Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jun 14, 2011 12:25 am . Act one, Scene one, The Story Begins........ Ignore the "For Sale" sign..Rip off the "Sold" sticker, Pull it out of the ground altogether............ As of last Tuesday (7th June 2011) we're officially the proud owners of 664 M2 of land at Blackwood Park. We currently have a large (5 bedroom / Lounge / Dining / Family / Pool / Spa) house that we built so many years ago with A.V. Jennings. It's been a good house and it's served us well, but now Girl-Child is married and we suspect Boy-Child won't be too far behind, it's time to consider, as they say, "Downsizing". We've been looking around for "The" place for a couple of years now, we've considered buying a smaller house closer to the city, we've considered buying a "knock-down" house and we've considered the "build from scratch" approach within the same "general" price-range. A smaller house close to the city in our price-range would invariably be an older house in need of much additional (bathroom / kitchen / structural) time, effort and money to bring it up to an "as new" standard. We were unable to find a knock-down and rebuild in our price-range in the areas we were looking at. In the areas we were looking at, the house prices (for the land) was a significant percentage of our budget. Hence we always seemed to come back to the "Building" option. Maybe the writing was on the wall a couple of years ago, we (very, very) briefly had a block on hold on Highfield Drive, Blackwood Park, until we found out that it had "significant" trees on it !! Then not too long ago Mrs P_D came home and said that she'd seen a great block at Blackwood Park. We had a look, and another look, and looked yet again, and ended up finding two blocks that would suit us. However, one of them was designated a "Premium" block, and as such had a requirement that you had to build a very large house on it. Did I mention that the object here is for us to "Downsize" ?? That and a couple of other things led us back to the block she had originally seen. We put a hold on it, thought about it, and decided to go ahead with the purchase. Things happen as they do, and it was a few more weeks before both us and the agent were able to meet and do the paper-work. The rest, as they say, is history ! Hopefully this post will anchor our little place on the Interweb where we can tell of our joys and sorrows, of our uplifting experiences and our disappointments, of our trials and tribulations and of our pieces of gold !!!! Cheers, P_D. . Block settled 07 June 2011 Our little piece of the Interwebs on HomeOne....... viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48577&start=0 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 2Jun 14, 2011 9:14 am Nice one P_D, good luck with pitching your tent, I look forward to watching things progress! Homestead Homes SA: The Lamont Bayswood Estate; Aldinga Beach Preliminary Signing: April 2010 Floorplans: 13 June 2010 Building Contract: 19 June 2010 Selections: 28 Sept 2010 Scraped; Trenching: 21 Jan 2011 Slab Poured: 28 Jan 2011 Framing: 17 Feb 2011 | Completed 24 Feb 2011 Roof & Gutters: 02 Mar 2011 Bricks: 03 Mar 2011 Wire-up: 12 Mar 2011 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 3Jun 14, 2011 12:26 pm Congrats on the land.....i love blackwood park. are you going to have to do a split? what builders are you looking at? goodluck with everything ![]() Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 4Jun 14, 2011 12:56 pm congratulations on it all being settled - the fun starts! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43937&start=0 Bought a block in Golden Grove - Jan 2011 Finally finished our design, Mar 2012, *yay* Signed with ADH council consent June 12 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 5Jun 14, 2011 4:38 pm Hi Guys, Thanks for the thoughts, at this stage, apart from "something smaller" we don't really know what we want !! ![]() Congrats on the land.....i love blackwood park. are you going to have to do a split? what builders are you looking at? The block is 19m wide at the street, sloping "up" from there. While we could probably get away without a split, at this stage, preliminary thoughts seem to indicate that one or two small splits may be in order to reduce the requirements / necessity / size of retaining walls. We've only had a "kick the tyres" look at some builders, but at this stage we've seen some good things about Dechellis and they seem to get good reviews, based on just who your sales consultant and colour selection consultant is !! ![]() I'm sure it'll get worse, much worse, but at this stage we could put in a real fire-place and feed it for three winters with the various product catalogues, builders brochures and Home Improvement Centre handouts. P_D . Block settled 07 June 2011 Our little piece of the Interwebs on HomeOne....... viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48577&start=0 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 6Jun 14, 2011 5:10 pm welcome, I love Blackwood Park as I grew up in the area (still there now) and will be sad to move out of the area. In regards to chosing builders I would show them a couple of picks of the block and your soil report when initially looking at style of house to guage if you need split leveling or not. We were slugged with a split when it got to council and by then we were in too deep. Look forward to following! Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 7Jun 14, 2011 10:40 pm Hi P_D Our block rises from front to rear so we decided on a 300mm split from the start, a 1m fill at front and 1m cut at the very back of the block. Many of the Blackwood Park blocks have sandstone about 1m down, mine included, that has caused us extra costs, including retaining. Even with a soil test they can still charge more when they hit rock. As far as builders go, do not procede until you are confident with who you sign with, remember you are the customer. Slab poured 21/04/2011 Frame finished 27/05/2011 Moved in 07/11/2011 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 8Jun 15, 2011 12:09 am Thanks guys, newbuilder1, Mrs P_D has always loved it up there, hopefully we'll be as happy up there as you are ! newbuilder1 / 71monaro (should I call you HG or HQ ![]() I ask as in our "tyre-kicking" when we have mentioned to sales consultants which block it was, their "top of the head, don't quote me" responses and prices ranged from "It's no big deal, just a bit of extra concrete, somewhere around the $4,000 mark" to......."OMG, you'll need piers half-way to China, somewhere around the $20,000 - $40,000 range". It should be mentioned that the latter, the highest price by far, sent us an email shortly after saying that his company had been bought out and he no longer worked for them, but he still had contacts in the industry and would be pleased .............. I guess we're fortunate that at our stage of life we're probably a bit older and more cynical then we were when we built our existing house, so hopefully we'll be able to forge a good working relationship with our builder. Of course, with age comes maturity (or so I'm informed, not sure when mine will be arriving ![]() We're not under the usual pressure that many younger home-builders face, we have a perfectly good home that we live in now, and have no need to sell it until our new house is built so any rush / pressure / got to get it finished / ploys will be falling on deaf ears. Well.....That's the plan, of course as the Bard, Robbie Burns, said.........."The best laid schemes of mice and men....." Cheers, P_D . Block settled 07 June 2011 Our little piece of the Interwebs on HomeOne....... viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48577&start=0 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 9Jun 15, 2011 9:51 am Some sage words of advice there ... good luck with chooosing a builder and seeing through all the flannel that they dish out!! For info on our build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43093 Built the McLaren by Dechellis - slab down 22 Feb - handover 30 Aug 2011 - and gardens finished 9 Dec 2012!! Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 10Jun 15, 2011 11:11 am before our "as flat as we could get" block of land was released, we were looking at the previous stage, which pretty much all houses need a split. rossdale was in our top 3 we got a serious quote from, and im pretty sure they said the valencia at blackwood park cost $40,000 in footings. have you been to that display? Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 11Jul 15, 2011 12:44 pm hi P-D Any developments yet? https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43937&start=0 Bought a block in Golden Grove - Jan 2011 Finally finished our design, Mar 2012, *yay* Signed with ADH council consent June 12 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 12Jul 15, 2011 2:00 pm Hi Guys...... We're now at the "thinking about what we're going to do" stage ![]() In the last three months the owner next to us has almost completely, almost single-handed, built a house ![]() He does this, buys a block, builds a house, sells it, rinse and repeat. His wife is an architect, but unfortunately the sort of builders licence he has permits him to build houses, but not "directly" for other people. So he can build a house "for himself" and then sell it, but he cannot build a house for me. He is putting a proposal for me that (from what I understand) would effectively see me be an owner-builder, but he would be like a "project manager". While we're "interested" in listening to his proposal, we're not sure that this is the way we want to go. Another option is The Sorrento from Dechellis, having said that, yesterday I had a meeting with a sales dude from Medallion Homes and he's going to organise a meeting with their designer. What I really want is a small builder who I can talk to and that I have confidence in the quality of his work ![]() Cheers, P_D . Block settled 07 June 2011 Our little piece of the Interwebs on HomeOne....... viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48577&start=0 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 13Aug 01, 2011 1:41 pm The sage continues ............ The dude building next door to us has almost finished, open inspection next weekend !!! I've sent the Dechellis consultant around 10 emails, still waiting to hear back from them. After a few "Did you get me emails", finally got a response, "Yes, I've received them". I had sent them block plans, contour plans, CAD drawings from a software program I've been using at home to design our house and a list of what we'd like. As to the Medallian homes consultant, he's free on Mondays, Mrs P_D has TAFE on Mondays and works the rest of the week ! I had an appointment to see him on my own today but he cancelled by TXT. That consultant also has a copy of our drawing and has seen our block !! Builders must be flat-out in SA ![]() ![]() P_D . Block settled 07 June 2011 Our little piece of the Interwebs on HomeOne....... viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48577&start=0 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 14Aug 01, 2011 2:40 pm Wow Pepsi, they sure must be busy.. I found a lot of our builder consultants took a long time to get back to us. Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 15Aug 01, 2011 3:20 pm Yes, we made similar experiences when we started taking our plans around to builders last year. I think a lot of them are not really all that interested in people that come in with their own plans as that means a lot of extra work for them. I suspect that they much prefer you pick one of their designs and just sign on the dotted line without wanting to make too many changes! ![]() When we looked, we spoke to a Dechellis consultant as well, but he appeared so desinterested during our discussions, that we didn't expect him to get back to us and indeed he never did! ![]() We found that smaller builders were much more interested in talking to us and giving us quotes. Of the 'medium sized' ones Stellar Homes and Adelaide Designer Homes were very good. Good luck with finding a builder that wants to help you build your house! Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=52680 SiteStart 19/11/11 Slab 10/12/11 Frame 17/02/12 Roof 3/05/12 LockUp 22/06/12 Handover 31/08/12 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 16Aug 01, 2011 3:28 pm ![]() Yes, we made similar experiences when we started taking our plans around to builders last year. I think a lot of them are not really all that interested in people that come in with their own plans as that means a lot of extra work for them. I suspect that they much prefer you pick one of their designs and just sign on the dotted line without wanting to make too many changes! ![]() When we looked, we spoke to a Dechellis consultant as well, but he appeared so desinterested during our discussions, that we didn't expect him to get back to us and indeed he never did! ![]() We found that smaller builders were much more interested in talking to us and giving us quotes. Of the 'medium sized' ones Stellar Homes and Adelaide Designer Homes were very good. Good luck with finding a builder that wants to help you build your house! Thanks for that, after reading a lot of good things about ADH I talked to the dude at their display village and he said that they ONLY build steel frames, no negotiation, as as we ONLY want timber frames, no negotiation, there didn't seem to be much more we could say to each other ![]() Will look into Stellar homes, haven't tried them yet ![]() Cheers, P_D. . Block settled 07 June 2011 Our little piece of the Interwebs on HomeOne....... viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48577&start=0 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 17Aug 01, 2011 3:58 pm thats not very good of medallion, their houses at blackwood are amazing! dissapointing of dechellis, nothing worse than people who dont respond. because we were so undecided on our plan, the sales guy offered for us to come into the office and draw something from scratch, and he did it after hours. who are you dealing with? Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 18Aug 01, 2011 4:07 pm ![]() thats not very good of medallion, their houses at blackwood are amazing! dissapointing of dechellis, nothing worse than people who dont respond. because we were so undecided on our plan, the sales guy offered for us to come into the office and draw something from scratch, and he did it after hours. who are you dealing with? Yes, we love the Medallion homes at Blackwood, Just around the corner from our block ![]() We're trying to deal with VW @ Dechellis ......... We had read good reports about VW here on H1 ............ Hmmmmmmm......... P_D . Block settled 07 June 2011 Our little piece of the Interwebs on HomeOne....... viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48577&start=0 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 19Aug 08, 2011 1:04 am After MANY long night nights bashing on the 'puter, here's Version 1 of our "final" plan ![]() Of course, this realises the reality that this "Version 1" is actually more like version one thousand, six hundred and forty seven and six-tenths ![]() ![]() ![]() We had a meeting with "the guy next door" today, they had the first "Open inspection" on their home today. Nearmap shows their block as a vacant piece of land as of April 24th !!! As I was away at the time, I don't know just when work commenced on their house, but even if it was the day after....That's still not bad !! Anyhow............... Your thoughts ?? Thanks, P_D . Block settled 07 June 2011 Our little piece of the Interwebs on HomeOne....... viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48577&start=0 Re: Our Blackwood Park hacienda 20Aug 08, 2011 11:08 am looks really good. i love the store room from the garage, and the huge laundry (inc toilet)! its a little small to see, but whats the bit inbetween study and bed 3? is that WIR in front of main bed? could you extend and move doorway across or put linen cupboard in the extra bit of hall way I second taking your plans elsewhere. They're yours (unless you ended up in one of those cheaper arrangements where you don't own the rights and the build will be tendered… 2 1102 of course there are legal avenues. You've already mentioned it. Sue them. I find it odd that lawyers wouldnt be willing to take on the case, given CCT evidence and… 1 24956 "Losers" "humanity" "off time" "your" "top notch" "love symbol" Sounds like ponzo is done using other people's toilets 36 26423 |