Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jul 22, 2013 8:54 pm Hi everyone. I've been lurking on the website for many months and absolutely love it. I have already learned so much from the posts I have read here. It's awesome to be able to hear what others have experienced and learn from that. Well, we are about to start our build so I thought it was time to stop lurking and start my own thread. We bought our block in February 2013 and signed a PPA for a custom build in March. Since then we have made numerous amendments to this plan (to the stage where we totally redesigned the back end of our house). Fortunately, the sales rep we have been dealing with, has taken all of this in her stride and we have never been made feel to feel like we are a nuisance. (I am sure that she is probably secretly swearing at us every time we send another email with another request for a change or a price for something on our wishlist, but to her credit she has been ultra-professional and friendly so far.) The land is due to to title in the next few weeks so it looks like we are now ready for the next stage. We have asked for the building contract to be drawn up and the final plans to be redrawn. We have pre-approval sorted and have already made all of our selections even though we know that these are probably still a few months away. In fact, we have been mulling over our selections ever since we signed our PPA and have already visited the builder's selections rooms a number of times and have been to the Tile showroom more times than we can count . The sales people know us by name and I think they must groan every time we walk in the door. However, a few weeks ago we made our selections with them and they have sent our selections to the builder, so I think we are done with that one at least. (I'm not sure if it is permissible on this forum to use names but Ivo Evangelista at Abbey Tiles is awesome... friendly, professional and provides services well above what is expected). We have collected quotes for all of the "final fitout" items we wish to do after the build is finished (air-conditioning, bamboo flooring, landscaping, dressing room fit-outs, fencing etc) as our mortgage broker has told us that the bank needs to see that we have considered these before they will approve the loan, and we are hoping to have them included in the mortgage. We will see how that pans out.... So now we just wait until we get the building contract and settle on the land and the next stage can begin. We are so excited and impatient and have everything crossed that there won't be too many hiccups along the way. Andrew and Andrew My Building Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66153 Re: A custom build with C***ier Homes in Hammond Heights 2Jul 22, 2013 9:18 pm My Building Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66153 Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 3Jul 22, 2013 10:42 pm Lovely plan, I love your kitchen and the size of your laundry <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=62083">viewtopic.php?t=62083</a><!-- l --> Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 5Jul 23, 2013 4:07 pm Great looking plans.. Good to see one more C*llier build on the forum.. All the best with your building.. If you don't mind could you please PM me the indicative price they gave.. My Building Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=62776 Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 6Jul 23, 2013 8:20 pm House plan looks good, and it is good to finally see another Hammond Heights resident on here! I am building in stage 1, well we haven't started yet but the earthworks are due to start by tomorrow Which stage are you in? Where about's ii the estate is your block? Not sure if your affected but about 2 months after we had our land settled we were told the block we bought was under a fire management plan and it caused lots of delays and extra costs, so if you are within 100m of the bush to the south of frankland avenue make sure you check whether or not your affected! Look forward to following your build and seeing all of your selections Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 7Jul 23, 2013 9:43 pm Thanks AKB and xxkatzxx. We have really enjoyed designing this plan and have very carefully thought out each room. As we have no kids to consider (other than visits from my grandkids) we are able to be quite self-focused in how we have designed the house to suit our needs. A big kitchen, en-suite and laundry and huge wardrobes for us each (although I have probably enough clothes to fill both robes alone whilst Andrew2 is rather minimalistic in his clothing choices LOL) and a decent sized bedroom with access to the backyard were essentials. Also a soundproof theatre room so Andrew2 can listen to his music at full volume whilst I enjoy the quiet of relaxing in front of tv or completing my day's marking or lesson planning in the lounge was also important. My mother is wheelchair bound so we included wide access to the essential areas and a large powder room with an extra wide door and hand rails and rebated extra large doors to the front and alfresco. We have added a lot of extras above and beyond the top of the range specs already included in the C0llier collection specifications. Some of our additions have included: 4 rows of glass bricks to the ensuite, 1800mm spa bath, heaps of powerpoints and LED lighting throughout, tiling to the ceiling in the bathroom and ensuite, rainshower and handheld combo showerheads, tiled waste plugs, extra data, telephone and tv points throughout and 137sqm of paving. I'll add some photos and a list of the selections shortly Andrew My Building Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66153 Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 8Jul 23, 2013 9:47 pm Fantastic nothing wrong with being self focused we have been too....I get the kitchen, ensuite and laundry that I want (just noticed that they are all wet areas lol) and DH gets his garage. Besides who else should we build for? The kids? Then they will never leave lol AKB <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=62083">viewtopic.php?t=62083</a><!-- l --> Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 9Jul 23, 2013 10:52 pm selections have all changed! My Building Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66153 Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 11Jul 24, 2013 12:26 am Thanks Katz. The tiles do look a bit more drab and grim than they really are, but we definitely like the "earthy" look and definitely do not do flowery, flouncy or elaborate. We will be using lots of brass and brushed bronze throughout (to complement the wooden floors, shutters and blinds and leather upholstery in either cream or camel colours. A very masculine, no frills looks is what we are after (no need for feminine in a house built for two men LOL). I promise it all looks good together... not as cold as it sounds on paper. Hey Felicity. Another Hammond Heights resident. Yay!!! I will look forward to watching your house grow each time I go down to see ours too. We are in Stage two. The development looks complete now so just waiting for the titles. Yes, we were told about the fire management plan a month or so ago. Our blocked is rated BAL 12.5 but we have to get a review done when we apply for the building license, and now that the scrub has been removed to the North of the development, we should drop down to NIL. Our builder has already made the allowances necessary for BAL 12.5 though, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue. I see there are several buildings already going up in Stage 1. We have had a wander through them as they are being built, visualizing the layout (and always on the look out for any great ideas we may have overlooked...LOL). Can't wait until we are seeing things happening on our own block. It is getting very hard to convince Andrew2 to drive down for a look when we know that there won't really be anything new happening on our block... and I guess you can only stand on a barren piece of land for so long, gazing longngly at the sand, before you begin to look like a weirdo. Our block is the first one on Blackstock street on the North side (next to the existing house). We love that it is elevated above all the new blocks around us. The retaining wall down to the block behind us, is about 2 metres!!! Which one is yours? [so we know which one to watch My Building Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66153 Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 12Jul 24, 2013 8:28 am Our block is lot 438 on Cousins Street, it is the one with an almost 2m retaining wall at the back! Work should be starting soon but I do know the feeling, visiting it every week or so when nothing is happening does start to look a bit crazy. We are yet to walk around the other sites, once ours starts we might do the walk around, by then the house next to ours should have some bricks done, would love to run into the new neighbours while we were there We actually bought the block without visiting it first, a bit of an impromptu decision, not the most clever thing to do but it meant we didn't realise the retaining wall was there (first home buyers haha). Your selections look really nice, I love the house theme you are going for, look forward to seeing it once it is done. Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 13Jul 26, 2013 9:39 pm We were lucky that we had looked around well before the land became available and had taken lots of photos so knew pretty much where each block was when they came up for sale. The location of retaining walls was drawn on the sales map (although there was no indication of just how high these would be. So now we feel that we lucked out by getting the elevated block. However, to be honest we would have been delighted to have managed to get a block no matter where it was in the estate. I am sure you feel pretty much the same We couldn't believe that we got through on the phone to put dibs on the block or that we got our first choice, especially after we found out that the blocks were all secured within a few hours of the sale being announced. I will be watching your build closely and hopefully one day will see you there so I canm say hi in person. My Building Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66153 Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 14Jul 27, 2013 6:00 am love the earthy tones and all your color selections also love the wood look tiles Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 15Jul 27, 2013 1:08 pm Thanks 1rocky. I'm enjoying watching your build too. Lovely plan and great choices My Building Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66153 Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 16Jul 27, 2013 2:41 pm I remember we decided to build a house on a weekend, on the Tuesday we found this estate and half the blocks were available so we reserved one, then by the next day they were all gone except for the one we had reserved. And yes, we are definitely just glad to have a block at all considering Hammond Heights is in such high demand, we have heard people were camping out for days to secure blocks for a different estate release, craziness! We went for a visit this morning, our site has been scraped for earthworks to start, so I am happy Also had a look at the other houses around, looking pretty good so can't wait to be at the stage they are at. Re: A custom build with C0llier in Hammond Heights Some Prog 17Oct 12, 2013 7:55 pm Some progress at last. Our land finally settled about almost a month ago. That of course, true to form, was a drama in itself. Our pre-approval from the bank expired a few weeks before settlement, so we had to go through the entire process of applying for the mortgage from scratch. Our mortgage broker was wrongly advised about what this would entail, so he started the process a week later than he actually should have. As a consequence, it was a real rush to get the mortgage approved within the 14 days that we had to settle, without additional fees. To add to that stress, when the bank did the valuation of the land, it came in $9000 less than we were paying, even though similar sized blocks in later stages of the same development are currently selling at $60,000 more than we were paying. Long story short, after many days of stress, it turns out that someone at the bank mistook the final 9 in the valuation for a 0 and in fact it had been valued at the purchase price (as is apparently the norm) so we got it settled just in time without incurring additional fees. Now we have plans drawn on our block. Apparently we are now waiting for the plans and elevations and then on responses from all sorts of people so the building permit can be lodged. We have finally applied for our mortgage as we now have the necessary paperwork and we will apparently be contacted next week for an appointment for our colour interview. It seems like the planning process has taken absolutely forever as the land titles took two months longer than expected and we are almost over the experience already, and haven't even started the build!!! Hopefully, once we see the build happening we will get some renewed enthusiasm. Roll on the start of the build. Fingers crossed we will see it start soon!!! (The one good thing about the delay in settlement is we have been able to pore over our plans again and again and have made loads of changes to our original plans.) Here's a link to our final plans. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ [/URL] My Building Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66153 Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 18Oct 13, 2013 5:21 pm I am so jealous of your dressing rooms and enormous master suite, really well designed house plan you have there. Our land was titled almost 3 months after the original expected date so I am not surprised yours had the same problem. Not very good at estimating dates in Hammond Heights. We were told December when we signed up, then they said January, then it ended up happening at the start of March. We also had a real rush around with the bank to get settlement done by the due date because our mortgage broker didn't send the contracts in on time for the bank to do the valuation. It is a really long process from making the decision to build to actually seeing construction starting, exhausting to say the least, but once it all starts happening you will pretty much forget the paperwork delays and just be too excited to see your house growing Have your builders given any estimates for when they expect to lodge the building permit with council? Hopefully council won't take long, we had a really quick approval process with the council, nowhere near as long as some councils north of the river have taken for some friends of mine! Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 19Oct 13, 2013 7:51 pm Hey felicity. We decided to get rid of what could have been space for another bedroom for the bigger master room and dressing rooms. no chance of kids so really no need for a fourth bedroom and we figure it's being built just for the two of us so we wanted to maximise the spaces we would use the most. That may affect the valuation from the bank a bit because a three bedroom doesn't value as much as a four bedroom, but we aren't building with resale in mind to be honest. I have been watching your build with interest and have walked through your house when I was down at our block. It's looking fantastic! You must be so pleased!! I am really happy for you! We are expecting council approval to be quite quick to be honest as they have a good track record of getting things done quick. We don't really know what to expect now, but we are hoping that the paperwork process is well underway now and the bulk of the 'waiting' is over. We have bought so much stuff in the build up, while we were waiting for the new house, and now we are so impatient to see it all in the house. LOL. (Had to do something to make it feel like it was real while we were waiting. Here's some of our purchases. LOL. Pendants for over the kitchen bench Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Drum for over the dining table (absolutely love this.... unseamed antique bronze!) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Other lights throughout the house Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ [/url] Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Our outdoor lights (6 of them) [url=http://s1273.photobucket.com/user/andrewrauch68/media/img7182_zps4c4c5a4e.jpg.html] Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ My Building Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66153 Re: A custom build with C0llier Homes in Hammond Heights 20Oct 13, 2013 7:53 pm I've also propogated many of the plants for the new garden. Here's a couple of photos of some of them. The old place is looking like a nursery now. LOL. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ My Building Thread:https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66153 Building Standards; Getting It Right! We bought a house in 2015 advertised as a 7/2/2, 4br up, 3br down (7br), and to date, it’s a great house. However, we’ve just had it valued and it’s come in as a… 0 11988 I'd get the gutters to match your roof and pipes to match the paint - otherwise they become a feature. Nice pick with the paint colours! 1 34270 6 55348 |