything falls nicely into place!

Thanks A4E. It is a good sized block, which helps make up for it being such an odd shape. And anything is big compared to the place we're in at the moment! ::lol::

charlie · Jul 13, 2009 10:49 pm

So, here's a link to the floorplan. Santorini 26, Traditional facade. We'll use the sitting room as a study/reading/music room. One of the things I love about the plan is the walk in linen closet & walk in pantry. Yay for storage space!

http://www.m3tr!con.com.au/victoria/homes/designs/brochures/Santorini.pdf
(Click on the link, then in the address bar of you new browser window you'll need to replace the '3' with an 'e' and the '!' with and 'i' to view the floorplan)

We've made only a few changes to this plan (oh so many changes we'd have liked to make but we were very restrained!). The main modification is that we've extended the master bedroom out (which will give us some much-needed walking space and will also make a cut-out feature to frame the bed) - like so...

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mjl · Jul 13, 2009 10:53 pm

Plans look good Charlie...best of luck for the build...

Crissy82 · Jul 14, 2009 10:02 am

Plans look great! Very similar to our Grandview layout (only master bedroom is at the back).

Hope the build goes smoothly for you like it has for us!

Looking forward to seeing your colour selections & Studio M selections !

charlie · Jul 14, 2009 10:26 am

Thanks mjl & Chrissy. Yeah, I love the Grandview! Internal colours are locked in and we're finalising external colours today (had to change our brick selection) - I'll get some photos up soon. Playing with colours has been so much fun but we're still second-guessing everything! ::lol::

Tile selection is booked for the end of the month.

charlie · Jul 18, 2009 10:14 pm

Here are a couple of photos of our colour selections. I kinda wish we could start from scratch with our selections now that we're a little less clueless, but it's too late ::lol::

. And anyway I guess it's always going to be hard to stop second guessing everything!

The colours are actually a lot warmer in real life - the photo has turned out a bit blue! We've gone for grey-brown tones and kept it fairly neutral.

Kitchen - We're very unsure about our choice of 'Divine Oak' laminex but went with it because we wanted to use a woodgrain and this tied in with our other colours the best. We'll see, I guess. Upper cupboards and island bench cupboards will be white, and the lower cupboards and island-wraparound will be woodgrain. Splashback is a darkish brown.

Floors - Chocolatey/Charcoal carpet. We haven't had our tile selection appointment yet but we're considering a beige tile to warm up the house a bit. (Would have loved floorboards, but thought tiles might be a bit more durable with little kids!)

Walls - The main colour will be Beige Royal Half, but we plan to use a few feature colours here and there.

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charlie · Jul 18, 2009 10:19 pm

And here are our external colours.

We had chosen Selkirk Ironstone, but it looked like we were going to miss out on that one because it's in such short supply. So last fortnight we did a last-minute change to Selkirk Coastal Stone (which is quite different from what we were originally looking for, but I think we'll be happy).

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JohnAndTarin · Jul 19, 2009 9:04 am

Beautiful colour choices

cant wait to watch your process

mundie mansion · Jul 19, 2009 10:28 am

Hi charlie,

Lovely house design ::smile::

Your colour selections are great.

Good luck with it all ::smile::

Manda · Jul 19, 2009 1:08 pm

Love the colors and the plan! Very jealous of your bench top!!! It is going to look great.

I have a suspicion that WA doesn't have as many external bricks to choose from as other states.

charlie · Jul 19, 2009 2:23 pm

Thanks everyone! ::smile::

Manda, we thought about going with laminex, but the only thing my husband really really wanted in this entire build was to get Caesarstone benchtops! Can't say I put up a much of a fight. ::lol::

It's a bit sad that you don't have as much choice for bricks in WA. We ended up having to upgrade a bit on the bricks -they were category 2. So many beautiful bricks around but everything we liked was a Category 6!

themax · Jul 19, 2009 2:39 pm

charlie, love your block, house plans and the colours you have chosen so far. Looks great. Looking forward to watching your new home develop. Good Luck with your build.

Manda · Jul 19, 2009 4:35 pm

Quote:

Manda, we thought about going with laminex, but the only thing my husband really really wanted in this entire build was to get Caesarstone benchtops!

He was a smart man!! I had free granite benches for kitchen and utility areas but there wasn't a nice white choice so I went with black. But i wish i had upgraded to the cesarstone white bench top. Everytime i see it i regret saving a few dollars!!

How long do you think it will take to build your house? I have been wondering if it is quicker with frames for the internal walls as opposed to bricks (that are usually done in WA).

charlie · Jul 19, 2009 8:59 pm

Thanks Themax!

Manda

How long do you think it will take to build your house? I have been wondering if it is quicker with frames for the internal walls as opposed to bricks (that are usually done in WA).

We've been given 260 days for the build in our contract, which I understand is very generous for a small single-story house like ours. Things will slow down a lot during the Christmas/New Year period. We're hoping for March, earlier would be great! But I'm really not sure about the time differences between frames vs bricks for internal walls.

thechlochlo · Jul 22, 2009 1:57 pm

Congratulations, Plans and Colors look fantastic can't wait to see the progress hear about your experiences.

All the best

Issy79 · Jul 24, 2009 10:54 pm

Hi,

Lovely house and colors looks really good. It is similar to Grandview.

That was first house we saw and really loved, but it cant fit. Went with Henl3y and its been 7 months and getting frustrated and going nowhere, bcz they said now during tender the house cannot fit the way we wanted.

Was thinking of changing the build, how was your experience with Santorini(Metricon).
One of my friend is building with them, they seems to be quite expensive and resistant for any change.

Regards,
Ismail

charlie · Jul 25, 2009 9:53 am

Hi Ismail,

How disappointing that your house won't fit on the block, especially when it has been such a long time coming! Very frustrating!

We have an odd-shaped block and had trouble finding a plan that fit well also. We chose our builder based on the fact that we liked the Santorini (and it actually fit!) and also because the sales consultant was extremely helpful. The sales team from another company we were looking at were just too busy and too slow with information. Because we were in a hurry to get everything sorted in time for the First Home Buyers Grant we decided to go with M.

Our experience has been pretty good so far. They seem to run things efficiently. Our problems/frustrations have been related to specific individuals rather than the company as a whole. I wouldn't be surprised if it's more expensive than others - especially in upgrades etc - but it's a bit hard for me to judge since we didn't get very far with other companies. We've found them extremely helpful with the changes that needed, even last minute changes. Now that we've signed the contract though, I imagine they'd be pretty resistant to change.

Good luck with things - hope everything gets sorted out for you!