Positive Building Experiences

Hi All,

Long time reader, 1st time poster. Great Forum, the information I have read is invaluable and will no doubt prove useful in the year to come! Thanks to all for the abundance of information.

So many posts seem to list the negative experiences they have had with their building contractors. It would be very insightful if we could start a thread with people speaking about positive experiences they have had with their builders.

With so many new homes all over Melbourne there must be a lot of positive stories, unfortunately we seem to only hear the negative ones. So if anyone has had a positive experience, it would be much appreciated to share with us all. (maybe all the satisfied people are too busy enjoying their homes to write on here)!

Hi adb,

I've had a very positive experience so far - it seems that I am one of the lucky ones. See my thread below.

http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=407

I guess that you need to identify those builders that put customer satisfaction ahead of profit. I can honestly say that my builder is one of them.

I was just thinking the same thing myself

Nearly all our clients have positive experiences (I will admit to having one that wasn't so nice - but the dispute was resolved internally, to the satisfaction of both parties - THANKFULLY!!!) But some of our clients do particularly well!

Here are few photos of a project that we did a little while back (I have approval from the client to post these - I have other projects, but not sure if I can post them yet).

The owner purchased the original house for $340,000 (I will try to find photos of it - it was pretty awful). We were contracted on a cost-plus contract to add a new garage, outdoor deck, stairwell and master bedroom, plus renovation inside and out. There were also some major drainage issues that had to be fixed that we weren't aware of when starting the project.

Final cost of our works was $185,000 - she then spent another $20k on landscaping. There was probably another $20k in fees, drafting, engineering, etc.

The house was valued on completion at $800k - not a bad little tax free (it was her primary place of residence) profit for 8 months work! Enjoy...

Me too burned... You make my heart break

Hang in there burned. Moves are afoot with your builder. The pressure is mounting on them. I know they have mention in both the 2004 and 2005 Consumer Affairs annual report, State Parliament, Building Commission magazine and are a regular party at VCAT. The Goverment can not allow Glenvill to continue as they have.

I have been reading the entire forum religiously for 6 months, joined as a member not even a week ago and yesterday took the giant leap - Colour choices!!! (Apologies in advance for the novel! )

My fiance and I had our 4 1/2 hr appointment at Metricon's Studio 501 last and could not have walked away any happier. Our home decor consultant was Natalie and she was delightful. She knew everything about us and our home and had folders of photos of the display homes of the home we are building. She was cheery and honest and didn't try to make us rush. She offered respectful educated decisions and respected that although she may do this everyday - all the decisions - even right down to the most minute detail was as big as the universe for us.

While we saw the other specialists Natalie completed our colour selection kit and was at hand to be able to review our other choices since she had the best overview of our chosen colour scheme.

The specialists - Cameron on timber flooring, Tood on outdoor living, Irene on Victory blinds and Paul on carpets - brilliant. I was so impressed by the overall service.

For an example, when we sat down with Cameron, he had outlined on the floor plan where he had assumed we would want the timber flooring, having found out that we particularly like the flooring in one display home and had calculated the cost!! All before we open our mouths! The cost ended up being a grand less than our sales consultant had quoted us, which balanced out becuase we upgraded our carpet!!

Todd the outdoor living consultant really impressed us. We have 2 close friends who have offered to do our concreting and decking at cost (plus lunch and refreshments - god bless em) and we told Todd that from the start. He could have said - oh well, see you later, but he sat with us, drew up a plan, gave us advice, showed us the different styles of drives - even detailing where to get cheap materials.

Irene from Victory was just divine. She was blatently honest regarding the cost of the plantation shutters we had thought we wanted and provided a logical pro and con of the cost and functionality. Irene was the last consultant we saw, and after 4 hours of laminex and paint and carpet and alike, she was bubbly and energised and went that extra mile at 5:30 to be able to help us.

All in all, I walked out of there in tears - both excitement and relief. The experience could not have been more positive - everything was there in one place and every one who we spoke to treated us with utter respect and recognised the weight of what we were doing - not passing it off as they see it every day.

I hope that eases anyone else anxeity... I know I walked in there with battle armour on just incase!!

Hi people!

For your viewing interest, I present to you another little reno we did (I find renos are more fun, that's why I'm posting)

This was a very tired 70s project home when we reno'd it last year. Now it's just beautiful Brushbox floors, state-of-the-art kitchen, raked ceilings, new windows, etc. etc. It didn't cost the earth either - around $180k once all was done. Enjoy!

Liv, I'm glad you had such a great experience, maybe they have picked up their game a bit since we went as ours was nothing like that.

Zenithconstructions, I just love the colour of those kitchen cabinets in the October 5 post. I've been searching everywhere for a neutral colour which isn't just the standard white/cream. Is it laminate or painted?

While we are on the subject of happy building stories, I have signed up recently with Lifestyle Homes in Perth and want to give them a big thumbs up. They have been helpful and happy throughout numerous Council problems & Plan changes (due to us being fussy and pedantic - but hey, it's our money!!!).

I realise it's the build phase where all the problems start to rear their ugly little heads, but so far so good, and we have only heard positive things through the grapevine.