Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Fern Bay Anyone 161Nov 30, 2012 7:18 am Thanks everyone. We have decided to go with MJH and are going to build the Garden Retreat one, only major change will be swapping the positions of the master bed and home theatre so we have a loungeroom at the front and bedroom further back. Re: Fern Bay Anyone 163Dec 03, 2012 8:11 pm Miss Windsor Thanks everyone. We have decided to go with MJH and are going to build the Garden Retreat one, only major change will be swapping the positions of the master bed and home theatre so we have a loungeroom at the front and bedroom further back. Congrats, we are doing MJH too, we have our colour selection tomorrow, it's getting exciting. Re: Fern Bay Anyone 164Dec 04, 2012 5:59 am Oh cool! I think we'd be doing ours in the new year, doubt we'll get in before Christmas! We got an sms notification yesterday our revised tender is done, have to organise everything via email at this stage so hoping it comes through today for me to look at! Re: Fern Bay Anyone 165Dec 11, 2012 1:22 pm Hi The_Lalas, we are also building in Grove st. We have our electrical appointment on thursday. So I guess that makes us a little ahead of you both at ths stage. What design did you go for? We are building the Parkdale from the gen1 collection, mjh. Re: Fern Bay Anyone 166Dec 12, 2012 6:07 am Well we've got our pre-colour appt booked for the 18th Jan, had to move it back a bit as the week before was my hubby's first week back after Christmas break and no way could he take a day off. Looks like we will have a fair bit of travelling to do in Jan and Feb! Re: Fern Bay Anyone 167Dec 16, 2012 10:39 am RandL Hi The_Lalas, we are also building in Grove st. We have our electrical appointment on thursday. So I guess that makes us a little ahead of you both at ths stage. What design did you go for? We are building the Parkdale from the gen1 collection, mjh. Finally got through the colour selection process, I guess that's us for 2012. Next year we'll sign off on the final plans. How long after the prelim plan appointment and finalising your colour selections (roughly) did you sign off your final plans? Then how long after that to your electrical? Re: Fern Bay Anyone 168Jan 20, 2013 7:59 pm Lalas, we've got our colours in 2 weeks now, I don't feel like I have enough time to decide, pre-colours was on Friday just gone. For everyone, if you had external colours that varied from the rather short and somewhat outdated list of 'approved' colours, was it a big issue? Half the things on the list aren't even available anymore and most of the bricks seem to be red, federation style things, totally NOT what we see when we go up there. We're looking at Austral Urban one in Latte or Bowral in Murray Grey, both browny/grey bricks and then a darker grey/blue roof tile (but not super dark as most of the 'approved' ones seem to be). Re: Fern Bay Anyone 169Jan 21, 2013 10:33 am Colour options are a guide! Of which some people dont seem to give two hoots abouts. If you have an idea just email Damian Carpenter damienc@aspengroup.com.au If he is still looking after I am not entirly sure or Cindy at sales can point you in the right direction. Once you complete your colours council needs the approval from Aspen before granting approval. I sent Damien and few options to get his thoughts and therefor likelyhood of approval before hand. Colours can do your head in, all we did is drive around new estates and took photo's of ones we liked, stalked this forum for pictures of completed houses and then read back through blogs etc to see what they used. Most display homes can tell you what specific colour codes and brick types they used aswell. Good Luck! Re: Fern Bay Anyone 170Jan 21, 2013 10:39 am I'll email Cindy and ask, thanks. We picked some on the weekend after being out at Austral Bricks and then having a drive around the estate and we thought they matched what was there but when we read through the design info the list was very different which threw us! Re: Fern Bay Anyone 171Jan 21, 2013 11:42 am I think it really depends on the day! The one thing they are really looking at is I think only 20% of the front facade can be face brick, the rest has to be painted or rendered. There has been a few changes to the guidelines so make sure you download the latest 2012 one. I still had the 2010 or 9. There may even be a 2013 who knows. I think different people have approved different houses and some people just dont care if approved or not. Although the colours seem limited it is more of guide. At the end of the day its your house and in general I think the estate still has a great look and feel. Its not meant to be an identical townhouse development and in the most part I think people have done a pretty good job! There are no bright pinks ones yet! Re: Fern Bay Anyone 172Jan 22, 2013 2:55 pm From our experience they were after earthy tones for brick colour, they were very firm on the face brick having to be broken up, even firmer on the roofing, and most strong on the garage door colour. In the end common sense prevails, and as a plan B if the one you really want is already in the estate then pointing out the lots that already have it is a useful bargaining approach. Re: Fern Bay Anyone 173Jan 22, 2013 7:09 pm They've changed the guidelines AGAIN from the hardcopy I got at the end of last year. New copy on the website. WW did they want you to have a timber look garage door? I read that in there somewhere but there are plenty in the estate that don't. Other than that, we're generally within the colour palette. They do say they encourage light coloured roofing for solar efficiency throughout the guidelines and then offer suggestions for really dark colours (esp tiles!) at the end though! Re: Fern Bay Anyone 174Jan 22, 2013 7:14 pm Yes the knocked back our first design because of the timber door design (which would have looked shocking with our colour and material choices). Thankfully there were 5 houses with a similar door well ahead of us Re: Fern Bay Anyone 175Jan 23, 2013 6:43 pm @ Miss Windsor, Nah no troubles with our external colour selection, however we were perplexed by how some people didn't have bag and paint finishes on the front of their house. Given the large 'penalty for damages' in the agreement, we found it odd that some houses could be built without it. We've signed contracts with McDonald Jones today, I remember talking to them about a $5,000 rebate that was available if we used a builder who had a display homes at Fern Bay. How did everyone else go about claiming this? Re: Fern Bay Anyone 176Jan 23, 2013 9:08 pm I don't think we can use that rebate, had a look the other day and it said 'signed a building contract within 12mths of land settlement'. Our land settled at end of Dec '11 and we've accepted a tender but aren't up to signing a contract yet. Bummer. Hopefully yours works out, you were in Stage 11 or 12 yeah so land settled more recently? (I'd heard from our neighbour that Aspen are looking at getting out of the land development game and are looking for a buyer for the estate so perhaps claim sooner rather than later! Anyone else hear anything about this?) I saw a few without bag and paint but figured they might have said in their application they would DIY it after handover. We also negotiated our 'penalty' down quite substantially so if they tell me they don't like it they can go jump, possibly cheaper to pay the penalty than pay for render for us. (But we're rendering over half anyway...) Re: Fern Bay Anyone 177Feb 10, 2013 4:14 pm Looking at a fantastic block at Lot 104 Paperbark Court. A steep block but has so much potential and much more interesting that the rest of the flat blocks now available. Really big too! Does anyone know of steep land specialist in the area? Re: Fern Bay Anyone 178Feb 10, 2013 7:44 pm I think M0ntgomery are meant to have a few sloping block designs but ours is flat as a tack so no real idea! We had our colour selections on Friday so I guess it's full steam ahead now. Re: Fern Bay Anyone 180Mar 06, 2013 6:26 am Have our contract plans and despite lots of checking by both of us we can't find any errors and I can't decide if that's good or worrying! We really didn't make many changes to the plans though. Just did my bushfire assessment which I found difficult as it's all 'managed land' now within however many metres it was of our house so I'd go through all these calculations and then realise it didn't apply. But for $600 it was probably worth having a go to do it myself. Next I think we have to organise to move our tree as it's in the middle of our proposed driveway. It was replaced before Christmas as it died off, too bad they couldn't move it then! Wondering if we should just duck up and do it swiftly one night or if there's an 'official' process... Wish you all the best. Once you signed the contract, they will find millions excuses to charge you. And have seen their sites unfinished for a long time. 4 25268 As title suggests, looking at using the interlocking Pentablock stacked stone products to replace failing timber retaining… 0 18279 I am building in claymore NSW and this is shown in the building envelope plan. … 0 10379 |