First home build with Dale Alcock in Aveley: Opinions please

Whoo hoo for deliveries fingers crossed you have a brickie really soon

Hi Fancypants,

Your building looks very exciting! I am following your journey as we just purchased in Aveley and are looking at perhaps building with Dales.

Looking forward to following your journey.

Good luck with the bricks, hope they get laying soon!

Nicole

Hi Nicole, welcome to the neighbourhood! We can't fault Dales so far, they've been great (knock on wood). Good luck finding the right house for your build.

Really hope you get your bricklayer very soon fancypants

Me too dawnyc. I'm no good at this waiting game!

In the meantime we have organised our timber floors - 140mm solid Jarrah floorboards and pre-primed skirting to be installed after handover.

http://i1296.photobucket.com/albums/ag10/pants_de_fancy/IMG_1921_zpscc8426b9.jpg

We're not sure about carpets but are currently leaning towards something like this in a neutral colour. Perhaps fourth from the bottom? Or third from the top?

http://i1296.photobucket.com/albums/ag10/pants_de_fancy/carpets_zps266e7411.jpg

And we've purchased the first item for our new home - a dining set for 8 people. I can't tell you happy this makes me!

http://i1296.photobucket.com/albums/ag10/pants_de_fancy/RD1815_zps249b49a2.jpg

http://i1296.photobucket.com/albums/ag10/pants_de_fancy/2252502_zps68926897.jpg

It probably sounds silly, but when The Boy and I moved in together we were struggling uni students. Everything we have in this crappy little apartment is second hand or has been donated by family and friends. Seriously, EVERYTHING. Our bed, fridge, microwave, couch, dining table and chairs, washing machine, toaster... even our cutlery. This is the first purchase that is really 'ours'. AND IT'S NEW!! It also means we can entertain 8 people. At the same time. Unreal.

I'm so excited for the life we are building together!

Awww that's really sweet. I bet everytime you cook a meal and use your dinnerware it will give you a smile

I also bought royal Doulton set for new house. 2 sets also to go with new 8 seater dining table haha. Mine is Royal Doulton Gordon Ramsey Grey Maze

Fantastic first purchase!!! Imagine the first dinner party in your new home

Love the floors! We are hoping to have Spotted gum - who are you organising yours through? We have had a couple of quotes but not entirely happy as yet.
Like the carpet options too. Think 3rd from top my fav. We have dales doing our carpets only because it was included as part of package at the time.

Looks good!! I know what you mean about second hand. Our first couch was a second hand cheap ikea couch that was pink when we got it

Most of our nice new stuff we got as engagement presents, real crockery (not the cheap ones I've always had), nice cutlery and some good knives.

I love that crockery, they are so classic but also a little different, I love the bowls

Enjoy filling your house with lovely things!

who's doing your wood floors?

We ended up going with Direct Flooring in Osborne Park. They'll supply and install the floorboards as well as pre-primed skirting boards to the whole house which we'll paint ourselves. We played with the idea of a Jarrah laminate but decided on solid wood in the end.

The same choices seem to continue Tbrown...we also are putting in spotted gum...are you my long lost twin?! Lol
We are getting ours through Wood Floor Warehouse...they are supply only...hubby is doing ours

Like all your choices FP. Can't go wrong with any of those carpet colours!!

The same choices seem to continue Tbrown...we also are putting in spotted gum...are you my long lost twin?! Lol
We are getting ours through Wood Floor Warehouse...they are supply only...hubby is doing ours

Like all your choices FP. Can't go wrong with any of those carpet colours!![/quote]


I think I may be - or we both just have fabulous taste and style
Wish my hubby was that handy - would love to see some pics! Did you get my pm the other day with email address?

Fancypants - thanks I will go and check out direct flooring !

Loving your floor fancypants 😃

Gahhh no I didn't get your pm. I have trouble pm' ing ppl, sometimes it just doesn't go through for me either!! I will try and pm you....sorry, geez you prob thought I was totally ignoring you...

So we got to meet our Site Supervisor for the first time at our block this afternoon! The Boy had organised it all yesterday. Our SS was very friendly and happily answered all our questions. Imagine how delighted I was to find out the brickies had already done the first course and the termimesh had been installed! It's only been 9 days since the bricks arrived. I thought we'd be waiting weeks for the brickies to turn up.


Our garage wall with the termimesh in place. The Boy took a scrap of it home out of curiosity. I think that stuff would make a superior tea strainer.

http://i1296.photobucket.com/albums/ag10/pants_de_fancy/IMG_2049_zpsc1f82be7.jpg


One of the alfresco pillars.

http://i1296.photobucket.com/albums/ag10/pants_de_fancy/IMG_2044_zps7345825f.jpg


As our entire house is going to be rendered, our SS thinks the brickies will be done in two weeks. Walls! We're going to have walls! He also said that handover should be 32 weeks from slab down which means we're due to keys around the 10th of February. So excited to now have a date to work towards.

So excited for you

This is great news that you didn't have to wait very long. Also great that they expect to go through this stage so quickly. I am thinking maybe we should've rendered our whole house. We did render the alfresco area too so hoping it doesn't look weird and patchy. We didn't even enquire how much extra the whole house would've been. If I remember the alfresco rendered was approx $1500?

32 weeks from slab well that will make us just 2 weeks after you if everything goes to plan. Roll on February!!!

Wow that's pricey. We're paying $1900 for two-colour render to the whole of the exterior on ours.

It only cost us $1300 to do the whole house! It may cost more to have someone do the rendering, but they build with cheaper bricks so overall the increase in cost is minimal and well worth it.

What! Oh no having another one of those doh! why didn't I do that moments ... Oh we'll.. Bricks are delivered to late to change now.

Those moments are inevitable. All last week I was trying to figure out a way to increase the ceiling heights in the areas we didn't raise them. I've since come to terms with the fact that our plans are not going to change at this point. And our house will be wonderful anyway.