Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - REALLY not happy with our bank.... 141Oct 14, 2010 4:07 pm Banks enough said. I feel so bad for you Nic; that's the problem with building...one useless tradie/builder/bank and the whole thing goes to s*#t. Just keep in mind that (against all odds) it will get done eventually and then you will be in your great new house. About your alfresco area concrete; have you tried speaking to the concretors who are doing your driveway? I see you had some form work a couple of days ago but it doesn't appear to have been poured yet. I got the same guy who did my driveway (which was provided through the builder) to also do my alfresco and crossover cash in hand. Good luck with it all Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - REALLY not happy with our bank.... 142Oct 14, 2010 4:12 pm Oh and Danielle yes you can get a certificate of occupancy without carpets; typically you are only required to have tiling to wet areas which your builder will provide anyway. My bank has said they will release funds without the C of O; provided that I undertake to provide it to them as soon as I get it. Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - REALLY not happy with our bank.... 143Oct 14, 2010 4:20 pm Quote: About your alfresco area concrete; have you tried speaking to the concretors who are doing your driveway? Good idea, but unfortunatley, not do-able. Driveway was poured on monday (YAY!) but we can't get the alfresco concreting done until we get in there with a bobcat and possibly a jackhammer to break up some rock and dirt that is in the way of the alfresco. We can't get the bobcat in until we have the keys as we can't get anyone (including ourselves) onsite to do anything until the bank have coughed up the final payment. All we want at this stage is a quote and to be able to get started on the excavation and we can't even do that! Quote: My bank has said they will release funds without the C of O; provided that I undertake to provide it to them as soon as I get it. That's what our bank said as well, but after they held onto the final account for about a week and a half then turned around and said they needed a letter stating the same thing signed by our mortgage broker... only they decided not to worry about telling us that. Letter has now been signed, so we just have to wait for them to get it processed. I keep telling myself that in the grand scheme of things, this is not that big a deal, and that in just over one week we will (hopefully) be in our new home and this will all be behind us, so we are still pretty damn lucky overall. Maybe I should go and sit out the front of the new house for a little while and think "this will all be worth it in the end, this will all be worth it in the end, this will all be worth it in the end" Built the Coral Homes Hamilton 252 - moved in 20/10/2010 and loving it!! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=27215 Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - half a fence and KEYS!!!!! 144Oct 18, 2010 9:27 pm It was a big day today.... not only did the bank FINALLY come up with the money, we got the keys (and some fancy key rings and a BBQ tools set ) and we got half a fence! So happy to see the fence there so we could really get an idea of the size of the backyard... fencing guy will finish hopefully tomorrow or wednesday (he is awesome by the way... if anyone in Newcastle is after a good fencing guy, let me know and I will get you his details). Floorboards get done tomorrow, carpet goes in on Wednesday morning and we move in on wednesday afternoon! Wednesday will be 11 weeks since the slab was poured and we will be in. That has to be some kind of record! I really can't rate Coral highly enough right now - I think we hit the jackpot with our SS though... there were people on site pretty much every day and he kept us up to date the whole time. So happy with everything in the house... it is just perfect. If anyone is thinking of building with them, seriously - just do it. I honestly can't think of a single thing that I am not happy with about them. Only 11 weeks from this.... Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ to this... Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Only downer out of this is the driveway. Turns out it is a lot more steep than either of us realised it would be. Can't get our car up the driveway as it scrapes on the way up and is even worse when we reverse in, so at this stage, have no idea what we will do. Still thinking about that one, but it looks like that car is living on the street for a while... really dissapointed about that. DH is going to have a chat with the SS in the next few days to see if he has any suggestions. Our phone line here get's disconnected possibly tomorrow and I will be without a modem for a few days , so I am not sure when I will be able to post some pics, but will be back in a few days with pics of fences and floor coverings when we are in our new house!! Built the Coral Homes Hamilton 252 - moved in 20/10/2010 and loving it!! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=27215 Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - half a fence and KEYS!!!!! 146Oct 18, 2010 11:42 pm Wow! Only 11 weeks. I have heard that Coral are fast but good - looks like they lived up to their reputation. You must be getting so excited now. As for the driveway - the best thing to do would be to move the crossover so it's next to the light post, and have the driveway sweep up to the garage. You shouldn't scrape your cars then. Judie Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - half a fence and KEYS!!!!! 147Oct 19, 2010 6:23 am Judie Wow! Only 11 weeks. I have heard that Coral are fast but good - looks like they lived up to their reputation. You must be getting so excited now. As for the driveway - the best thing to do would be to move the crossover so it's next to the light post, and have the driveway sweep up to the garage. You shouldn't scrape your cars then. Judie Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunatley, not do-able... tiny little cul-de-sac and we are right near the end of the street... This is from the top of our driveway (you can't quite see it in this pic but the street lamp that you mentioned is to the left, next to the bike) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ It would only be moved a small distance so I don't think it would make too much difference to the gradient of the driveway but would make swinging in and out of the drive tricky as there wouldn't be any turning room on the road. Good idea though Built the Coral Homes Hamilton 252 - moved in 20/10/2010 and loving it!! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=27215 Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - half a fence and KEYS!!!!! 148Oct 19, 2010 12:31 pm Where is the car scraping? At the top or the bottom of the driveway. I have a extremely lowered car and over the past few years of renting have mastered a few techniques. You should see the driveway I have at the moment. Our Build https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=36661&start=40 Land Settlement - 19/07/09 Building Deposit Paid - 14/02/10 Site Scrape - 25/08/10 Slab - 01/09/10 Frame - 15/09/10 Roof - 21/09/10 Pre Wire/Plumbing - 23/04/09 Bi-Folds - 24/09/10 Bricks - 13/10/10 Plastering - 13/10/10 Cornice, skirting, shelving - 14/10/10 Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - half a fence and KEYS!!!!! 149Oct 19, 2010 2:57 pm Congrats on the keys Nic! Best of luck with the big move tommorrow, must be very excited!!!! Enjoy your last night in your old home. See you around the estate soon Built our Granton in 2010 Handover December 3rd- wooohooo! Now the hard work has began.... Retaining walls and landscaping Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - We are in and LOVING IT!! 150Oct 27, 2010 6:45 pm Well, we moved in last Wednesday and I have to say, even though it took nearly 17 months from when we bought the land (bloody developer ) it was worth every second. Absolutley loving this house.... which is a good thing as I NEVER want to move again. What a nightmare. The removalist that we had picked vanished off the face of the earth last week (fortunatley hadn't paid them yet) and everyone else we rang was either booked or charging another $400 more than what the first guy quoted. So, in the end, we hired a truck and did it ourselves. Stupid, I know - you think we would have learned our lesson last time we moved, and that was 8 years ago. We have accumulated a lot of crap in the last 8 years. It wound up taking 3 days to get everything moved... settlement on the old place was at 2.30pm on Friday and we had just finished up 2.00pm. Nothing like cutting it fine. We wound up literally throwing everything from the truck into the garage here and have only just started sorting through all of that, but the house is starting to look a bit like an actual house. Also, looks like the driveway issue is in the process of getting sorted... we spent the weekend trying different angles to get up and down the driveway and found that unless we wanted to completley destroy the paint on the spoiler at the front of the car (nearly ripped the whole thing off at one point when we tried to reverse in... ), it just wasn't going to work. DH called the SS late monday afternoon and told him that we had tried to get around it, but it just wasn't working and asked the SS if he had any other suggestions. SS said he would come and take a look at it on Tuesday sometime and see what he could suggest. Then at lunch time today, I looked out the front and found there was a guy with a concrete saw setting up to get rid of the section of the driveway that was causing the problem - they are removing that whole section of driveway and re-laying it sometime next week! Once again, Coral have shown how easy they are to deal with. This is the only hiccup we have had with this whole build and they are fixing it without any hassle. Quote: Where is the car scraping? At the top or the bottom of the driveway. Scrapes at the bottom of the driveway... it is almost completely flat and then goes uphill at a fairly sharp angle and due to the fairly narrow frontage, don't really have too many options in terms of coming across the yard on an angle at all. So they are cutting it around a metre either side of where it starts to go uphill to smooth it out a bit more. DH is confident that will work, so I am really happy that Coral had the same idea. My current dilemma is blinds... we were planning on getting timber venetians across the front of the house (just the workshop and the lounge room) but I am a bit worried that with the laminate flooring as well as the woodgrain kitchen it might be a bit too much, so I started looking at white eco wood venetians instead, but I am not sure how they will look from outside - I was worried that white might be a bit stark next to the black window frames and cream bricks... thoughts please? http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o314/Nic1311/P9290061.jpg Built the Coral Homes Hamilton 252 - moved in 20/10/2010 and loving it!! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=27215 Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - We are in and LOVING IT!! 151Oct 28, 2010 4:26 pm I think a bit too white... IMHO!!! Maybe premade roller blinds??? In black???? You can get those day night rollers with the two shades? Tricky one! Ive brought all white eco blinds, didnt really think how they would look from outside so bad luck if they are bad!!! Built our Granton in 2010 Handover December 3rd- wooohooo! Now the hard work has began.... Retaining walls and landscaping Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - We are in and LOVING IT!! 152Oct 30, 2010 7:46 pm Thanks for the suggestion Danielle! DH and I ended up wandering around Spotlight yesterday to try and get some ideas - we spoke to the person there about the custom made timber venetians and I am thinking they aren't really all that 'custom' made... one of our windows is 2100 x 2100 so we asked for a price on that one and she said they aren't made in that size... I would have thought if they were custom made, they could have made them in pretty much most sizes. There was a Jarrah look one that they could do, but at $800 per window, we decided to leave it for the moment! We found some alumnium venetians that will do for now - they are a gun metal grey kind of colour... not exactly what I would have liked, but as it only cost $230 for the two blinds in the lounge room, one in the workshop and one in the ensuite, I think I can learn to like them! (Already have Romans in the bedrooms and the playroom). Once the bank account recovers a bit we will re-think it then. Driveway is still in the process of being fixed... I am hoping it is done early next week rather than later as it's DS3's 1st birthday next Saturday (where the hell did that year go???) and I have invited about 20 people over for afternoon tea... If the driveway is still wet, everyone will have to trudge up through the dirt and the mud to get in... could get messy! DH started getting ready to install the patio roof today - we have a colourbond gabled roof to go on and some sandstone pavers to lay there as well. Bought it is a custom made DIY kit from Stratco and DH and his dad are going to put it up. My poor dogs don't have a roof at the moment - just a gazebo that DH put up for some protection for them... hoping it doesn't rain too much on Monday as I am back at work so the dogs will be home on their own all day monday and tuesday - the gazebo will keep some rain off them, but I am not sure how they will go if it buckets down... Quote: Ive brought all white eco blinds, didnt really think how they would look from outside so bad luck if they are bad!!! I think that as your bricks are grey, they white would look really nice against them - there is a Mirvac house around the corner from us that is rendered a similar grey to your bricks (they have a colourbond roof though) and they have just had white venetians installed - I am guessing they are eco wood - fairly wide slats - and they look beautiful. Looks really nice against the grey. Built the Coral Homes Hamilton 252 - moved in 20/10/2010 and loving it!! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=27215 Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - We are in and LOVING IT!! 154Oct 31, 2010 8:08 am Good job with the blinds- $230 is a bargain, id live with that too! I just want something other then sheets on my windows- I brought the blinds so hubby had no excuse, we would have had sheets for months!!! Great that Coral are fixing your drive- im scared about ours being steep too. Are the boys still coping with the move, this concerns me the most, my oldest didnt cope when we moved here so im wondering how he will go with this move. Glad to hear you are loving your new home!!! Built our Granton in 2010 Handover December 3rd- wooohooo! Now the hard work has began.... Retaining walls and landscaping Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - We are in and LOVING IT!! 155Nov 03, 2010 11:23 am Great news about the driveway Our Build https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=36661&start=40 Land Settlement - 19/07/09 Building Deposit Paid - 14/02/10 Site Scrape - 25/08/10 Slab - 01/09/10 Frame - 15/09/10 Roof - 21/09/10 Pre Wire/Plumbing - 23/04/09 Bi-Folds - 24/09/10 Bricks - 13/10/10 Plastering - 13/10/10 Cornice, skirting, shelving - 14/10/10 Re: Coral Hamilton 252 - We are in and LOVING IT!! 156Nov 04, 2010 8:11 am Congrats on moving in!! Your house looks great. We are about to start on the stradbroke 279. We have added columns either side of the windows too and we were worried about what it would look like in brick. I am glad I have seen yours. They look great. Ask the council if there is a chance of getting build over easement exemption. Sometimes easements are unused and 24cm is not all that much. Good luck. And yes any builder… 2 13718 In Qld it is a requirement that a builder must have a cost breakdown, for building a home to the same specification, with the same inclusions and the same finish. So ask… 1 1681 I recently went through a similar renovation and move scenario when updating our family home. We also swapped some rooms around and tackled a major… 2 9745 |