Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Tile Selections 21Mar 23, 2013 11:09 pm gorgeous, those mosaics are just lovely. I picked my tiles and was worried about the being too dark but they are so light. it is really hard to get an idea of wht they are going to look like laid, but I think a white tile will balance them nicely. Well done Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Basic Plans Added 22Mar 25, 2013 9:01 pm the_elliotts I'm having second thoughts about the dark benchtops though - I would normally go for light coloured benches. After a few days thought and some more show home visits we have decided against the dark benchtops in favour of white ones. Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Tile Selections 23Mar 25, 2013 9:52 pm I like lighter bench tops as well. I am sure you wont regret that change, sometimes you have to trust your instincts Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Tile Selections 24Mar 26, 2013 10:29 am I love your house plan.. its amazing! you must be so excited. Toilet for outside is different and smart thinking. Thanks for the tip about google sketchup and sweethome 3D.. will try it. Home Group WA Monte Carlo Timeline on Page 1 Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Tile Selections 25Mar 26, 2013 10:34 am Well thought out plan - especially love the pool We picked mosaics too. So elegant and timeless Custom downslope build Build thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=61873 Blog http://www.buildingroyalmanor.blogspot.com.au Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Tile Selections 26Apr 03, 2013 3:13 am the_elliotts Hi backtrack - early days for us with Ravlich at the moment - we're still trying to get the working drawings completed. They've gone back a few times because we are really pedantic about a couple of things and to be fair they have been really patient with us about it. So I'd have to say so far so good, but watch this space. Hi The_Elliotts and Backtrack We are currently building with Ravlich! Its been a long process. To start, like many others we started with spec-home builders, including: Colier Homes, Stratawise, Scott Park; and we also looked at a smaller builder 'Tonic Homes'. We looked at their spec homes that could fit on our block (we have a rear strata block of app 500m2, 15m frontage) then stated to do some modifications to suite us. With 'Tonic' we let them come up with a design. We persevered with 3 of them (Tonic, Stratawise and Colier). There were huge difference between the companies in how they handled the jobs and what we got from them before they wanted some payment and commitment - but that's for an other time. That took almost a year, but we were never fully happy with the designs, so we did not proceed with any of them. We decided that we needed an independent designer to draw up our house based on our instructions likes and dislikes etc.. and then (because we own the copyright) tender it to various builders. At the same time I was looking at software I could use to try and design it myself, and after trying a few, I purchased 'Home Designer Pro' One of the reason I choose this one is because it is the 'DIY' version of a professional architectural CAD program called 'Chief Architect' Its an object based CAD program, so should be easy to use. During a visit to a 'Home Show' we stumble across a building broker 'Better Building Prices' We told them what we want and they put us in touch we a design firm (The Design Mill) As it turns out they are using 'Chief Architect' so I made it a condition that we will get the copyright and all the digital files of the design. To cut a long story short, we got a design we liked, we got all the digital files and I could use them in my software and do what ever changes I like (move internal walls, windows, doors, etc..) place furniture, floor covering, paint the walls, even enter our coordinates (longitude, latitude) and see how much sun will come in/be shaded at any time of the year, etc.. The building broker then tendered the plans and Matthew Ravlich was one of tree builders we considered. Its almost a year ago when we first meet with them at our building site. They seemed friendly, competent and eager to get the job. After a few more meetings, we signed a PPA in June 2012 and paid them a sizable deposit (3.25% of the estimate). First thing they had to do was to move our plans into their CAD system as they did not use 'Chief Architect' I don't know what happen, but their designer/drafter (a sub-contractor) completely botched the job!? virtually all the dimensions were changed, the house width shrunk by almost 1 meter, the windows moved, it was a complete mess! we had to communicate back and forth several times, and after 2 months and 4 drafts they finely got a plan that was app 99% what I started with! I was not impressed with their drafter! If it was not for the 3.25% deposit paid and the time invested, I would have called it quit! Then it was time to work out the engineering, site-works, retaining walls, soak-wells, etc.. that took a while (My block is sloping in both directions, the difference between the lowest and highest point is app 2 meters) and added app 20% to the quote. To accommodate the sloping land, the house has 3 levels and I was almost certain we would need to build retaining walls and I expected the site-works to be high, but the builder and/or engineer thought they do not need any retaining walls (my neighbour on the high side has a limestone retaining wall, but when a checked how deep into the sand they go, I found that they sit on the sand just 100mm below the natural ground level and have not footing!?) I pass that information on to my builder, but still they thought they do not need retaining walls! After a few more pricing and amendments, be signed the building contract mid October 2012 and paid the balance of the 6.5% deposit of the now inflated price, and then waited for council approval. A few days later my builder requested that I get 2 of my neighbours to sign a 'BA20' form, as we are building the garage wall on the boundary, we needed their approval. That took about 6 weeks. First surprise came about 2 weeks later in early December 2012 when the builder send me a variation for me to pay for the 'Planing Permit' I though it was included, but when I re-read the contract it became clear that only the 'Building Permit' was included not the 'Planing Permit' - check your contracts! By that time it was getting close to Xmas, but still hopping I would have planing approval before the xmas break! alas I got planing approval end of February 2013! The building contract got approved 2 weeks later in mid March 2013. To their credit, the builder 'Ravlich & Clent' started within a week, I was all exited. Alas, as soon as they started to cut and fill the site, they realized that they will need to retain the existing retaining wall!? arrgg..!? I told them so! I have to find an extra $5,000 for a retaining wall before they can continue Its to early to say that I'm happy with them or not, but we certainly had some hiccups?! Stay tuned for the next chapter. Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Tile Selections 27Apr 05, 2013 8:39 pm Hi chameau, many thanks for your input and the heads up on the planning permit costs. Reading between the lines it would suggest that your build required not only a building permit to be issued bit also required full planning permission which probably explains the extra costs not included in the contract. Still a sore one to swallow! I can feel your frustration about the retaining walls etc and it does make us a little nervous as our plans are now out to the engineer and they are the guys who have to specify things like the retaining. I guess that luckily for us retaining isn't an issue but the pool being close to the house leaves me hoping the engineer does his sums correctly! As for the draughting - you'd expect these guys to have good attention to detail but whoever R&C use is sadly lacking in this area! Our plans were handed over with all dimensions etc and what we got back had some mistakes I wouldn't have expected from my 5 year old! However, we've tried to keep a sense of proportion through all of this and just accept that we need to double check everything ourselves and not rely on anyone else automatically getting things right for us. We still have positive feelings about R&C and so far have had no reason to think that we made the wrong decision choosing them to do our build. Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections Updated 28Apr 05, 2013 9:35 pm So, selections almost complete now - so we've listed below the main options we have gone with.
Tiling selections for bathrooms and wet areas are slightly changed from previous post so that we now have Glacier White Corian benchtops used throughout the home instead of the dark benchtops we had chosen previously. Also changed the floor tiles to 300 x 300 instead of the 600 x 300 previously chose. We feel floors just look nicer with square tiles instead of rectangular ones. Ensuite Vanity in Laminex Washboard with Corian Glacier White benchtops and Seima SBC-012 basin. Laminex Washboard - sorry no image but the one on Laminex site is rubbish anyway! Wash basins: Seima SBC-012 with chrome popup waste - Basin Mixer: Merito swivel tower mixer - Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Shower Mixer: Merito wall mixer - Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Shower Head: Methven SatinJet on ceiling mounted shower arm - WC: Seima Maxin BTW Pan - Bath: Napoli 1700 double ended hob bath - Bath Mixer/Filler: Merito mixer and swivel spout on back plate from Vito Bertoni - Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ All accessories from the Seima SBA-100 range Family Bathroom Exactly the same options as the ensuite Inside Powder Room Vanity and benchtop same as ensuite. WC: Seima Maxin BTW Pan = Same as ensuite above Wash Basin: Seima SBC-212 with chrome popup waste - Basin Mixer: Merito basin mixer - Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ All accessories from the Seima SBA-100 range Outside Powder Room WC: Seima Maxin BTW Pan = Same as ensuite above Wash Basin: Seima SBC-514 - Basin Mixer: Merito basin mixer - Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ All accessories from the Seima SBA-100 range Laundry Cupboard Laminates, benchtops - same as ensuite Trough: Seima SBC-620 - Mixer: Merito mixer - Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Doors / Door Furniture Front entry doors: Double Corinthian INF5VG (2 x 820) - Front door handles: Trilock Align Lever set - Sorry no image Interior doors: Corinthian Decco DEC02 - Interior Handles: Amelia - Sorry no image More to follow....... Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections updated 30Apr 27, 2013 10:33 am Been a quiet few weeks but at long last our plans are finished and have been approved by the developer after some toing and froing. Should be back from engineering in the next few days then all we need is the building license and we should (fingers crossed) see some activity on site in 4 or 5 weeks time. Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections updated 31Apr 27, 2013 2:36 pm great selections heres hoping construction will start soon Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections updated 32Jul 02, 2013 11:07 pm Well, guess we should have learned by now that things always take longer than you hope for. Today has finally seen us get our building license issued from the local shire, builders have 16 working days to get to site - hopefully they won't take that long and we see some action soon! Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections updated 33Jul 03, 2013 10:27 am sorry to hear about the delays.. we got building permit about 3 weeks ago and still waiting.. fingers crossed for you Home Group WA Monte Carlo Timeline on Page 1 Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections updated 34Jul 03, 2013 11:28 pm Hi The Elliots, Have loved reading your posts on your upcoming build. We are currently at the tendering stages with HBA and are considering Ravlich and Clent for our build. Our house is on a sloping block 1.4m falling to the back right hand corner and we are trying to take the fall of the block within the home, making our build a split level.. Have you had any further progress with your build? Are you still happy with your builder selection? wishing you all the best The Watts's Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections updated 35Jul 05, 2013 9:57 pm Woohoo! Great news!!! All the way through this process we were told that as soon the building permit was issued they would do everything they could to get to site within a week and all credit to Ravlich - they are as good as their word. Got an email yesterday to let us know they would be on site next week - that was great to hear. Now today, I got a call asking for our independent inspectors details so they could make sure the inspection was done prior to the slab pour. I asked what the rush was only to be told the slab *should* be poured before the end of next week :0 - we're over the moon with the news. We didn't expect the slab for another couple of weeks. Thank you Ravlich & Clent!!! Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections updated 36Jul 05, 2013 10:01 pm Nicci sorry to hear about the delays.. we got building permit about 3 weeks ago and still waiting.. fingers crossed for you Thanks Nicci, as you can probably see we got some good news today - hopefully you wont have to wait much longer yourself. Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections updated 37Jul 05, 2013 10:30 pm Watts Hi The Elliots, Have loved reading your posts on your upcoming build. We are currently at the tendering stages with HBA and are considering Ravlich and Clent for our build.........Have you had any further progress with your build? Are you still happy with your builder selection? The Watts's Hi The Watts! Firstly, thanks for your comments - really glad someone else is finding our experiences useful and we wish you all the best in getting things sorted - hopefully sooner rather than later. So far R&C have done everything they said they would and the only complaint we could make is that the drawings took a lot longer to sort out than we felt they should have. There were lots and lots of really small things that should have been easily resolved but seemed to go back and forth more times than they should have. This was down to the draftsman that R&C use and not down to HBA. It's worth a little background on this point - we actually went to tender before we were totally happy with the designs but we felt we could iron out the little flaws with the builders draftsmen after we had selected the builder. This was a mistake. After things were taking too long with R&Cs draftsman I spoke to HBA about it and they said that things would definitely have been smoother and quicker if we had got them to finalize all the designs for us. It may well have been the case but we simply didn't want to 'waste' any more time than we needed to. Maybe with hindsight we should have listened to HBA and had them redo all the designs before we signed on with R&C - but hey.... Other delays between the plans being completed and getting the plans into the shire for approval were probably more down to us questioning almost every little detail, from how things would be done to how some of the costs were arrived at. I'm a software engineer and Mrs E is a civil engineer so we probably looked at things in much more detail than most and took the time to model lots of things in Google Sketchup which led to even more questions. To R&Cs credit they answered all our questions and never seemed to lose patience with us so they deserve great credit for that as well. Are we still happy with our choice to use them? Are we still happy with them as a builder? I can only answer yes to both of those questions and really, really hope that this doesn't change when the real building starts! Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - On site next week! 38Jul 05, 2013 10:39 pm Watts Hi The Elliots, The Watts's Oh, one thing I would say is that it is worth a visit to the builders showrooms before you finally select which builder to go with. What we found with R&C was that a lot of their 'standard' inclusions were of a higher quality than the others. As an example they have a range of 60 x 30 rectified tiles that you can choose from at no extra cost - in the end we didn't choose those particular tiles but we weren't charged a huge amount extra for the tiling that we did select. Most of the selections listed in our earlier posts were standard items for R&C. If you've got any specific questions and don't want to ask on an open forum just drop us a PM - we'll be happy to answer anything that we can. Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections updated 39Jul 05, 2013 11:09 pm Hi the elliots - great to see a fellow burns beach builder! Which stage release is your block? I have enjoyed reading your thread and absolutely love your floor plan! We must have similar tastes as you mentioned you were initially looking at DA stoneleigh and we are actually building a combination of the stoneleigh and another of DA displays. Looks like we will be at a similar stage too with site works having started this week. Looking forward to following your progress T Re: Our Build - Perth NOR - Selections updated 40Jul 06, 2013 12:00 pm +Tbrown2012 Hi the elliots - great to see a fellow burns beach builder! Which stage release is your block? I have enjoyed reading your thread and absolutely love your floor plan! We must have similar tastes as you mentioned you were initially looking at DA stoneleigh and we are actually building a combination of the stoneleigh and another of DA displays. Looks like we will be at a similar stage too with site works having started this week. Looking forward to following your progress T Hi +Tbrown2012, Thanks for your comments - we love the floor plan too and just hope it lives up to our expectations. We bought the very last block on release 6C opposite the new school site - we wanted a bigger block and there are only a very few over 600sqm - we were lucky that we managed to get a 700sqm block and very happy that we did. Just been having a look at your build thread and can see where you customized the Stoneleigh - I think you've made it a much ore workable plan that the standard floor plan. 1 4699 Need to remove glass panel out of concrete without wrecking the glass to get the spa room in, any recommendations on how to do that. Thank you 0 39049 |