Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 28, 2010 7:48 pm Hi All - I have been reading this forum for a few weeks and thought I would start my own thread. We signed for our land in Feb 2008 and settled in December 2008. We originally signed with Hickinbotham and were building the Rochester but we decided to cancel our contract and signed with Dechellis in May 2009. Work commenced on our block on the 22/2 and our roof just went up on Friday. We are building the Sorrento but have modified the plan slightly. We increased the size of the Home Theatre and the Garage and removed the box bay window from bed 1. We liked the box bay but prefered the extra space. It has been really exciting watching our house progress especially since we first decided to build 2 years ago!! I have heard that a few people are having problems with the tilers Dechellis are using and that tiles have needed to be removed and retiled. I would be interested to hear about what the problem has been? I have attached a few pics of our progress so far for anyone that is interested! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Building the Sorrento (modified) with Dechellis Status: Paving in progress Site works commenced: 22/2/10 Pre Handover: 14/9/10 Handover: 23/9/10 My thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31665 Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 2Mar 28, 2010 7:57 pm Congrats!! Looks fabulous thus far - do you have a copy of your plans that you can put up? I love dechellis homes =) Wish we'd built with them! Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 3Mar 28, 2010 8:44 pm Hi somewoman - welcome! I will scan in some plans soon. I like Longridge homes too but the design we liked didnt fit onto our block. Did you custom design your home? Building the Sorrento (modified) with Dechellis Status: Paving in progress Site works commenced: 22/2/10 Pre Handover: 14/9/10 Handover: 23/9/10 My thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31665 Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 4Mar 28, 2010 9:35 pm We customised it about as much as they would let us!! Ours is barely the same house that they were selling - only three bedrooms remained unchanged We have a blog post on our changes here: http://house.yeoh.info/?p=16 We felt much the same about longridge and dechellis - we loved them both, and in the end it was the longridge plan that we could best modify to suit our needs, so they are who we went with. In hindsight, people building with dechellis seem to be having a much happier time of things, so given the chance again I'd have chosen differently. Your build looks wonderful so far - hope it all goes really smoothly for you. =) Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 5Mar 29, 2010 4:01 pm Gee, that looks familiar Looks great - would you mind posting some of your selections ? Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 6Mar 30, 2010 3:42 pm Hi, We are also building with Dechellis. Our site is currently having the prep work done ($30k retaining wall - ouch) and is due for the site cut on 9th April. Can't wait, as we signed up with Dechellis in August. We are currently living in a tiny house with our 4 children (one of whom is only 10 weeks old), so can't wait to see some progress on our house. We are building a modified version of the Entertainer. Looks like your house has been built very quickly, once it got started. How exciting!! Looking forward to watching your progress ... PS. Can I ask what bricks you are using on the back? We are not rendering, as the front of our house won't be seen from the road, but we want the bricks to look nice. We have chosen 'Oyster' bricks, but haven't seen many houses that use these. Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 7Mar 30, 2010 8:12 pm Hi Entertainer, Hopefully your new home will be lovely even if a bit overdue and needed from the sound of it. Do you have a thread yet? If not, start one so we can hear about your progress. Blessings to you in your tiny house. Handover February 2011 Happy with our home Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 8Apr 02, 2010 8:56 pm Hi, Your house is looking great! Can you tell me if there are Austral Chocolate Bricks?? Cause they are lovely and im really hoping that is what you have used as that is what i have picked. V Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 9Apr 12, 2010 9:56 pm evelyng Gee, that looks familiar Looks great - would you mind posting some of your selections ? Hi - sorry for the delayed reply. I am having trouble with my scanner. Unfortunately I cant get it to work to scan in my plan. Here are some of my selections: External Chocolate bricks by Austral Jasper Colourbond roof with Jasper gutters and paperpark fascias Putty by solver paints render to the front - the portico will be half a strength darker to meet our encumbrance requirements (hoping it wont be too noticable!!!) Merino windows and sliding doors Tiled Portico and alfresco - Buxibamboo tiles from Italia Ceramics Internal Dechellis Beige walls and white ceiling Ivory 600 x 600 porcelin tiles in entrance, hall , kitchen, meals and family from Italia Ceramics The ceilings are 2.7m and the portico and entrance hall is raised to 3m The kitchen and Home Theatre has a drop bulkhead The kitchen cupboards are Stonington beige in 2 pak with Smart Stone Hamilton Stone bench tops (we orginally selected Basmitti by Essa Stone but Essa Stone have changed all their colour range and the new basmatti is totally different - very disappointed!!) The owner at the Stoneware Productions said that Hamilton was the closest match to the old Basmatti. Fingers crossed it works!! Glass splashback in the kitchen The bathrooms have Stonington beige 2 pak cabinetry with Crystal salt by Essa Stone bench tops. Luckily Stoneware productions still have some of the old Crystal Salt still available We have gone for bathroom tiles very similar to the display home at Seaford Meadows. Unfortunately some of the tiles have been discontinued. I think I have covered most of the major selections. Let me know if there are any others that you are interested in. We are in the process of choosing our carpet and have found a great colour by Victoria Carpets which we may go for. We bought some external lights on the weekend as Beacon Lighting are currently offering 50% off the 2nd purchase. We bought the wall lights that shine up and down...I love those lights!!! We will have 2 on the garage and 2 on the portico. Have you gone with any of the selections on display? Building the Sorrento (modified) with Dechellis Status: Paving in progress Site works commenced: 22/2/10 Pre Handover: 14/9/10 Handover: 23/9/10 My thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31665 Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 10Apr 12, 2010 10:15 pm Entertainer Hi, We are also building with Dechellis. Our site is currently having the prep work done ($30k retaining wall - ouch) and is due for the site cut on 9th April. Can't wait, as we signed up with Dechellis in August. We are currently living in a tiny house with our 4 children (one of whom is only 10 weeks old), so can't wait to see some progress on our house. We are building a modified version of the Entertainer. Looks like your house has been built very quickly, once it got started. How exciting!! Looking forward to watching your progress ... PS. Can I ask what bricks you are using on the back? We are not rendering, as the front of our house won't be seen from the road, but we want the bricks to look nice. We have chosen 'Oyster' bricks, but haven't seen many houses that use these. Hi Entertainer Sounds like you will be very happy to move into your new home so you can have some more space. Are you building North, South, West or East of Adelaide? Wow - $30K retaining is massive!!! We had to retain at the back of our block. When we purchased the block it looked very flat but as everyone cut their blocks we ended up with 3 sleepers of retaining. Now that our house is down we still have slight slope at the back so Im not sure what we will do??? Hopefully your site has been cut by now and your slab should be down soon...very exciting!! I love the entertainer design..infact I love all of Dechellis designs. Did you make any changes to the floor plan? Our bricks are Chocolate by Austral Bricks. Dechellis now use PGH but because the display home had these bricks they allowed us to select them. I look forward to seeing your progress too!! Building the Sorrento (modified) with Dechellis Status: Paving in progress Site works commenced: 22/2/10 Pre Handover: 14/9/10 Handover: 23/9/10 My thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31665 Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 11Apr 12, 2010 10:19 pm all the sand Hi, Your house is looking great! Can you tell me if there are Austral Chocolate Bricks?? Cause they are lovely and im really hoping that is what you have used as that is what i have picked. V Hi All The Sand Thanks! Yes - our bricks are the Austral Chocolate bricks. I am really happy with them. What mortar are you using with them? We have used Brighton Lite but they look great with grey mortar too! Who are you building with? Building the Sorrento (modified) with Dechellis Status: Paving in progress Site works commenced: 22/2/10 Pre Handover: 14/9/10 Handover: 23/9/10 My thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31665 Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 12Apr 13, 2010 8:01 am Hi Sorrento, Yay i thought they were, they are just gorgeous and you dont seem to see them being used very often. Im glad though my tiny little estate (road) has 15 new houses and none have used them. I am building with Hickinbotham, signed in July last year and just had site scrape and they have layed some gravel type stuff yesterday so i am hoping that things hurry up and start happening now, i really want to get excited about this build again! Cant wait to see more pics of your house, its looking great so far! V Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 13Apr 14, 2010 8:21 pm The gyprock started today I am really happy with how the house is progressing. They completed about a third of the walls today. My SS confirmed that we will be at lock up stage by the end of April. Very exciting but I will miss walking around the house to see what has been done. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The massive walk in pantry which has access from the gararge. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The Niche that I love. There is one on each side of the entrance to the hall. I found a great florist at Glenelg that makes made to measure flower displays. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The hallway Building the Sorrento (modified) with Dechellis Status: Paving in progress Site works commenced: 22/2/10 Pre Handover: 14/9/10 Handover: 23/9/10 My thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31665 Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 14Apr 21, 2010 8:14 pm I went to the house today at about 5:30pm and the guy doing the flushing was still there working hard. It appears that all the gyprock has now been done. The guy from Sampina Joinery was there measuring up our kitchen...how exciting! I hope we get plans of the kitchen as we made a few small changes to the cabinetry which he noted at our selections appointment. I dont like not having any confirmation of these changes in writing... I might call Dechellis tomorrow to confirm. Cant wait for lock up!!! Building the Sorrento (modified) with Dechellis Status: Paving in progress Site works commenced: 22/2/10 Pre Handover: 14/9/10 Handover: 23/9/10 My thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31665 Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 15Apr 21, 2010 8:47 pm Your niche looks wonderful!! I can't believe how fast this is all going for you =) You people building with dechellis make me wish more and more that we'd chosen them!! Just wow =) Looking great =) Looking forward to the excited lockup announcement! Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 16Apr 22, 2010 11:04 pm somewoman Your niche looks wonderful!! I can't believe how fast this is all going for you =) You people building with dechellis make me wish more and more that we'd chosen them!! Just wow =) Looking great =) Looking forward to the excited lockup announcement! Thanks somewoman!! It has gone very fast so far but a bit of a hicup today...not happy! I had a call from the joinery company that was measuring our kitchen yesterday and he said that the kitchen is 150mm short on one side of the fridge and that he couldnt fit our 600mm pullout pantry We are having 2 pullout pantrys on either side of the fridge and they are both meant to be the same size!!! Our kitchen design was the same as the display home but we just increased the width for the fridge by 200mm and the extra space was going to be taken from the nib walls on each side. Our plan cleary shows the same size pullout pantrys on either side. Somehow we have lost 150mm and the cabinet maker said he could only fit a smaller 450 pullout pantry on one side. I said NO WAY - that would look terrible and was straight on the phone to the SS. He said head office would need to sort this out and I said that walls will need to come down to fix this. Sorry to vent but when it comes to the kitchen it needs to be spot on. As much as I am happy with our builder they dont like to accept reponsibility so I am hoping this gets fixed without a fight. How is your house coming along? Building the Sorrento (modified) with Dechellis Status: Paving in progress Site works commenced: 22/2/10 Pre Handover: 14/9/10 Handover: 23/9/10 My thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31665 Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 17Apr 22, 2010 11:56 pm From what I have heard from others building with Dechellis they have been very easy and quick to get onto something that wasn't done right. If it is in your plans, your contract, your kitchen drawings, anything, then it has to be done. I feel confident in your builders that they will get it right for you - and in good time. I WISH that I felt that confident about my own... Things go wrong with my build and they just bury their head in the sand and pretend that it doesn't exist. It would have been far simpler to fix the wonky wall before they had gyprocked it, and certainly before they had hung the cabinetry to it AND cut the essastone benchtops to fit perfectly in with its wonkiness. It would have been far simpler to fix the cigarette burned window before they gyprocked it, nailed it fully in place, added skirtings and architraves and generally ensured that it is immovable without permanent damage. I suspect that we'll be really causing a massive $%^& fight with them over that one! Nothing new on our house at all... SS is prolly still annoyed at me for making yet another complaint about him to head office. I haven't even written on here what the complaint was *actually* about - I'm sure that I'd completely screw my build if I told people exactly how disgusting it was and news got back to my builder or my SS. Needless to say, he's not going to make an appearance in my will. Have faith in your guy - your builders seem to actually give a damn about their reputation, they will see you right. Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 18Apr 23, 2010 10:08 am Hi Sorrento, Sorry to see you have had an issue with your kitchen. I just thought I'd let you know that we had to sign a kitchen variation list as part of our final selections meeting with Emma. The variation paperwork was provided by and signed by Sampina Joinery and then signed by us. This was a confirmation of the discussions made in our selections appointment with Sampina. I don't know if you were provided with this document, but if you were, it should document all the changes you made, and therefore Sampina or the builder would have to abide by it. Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 19Apr 25, 2010 10:33 pm Looking great so far Hopefully they have sorted the kitchen out for you Re: Building the Sorrento with Dechellis 20Apr 27, 2010 1:14 pm all the sand Hi Sorrento, Yay i thought they were, they are just gorgeous and you dont seem to see them being used very often. Im glad though my tiny little estate (road) has 15 new houses and none have used them. I am building with Hickinbotham, signed in July last year and just had site scrape and they have layed some gravel type stuff yesterday so i am hoping that things hurry up and start happening now, i really want to get excited about this build again! Cant wait to see more pics of your house, its looking great so far! V Hi All the Sand How is your house coming along? Have you got a slab yet? You will have to start a building thread. My friends built with Hickinbotham and they were very happy with them and there house looks great. Which design are you building? Building the Sorrento (modified) with Dechellis Status: Paving in progress Site works commenced: 22/2/10 Pre Handover: 14/9/10 Handover: 23/9/10 My thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31665 go upvc window frames ensure insulation under colorbond. not just sarking, lighter color roof also not sure if you have seen this viewtopic.php?t=5823 last couple of pages… 4 110567 Even if it's not being sub-divided and you want to keep it as Torrens title, you will still need to talk to a town planner or Council themselves, to see if they will allow… 1 11035 |