Lilac's Build-Custom W/Kurmond Homes - A bit of Extravagance

Well like most people I have been a bit of a stalker on H1 for a while. I have my own blog, but that is more of a record keepsake of our progress as we travel on this roller coaster.

I have so far found the information and help from others on this forum to be invaluable, so thought I would start my own thread here too.

So our journey so far:

We bought our land in July 2010
Signed with Kurmond Homes July 2011
Finally got DA Approval in June 2012

It has been a rollercoaster to say the least,, however we are almost there now and I can see the light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel.

We designed our home ourselves and got an architect to do the plans for us. We are on 4777sqm in a nice estate and needed to adhere to certain guidelines the community council required in order to keep everything within a rural look and feel.

Once our plans were finalised we approached several builders but struggled to get anything within our price range... Tip no.1 - great to design a home but you then have to be able to afford to build it.

Luckily for us we found Kurmond homes and everything started to happen finally until we reached council.

Council were ridiculous and I needed to do a lot of chasing and following up here otherwise we could not have afforded our home. Due to our area being near one of the options (yes.... just a possibility) that could host the 2nd Sydney Airport, they wouldn't approve our plans without an acoustric report as one of the proposed runway directions could effect our land. $,2,000 for someone to come in and change the name/address on all the other reports in the estate to say you need double glazing and other modifications - all of which we could not afford.

All council went by everytime I called was our address and even though I didn't think we were within the 20 ANEF lines (minimum zone - outside of this nothing is required to be modified. the zones increase to 30 - 40 etc the closer you get to the airport site. The closer you are the more modifications you need) they were persisten in saying we were. I called about 5 times on this spoke to 5 different people with the same response so finally took steps to get the report. Then I noticed when I looked closer on their acoustic map our block and we were just outside the line. 3/4 of our estate are effected but our actual street was not. Also none of our neighbours had paid for one either -

So long story short - went to the aviation authorities in ACT. He too first said we were effected and when I sent him the map off councils website he looked closer. Lucky we have acre blocks as I could actually see our block on the map and we were not affected. he took a google maps shot and drew the line on it - yes we missed it by 700m. So no acoustic report no extra cash required (could have been up to or over $30k) and we carried on, this however lost us 2 months. The most frustrating part was - when I called council with the news they put me through to the main person, he looked up our address and straight away said we did not need a report why could not anyone else see what he saw and save us a lot of hassle.

Once plans were approved - they approved with us using only DEB and for some reason no fill (again - their reuglations are up to 1m cut and 1m fill) but not for us... we had 1m cut and NO fill.... Why - because they don't like people building the levels of their blocks too high..... Well when you have a 70m back garden... don't think 1m of fill is going to change too much once you batter it out... and it hasn't. Only having DEB's was adding another $30k to the build as we needed stairs etc as we were left with a 1m drop at the back from our Alfresco. This was another fight I won't go in to - but went above our officer's head and finally they allowed 1m of fill across the back and again - we moved on.

Once those plans were stamped, we have had a pretty good run and luckily great weather (only 1 rain day)

So we are currently at lock up and our tiling has just been completed for bathrooms. Tilers worked through Christmas and so happy for that but a little dissapointed with the job - our wall and floor grout lines aren't alignedthey only miss by a little bit but I am really pedantic on that. forgot to ceck teh main bath and and powder rm, but just hoping once all the bath, vanities towel rails etc are in, it will not be so obvious... I think it's just me.

They do need to fix our shower though - They didn't tile flush with the shower angle and we have this metal strip sticking up about 10mm above the tiles running across the shower door opening. We don't have a door so needs to go - again, will update after conversations next week.

Kurmond have been good in rectifying any issues, so hopefully this will be the same.

So our colour scheme is:
Brick - PGH Smooth face- Nutmeg
Portico Render - Taubmans Athena
Garage doors, fascia, windows - Surfmist
Gutters - Woodland Grey
Roof - Colour through concrete shingle tiles

Internal:
Doors/skirtings/architraves - Taubmans crisp white
Walls - Taubmans Crystal Gazing
Feature walls (family/meals and Lounge) - Taubmans Foxtail

Kitchen
Doors - Taubmans crisp white (poly bevelled edge)
bench - QQ - Luna White (50mm)

Bathrooms:
Vanity - taubmans coffee cake
tops - QQ Mocha (20mm)

Floor Plan:




Facade:


So here we are. Welcome to our journey and I look forward to sharing what I can with you.

Once I have some time a bit later I will add some photos.