Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 10, 2013 2:46 pm After a long time searching homes, having plans drafted and almost deciding to buy an established home, my wife and I stumbled across a house and we fell in love; Mainvue's Amalfi 532. The design is a 30 square home with 4 bedrooms and a very well thought out design IMO.
The main aim of my post/blog is to go through the entire building process to log my thoughts, experiences and concerns. I'm hoping that the whole process goes smoothly. After starting to speak with Mainvue in December (and after seeing their promotions) we decided to take the plunge. The promotions and add-ons we chose were caesar stone benches, colorbond roof, double garage plus, upgraded facade and high doors to living areas. We've also made a few changes including adding an extra linen closet and deleting the 3rd toilet. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ After a little while working out the options we wanted, we booked ourselves in for the colour selection and tender in February. After a bit of a shock at the tender stage (site costs of $60k) were now working through the difficulties with MV and before signing off on the tender. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The facade but in a lighter and rendered form. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The colour palette which includes; - Monument colorbond roof, evening haze fascias and gutters - Boral chestnut standard (Cat1) bricks - A&L Anodic Grey window frames - Cedar timer look garage door - Caesarstone Cashmere bench tops throughout - Espresso Ligna under bench cupboards - Gloss parchment (off white) over head kitchen cupboards - Parchment silk finish under bench cupboards to bathrooms and laundry Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ 450mm square tile to floors and walls in all wet areas (floors only in the laundry). They look fantastic in person and look a lot like the travertine tiles on display in the Amalfi at Salt Water Coast and at only a smidgen of the cost. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Upgraded tap sets to all basins and baths. Also chose a matching unit for the showers. Our site is located in Sunbury, Victoria on a bit of a slope but our city views more than make up for that. Please feel free to make comments or ask questions, I'm more than happy to respond. MV Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 2Mar 10, 2013 3:43 pm Just have to ask. $60K for site costs!! What are they doing for that. I know you said you are on a slope, so was our build. We bought in 1300M3 of fill and still had a figure well under $10k. Just sounds a very large amount. It may pay to enquire with a private contractor and get siteworks to their satisfaction completed prior to the build commencing. Settlement 1/2/12 New Shed 23/3/12 Slab poured 27/3/12 Frame complete 4/5/12 Roof complete 1/6/12 LOCKUP 29/6/12 Our new build blog http://kareenhillsownerbuild.blogspot.com/ Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 3Mar 12, 2013 8:05 pm Hi Delatite13, The site cost included upgrades for H2 class soil, deepened edge beams (and deepened rebates), fill and agi drains around the house perimeter. The rear of the house sits around 1.6m above ground. Before we decided to build with Mainvue we had a house design drafted up and contacted a number of builders for pricing. As a result, the site costs generally came to between $50 - $70k. As the new house is over $100k cheaper than our previous design (at a similar size) I'm still fairly happy even if I think the price is rich. How did you get such low site costs? I would have though that with so much fill you would need concrete piers and retaining walls which would be well over the $10k mark? What was your slope from front to rear? Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 4Apr 09, 2013 11:01 pm We are building with Mainvue too! Awaiting tender now which was pushed back because they are real busy!! A month wait just to make an appointment!! Just wondering, how much extra in dollars were your additions after colours??? We have chosen similar colours too!! And what was the name of the tile you selected? We were after the travetine look as well but we opted for the sandstone-y looking one which was the 300x600. Whens the build date? Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 5Apr 10, 2013 8:59 am Txeateu! Wow, I'm surprised looking at your selected colour since it is very similar to ours. We are building with Henley, awaiting contract appointment tomorrow (yay!). For the tile, we were also looking for the travertine and chose the same tile as yours. However, we ended up changing to the sandstone tile (dhoon! we are having the same tile). The reason was: You know, they need to cut the tiles around the drain hole. I've never seen a Henley/Mainview display house using 450*450 tiles, so I was afraid that the cut will not be aligned. When I asked the colour consultant, she could not confirm... I really love that 450*450 tiles, though! Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 7Apr 12, 2013 10:17 pm Hi dhoon, We booked the colour appointment and the tender together even before we did our colour... The cosham colour appointment and tender were about 3 weeks away. 2 months is very long! I've read in another thread, mainview is quite slow at the start of the process. But i found Henley is up to speed. Not sure if the management is different in someway. Does mainview do colour appointment at cosham as well? Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 8Apr 22, 2013 8:38 pm mtz08... yes mainvue does do colour at Cosham... we did our there! im from the east side of town and driving all the way to the display at point cook is a bit draining.. i found that doing colours at cosham is better.. they have all the carpet and tile samples at hand.. Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 9Apr 23, 2013 1:43 pm Just wanted to drop in and say hi - we're going to be building an AM530 as soon as our land is ready later this year, so I'll be keeping an eye on your thread! - MrsT Brought first house in 2008. Renovated...a LOT. Built in 2013. Our thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=67954 Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 10Jul 04, 2013 4:13 pm Hi MrsT Thats Great! I think its a fantastic design. As a brief update, we have now signed our building contract!!! we decided to wait until 1/07 as the first home buyers bonus jumped by $3K, which is very handy. We did have some nasty dramas with Mainvue on the energy report recently. They claimed that by changing our facade, extending the garage, and have a conventional slab that our energy rating dropped to 5.3 stars! I poked quite a few holes in their energy report but decided to pay the extra for double glazing for piece of mind (and a discount). To be fair, they did upgrade our wall and ceiling insulation from 1.5 - 2.5 and 3 - 5 respectively. If we have a good run, construction will be starting in 4 weeks. Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 11Jul 04, 2013 4:17 pm mtz08 Txeateu! Wow, I'm surprised looking at your selected colour since it is very similar to ours. We are building with Henley, awaiting contract appointment tomorrow (yay!). For the tile, we were also looking for the travertine and chose the same tile as yours. However, we ended up changing to the sandstone tile (dhoon! we are having the same tile). The reason was: You know, they need to cut the tiles around the drain hole. I've never seen a Henley/Mainview display house using 450*450 tiles, so I was afraid that the cut will not be aligned. When I asked the colour consultant, she could not confirm... I really love that 450*450 tiles, though! Hi Mtz08, sorry for the late reply. I'll be keen to read your thread and see how your's turns out. Hopefully our tiles turn out good, my best friends a tiler and we will be checking out the finishes with a fine tooth comb, should there be any problems with the tiling work. Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 12Jul 05, 2013 12:30 pm dhoon We are building with Mainvue too! Awaiting tender now which was pushed back because they are real busy!! A month wait just to make an appointment!! Just wondering, how much extra in dollars were your additions after colours??? We have chosen similar colours too!! And what was the name of the tile you selected? We were after the travetine look as well but we opted for the sandstone-y looking one which was the 300x600. Whens the build date? Hi Dhoon, the tile is called "Saturnia Taupe" and we've used this for walls and floors in wet areas. I have no idea what the colour costs were but we tried to keep it all to a minimum. The only upgrade we chose were tiles, basins, taps, and cupboards. so maybe around $3k? Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 13Jul 05, 2013 12:32 pm Dhoon, they also tried to make us wait about 6 weeks for colours but I squeezed them to about 2 weeks. I would recommend that if your in a rush, you ask them for the next available appointment and they will/have usually found something sooner. Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 14Jul 21, 2013 12:38 pm Hi txateu, We are building with MV too. We're building the amalfi 528. Just saw your benchtop colour being cashmere. We also had that colour selected but we're told we had to change it as it is now a discontinued colour. Just wondering if you have also had to change your selection? All the best with your build. Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 15Jul 21, 2013 8:01 pm Hi Emptyspace We haven't been told to change it yet, but we were told that the basin and taps in one of the powder rooms had to be changed so a smaller, uglier version. We were only told after the contract was signed and surprise surprise, there was only one option to choose from no happy. Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 16Jul 21, 2013 8:05 pm Small update Looking likely to start building in the next couple of weeks, permits are in. Had a call from MV to tell us that we need t mow our grass before they start. After a trip down to the block, I don't think that any mowing will be done this weekend. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ To be honest, I don't think that we can even mow it, considering how short the grass is. Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 19Jul 23, 2013 12:50 pm Congrats! How exciting. - MrsT Brought first house in 2008. Renovated...a LOT. Built in 2013. Our thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=67954 Re: Txateu's Build - Mainvue Alamfi 532 20Jul 24, 2013 4:07 pm Thats exciting...just hope the weather holds up now...it took us a good month and a bit for them to lay our slab because the site was so damp from all the rain. Once the slab's done, things pickup quickly as they can work during the rain too. All the best. CW Thank you so much everyone. This all makes a lot of sense. I guess when you talk to a builder who butters up everything to look very polished, you get to start believing… 7 17518 thank you! do we need to get this or our builder before we commence new build on the block? 2 10404 Hi, did you get any money from insurance? if you did, does it match what you've already paid the builders? 3 9559 |