Building the Drysdale 30

Hubby and I are just starting the building process. We're building the Drysdale 30 with Porter Davis. Site start is booked for August next year (our land settles in May (fingers crossed) so we're hoping we can bring site start forward. We've chosen the gable facade and will build it in hebel.

We went to Hopetoun yesterday. Wow - we left there overloaded! LOL! Luckily we are pretty happy with many of the standard items so we wont be up for too many upgrade $$$. We really like the kitchen and bathrooms in the Point Cook display so we'll probably just choose the same as the display for those rooms. Phew - that makes things much easier!

One problem with Hopetoun is that they don't provide paint chips in the colors for the windows, roofs, colorbond, and it's really hard to put the colors together b/c they're on a white background so you can't see what they look like right next to each other. So we went to Bunnings on the way home and got some Dulux color chips. We thought we liked Surfmist for the windows when we were at Hopetoun, now we're home and looking at the paint chip, we're not so keen on it and can't remember all the other colors on offer (and didn't take pics of them all).

Oh well, another trip back to Hopetoun and we'll record all the colours you can choose from for the windows and colorbond and then get the paint chips and go from there. Or maybe someone here can tell me the window and colorbond colors available for the lifestyle range?

The Porter Davis section of National Tiles weren't open yesterday so we'll have to go back anyway so we can choose our tiles.

What a beautiful house! We were overwhelmed at Hopetoun too.. Especially when there's so many different shades of what looks like the same colour..

I love the colours used in the kitchen and bathroom of the Drysdale in Point Cook. Do you know yet what the tile and laminate colours are?

We moved into our Drysdale a month ago and we love it, it's a great layout. All the best for your build!

Oh wow - so jealous!! I LOVE the layout of your home - congratulations and I hope the time flies by to construction.

Hi HomeAngels,

We went to Hopetoun last weekend and got a list of the colours etc in the Drysdale in Point Cook. Here they are:

Kitchen
Benchtop - Almond Rocca (category 2 I think) - we've chosen Osprey (category 1 - standard)
Cabinet Doors - Pumice
Overhead Doors - Oyster Linea Laminate
Glass Splashback - Starphire glass Hog Bristle 1/2 Strength



Bathrooms
Vanity Bench and doors - Divine Oak Laminate

Walls
Flokati

Tiles
Chamois Matt - Brick Bond 300x600 (upgrade)

We went to National Tile on the weekend too, we chose Portifino FA01 Shell Matt Bianco Satin 400x400 (standard range) and will probably upgrade to the small mosaic tiles like in the display


Window colours currently available in the lifestyle range:
White
Primrose
Surfmist
Jasper
Ultra Sheer Gloss (grey)



Paperbark
Satin Black
Woodland Grey




So now we are trying to work out our exterior colours. I love Porters Paints Old Stone Wall, and hope to find something the same in Dulux for the render.


Thinking that we'll go with white windows and facia, and Windspray for the roof, garage door, gutters, etc

Tomorrow we're meeting again with our Sales Consultant to go over our quote.

Construction has started on our estate. Very excited to see trucks and diggers, gravel and pipes on the land (they are there, it just hard to see in the pic, I'll take my camera next time rather than the phone)

OOooooOOooooOoooo..... very nice. Thanks for sharing

We've changed our minds. Lol! We've now decided to go with brick instead of hebel. We went driving around some of the newer housing estates in our area and after seeing a house that was only partially rendered, we decided that we would go with brick with a bit of render. So we are going to choose Jarrah brick, with primrose/classic cream windows and garage, and ironstone roof. Tender is booked for Feb, followed by our colour, electrical, tile and contract appointments in March. So who knows, we might change our minds again!

Construction on the estate seems to be going well. Lots of activity on the land. They're currently digging a huge wide trench (which is why we have a 4m easement!) down the length of the estate.

We went to Hopetoun yesterday - we haven't been in since before Christmas. They've changed the colours available for window frames - White birch and Dune are now available in the lifestyle range - Primrose is no longer available at all (for any of the ranges) Surfmist and Paperbark are only available in the prestige range now. So we will probably go with White Birch for the windows.





Not 100% decided on our brick (typical me!!!) - now tossing up b/n Jarrah and Rouge (leaning more towards Rouge atm)




Our land is coming along well. We got the plans for the crossovers this week and need to have requested change of side (if we want it changed) by March the 1st - so hopefully that means it's not too far away from the roads going in.

We have our tender appointment tomorrow. We will finally find out how much it will cost to upgrade the kitchen. I'm actually amazed that it has taken weeks (yes weeks!!! - as in I asked at the start of December) to give us a quote to up-grade the kitchen from standard kitchen cupboard doors to the colonial style. Our SC was going to get back to us, when we were appointed our BC before Christmas, I asked her and she said she was waiting for the estimations people to let her know. Surely it's a matter of putting "Drysdale" and "Colonial Square" into a database and there you go! It's not like we are changing the layout or anything in the kitchen - it would take less time to actually make the kitchen that what it has taken to find out how much it costs.





Certainly hope the nicer doors will fit in our budget! I've always wanted nice kitchen cupboard doors. Our current home has the standard cheap white laminate that is chipping in places and is almost 15 years old.

We have sent several emails to our BC requesting quotes and such for different items over the past few weeks and in the email we got on Friday she said that they'll have those prices for us at our tender meeting on Monday. It would have been nice to have them before hand so we know before we go what to expect.

I'm happy to report that we are home from our tender appointment. It went very well. No problems.

We got there at 9am and left before 1pm (with an hour and a half in the middle - where we went and browsed the Homemaker Center at Essendon and checked out fridges and air conditioners ). Our presenter was great, nothing was too much trouble, and she was able to answer our questions and provide prices for us. Our tender came in well below our initial quote (although we know that it may still go up so we're not banking on it being lower yet)

We aren't making very many structural changes so I guess it was pretty straight forward for us.

We asked about the kitchen cupboard door costs (for profiled doors) and were told that profile doors are included, just the finish on them is what you pay for - so I've emailed our presenter to ask her to confirm that in writing before I get too excited about having nicer cupboards!

Today we had our colour and electrical appointments.

Really pleased with how it's all coming together.


Exterior Colours:

Bricks: Boral Rouge
Windows: White Birch
Feature Render: Dune
Roof, gutters, facia, downpipes: Woodland Grey
Garage Door: Dune



Internal Colours:

Walls: Lushious White
Trim: First Snow




Kitchen:

The picture below isn't a good indicator of the colours - they really do go together 'in real life!'



Bench: Osprey Caesar Stone 20mm bench and 40mm island with waterfall edge - nice!!!
Laminex: Parchment (waiting on the price for profile doors in satin finish)
Glass splashback: Limed White (Starfire glass)
Bench in Pantry: {forgot to choose it! }


Bathrooms and Laundry:

Floor and Bathroom Tiles: Shell Matte Bianco Satin
Bathroom cupboard doors and benches: Laminex Palisander
Splashback and feature tiles: will be confirmed on the weekend at our tile appointment




Flooring:

We haven't decided whether to go with the flooring package or not. While we like the look of the Bolero Timber Look Laminate Flooring (Rustic Coffee is our choice) we're not sure that we actually want a laminate flooring. I don't like the idea of how it can't get wet and I also don't like how it's clicky when you walk on it.

So we're looking at the Allura Vinyl Plank flooring that is available at Harvey Norman, and then will get carpet elsewhere. Hopefully the vinyl plank will come up on sale before handover. To save $ we'll install it ourselves (it's really easy to DIY and it certainly is within our skill ability to do it).



Allure Vinyl Plank Flooring - Vintage Oak Cinnamon


Electrical Selections:

Basically we doubled the number of power points, threw in a few extra lights, added in some LED down lights and added some two way switches. We are putting a power point inside each of the vanities (handy for rechargeable shavers and toothbrushes, gets them off the bench), one in the broom cupboard (for the dust buster) as well as three in the pantry. We certainly didn't do anything extravagant and will put in our exterior lights after handover (they will be wired up and ready to go).



Land:

The land is coming along in leaps and bounds! So exciting! They've got most of the gutters in now. Hopefully it won't be too long!

Love your colour selections. I can't wait to see it all come together

Yay! It's coming along so quick. Gorgeous Street Lights!

Still are being told settlement on the land is July. Grrrrrr.

We were originally told that "settlement will be April/May, worst case scenario June" - they've only had a couple of inclement days so there's no reason why they should now be saying July esp as it seems like only the roads, footpaths and crossovers are to go in - every time we go past there's always work going on (apart from on Sundays). Maybe they don't want to settle till after the parkland is all finished off - who knows. Maybe it's just the agent being ...... well I've been taught not to say anything if you can't say anything nice.

Oh no it must be a hard wait.

I just had a look at your colours again and we've chosen some similar colours in places.

Lol. Thanks! Your colours are very nice too. Look forward to seeing it come together for you!

Still no news on when our land will settle - nothing much seems to be happening there. There's still a big lot of dirt and rocks that they need to move and then the final surface of the road can be done.

We have a driveway - finally - so that's exciting...

Hope you don't have to wait too much longer for registration - your estate looks lovely! We are building the Drysdale 27 with Eden Brae in South West Sydney (very very similar layout). Just got registered last week after a 4-5 month delay It's a beautiful house isn't it!?

We think so too Congrats on your land being registered!

Love how you've made the study into another WIR! Great idea! Looking forward to following your progress too.

Congrats on the driveway crossover being put in

Good to see movement, a crossover should mean almost all of the underground work is done. Fingers crossed it will not be too much longer for you