Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 11, 2014 9:06 am After going through almost 12 months research on builders, houses, options, upgrades, and pricing. We obtained quotes from 4 volume and 3 custom builders.
During this process lost initial deposit with PD. It was a tough decision to leave PD Hoffman 39. But what can you do when main priority is find something special which will suit our family requirements (3 young kids), and lifestyle. it was time to go ahead and finalize builder, and house selection. Land: 14m x 35m (490 sqm) our block is reasonable sized, but we though with double storey house it will still give us 14m x 10m backyard. no plans to build a pool, so will do the job for us. plus it is much bigger than block of our current house (370 sqm). initial deposit: June 13 titled: Nov 13 settled: Dec 13 contract: Mar 14 site start: 29 Sep 14 slabbed: 16 Oct 14 framing stared: 23 Oct 14 framing completed: 3 Nov 14 framing completed: 7 Nov 14 colourbond roofing started: 10 Nov 14 colourbond roofing completed: 2 Dec 14 Insulation : 09 Dec 2014 plastering started: 10 Dec 2014 plastering completed: 15 Dec 2014 Bricks started: 16 Dec 2014 still work in progress 4 Feb 2015 Staircase installed: 16 Jan 2015 Axon Cladding/eves installed: 30 Jan 2015 Brick work completed: 2 Feb 2015 Doors installed: 2 Feb 2015 Architrave and skirting boards: 2 Feb 2015 Stone bench top: 2 Feb 2015 Basins installed: 2 Feb 2015 Lockup: 2 Feb 2015 Eves completed: 11 Feb 2015 Downpipes installed: 16 Feb 2015 Paints started: 16 Feb 2015 Stain completed: 18 Feb 2015 Paints completed: 24 Feb 2015 Tiling started: 24 Feb 2015 All door installed: 24 Feb 2015 Fixing Stage completed: 24 Feb 2015 electrical fit out: 10 Mar 2015 gas meter installed: 13 Mar 2015 NHP/PCI: 20 Apr 2015 NBN installed: 27 Apr 2015 Handover: 6 May 2015 Moved on: 6 May 2015 Backyard work started: 11 May 2015 Fencing concluded: 20 May 2015 House: This house ticked all main requirements. it offers almost no waste of space. staircase isn't impressive, but will do its job reasonably well with storage underneath. living area is very spacious, and would be centre point for us during the day. alfresco is part of the house and has openings from both living, and dining with nice wooden stacker doors. i always wanted a bedroom downstairs, study was large enough to serve as a guest/single bedroom (on demand). Sahara Q1 with following options: 1. Guest bed in lieu of Study with double door. it will remove one side wall window, and add a double door cupboard. 2. Grand dining/Gaming option. this will make whole house 1.1 sq bigger. good to make house bigger specially gaming upstairs. 3. heating upgrade with 4 zones and network controller. 4. front wooden windows. 5. free upgrade to double glazed for all windows was a no brainer. 6. broadway facade with part render. 7. Luxury electrical pack. it covers all downlight LEDs (39), and the rest. 8. flooring pack (carpeting all upstairs, and guest room, and theater downstairs) laminate flooring the rest downstairs. 9. security alarm. 10. niches (580 x 300 x 90) in each shower. 11. flush panel door to access area under staircase. 12. pantry glass door - Merbau stain. 13. laundry as per Aston display. 14. cabling for intercom. 15. gas capped point in alfresco. 16. water point beside refrigerator. 17. water and power point in ceiling for evaporative cooling (post handover). 18. extra studs above all windows for curtains. 19. extra noggins for ceiling fans. 20. sliding door at the end of entrance to make zoning. This door will separate living/kitchen/dining area from the rest of the house. We are in process of finalising our colours, as colouring appointment is fast approaching in couple of weeks. After going through different colours and textures of bricks, and prices (off course) we shortlisted Austral Homestead Tan. with our facade its part render, and half of first floor would be covered with Axon cladding. so this means bricks area is limited. Option 1: whole house with single bricks (Austral Homestead Tan). Option 2: facade with Daniel Robertson Hawthorn Tan blend (my love ), and rest of the house Austral Homestead Tan. (might save some money here Option 3: whole house with Daniel Robertson Hawthorn Tan blend. this will cost substantial, and we need to cut down on few other upgrades. one half side of the house (first floor) will also be axon cladding. both are neighbours will have their garages with our house, this makes me think that side wall won't be exposed from street. this might help to view sudden change in bricks from the street. has anyone tried using two different bricks, i.e. facade with one brick, and rest of the house with another one? whats your thoughts are on this? Also feel free to throw ideas on colours, would appreciate that too a big thanks to Dan for giving us visuals for our selections. Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 2Jan 11, 2014 9:10 am Option 1: whole house with Austral homestead tan Option 2: Facade with Daniel Robertson Hawthorn Tan blend Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 3Jan 11, 2014 10:28 am I like option 2 for your facade and have seen different bricks behind the fenceline before and it doesn't look bad as long as the two bricks are complementary colours and textures. Good work on the Basalt roof too!! Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 5Jan 11, 2014 11:43 am part render is under developer's guidelines, so it will have to stay. it just matter of which colour to go with for render. same thing with gutters and fascia has to be same colour to pass developer's approval. one more thing here, should cladding be same colour as gutter and fascia? as they are in slightly different colours, would making them same would look better or its better to keep them as is? Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 6Jan 11, 2014 11:45 am d@n Not uncommon to have two different bricks. But usually one will be a feature brick covering less area. so in this proportion, facade bricks would be considered feature bricks? as there are three different materials used (bricks, cladding, and render). Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 7Jan 11, 2014 1:14 pm No. Some facades have a particular design feature such as the portico, or a blade wall that stands out. Often theses areas are rendered, have stack stone or some other material to accentuate the feature of the design. Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 8Jan 11, 2014 2:36 pm Just back from Daniel Robertson showroom in swan street, Richmond. We drove almost an hour to get there, and girl told us that she can't let us in as she has to go somewhere. We were there at 2:30 pm, and showroom timings are 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Saturday. That's one shocking customer service. Not sure if we should go there again. either Daniel Robertson has too many customers which they can't handle or need staff who knows how to treat customers. Also been to Austral display in deer park, and customer service person was just great. He helped us and was happy to answer all newbie question nicely. Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 9Jan 11, 2014 5:21 pm How do you make sure that bricks will be layed in proper blend? I have seen few houses with same bricks but almost no blending at all. That makes same bricks awe full. Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 10Jan 11, 2014 7:20 pm Laying the bricks is up to your builder so you would need to trust your builder or write something in your contract along the lines that bricks have to be laid as per the laying guidelines. I wouldn't write the company off, disappointing service definitely, but it might just be a bad staff member and/or a bad day. If it were me my preference would be to have all the bricks the same. Having said that though if you chose to have different bricks as per your pics I think it would still look good. To be honest I had to really look to see that they were different bricks. We chose Austral bricks and like you we found the service great for sales. However they delivered the wrong brick onsite twice which was less than ideal. Luckily both the builder and we picked it up before they were laid. I think the façade looks lovely and which you luck making this hard decision Sahara Q1 build 20XIV 11Jan 11, 2014 8:43 pm We will be driving past more houses tomorrow with our shortlisted bricks. Now it's down to two bricks:
1. austral Homestead Tan 2. austral Hawthorn Homestead Tan is just single dark colour brick, easy to choose. All houses built with this brick are same and no variance from austral display. Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 13Jan 11, 2014 9:35 pm Hey Mirz, that's the reason we did not go with the Hawthorn in the end because the houses we saw did not look as good as the display wall, and we were not sure what we would get. Which builder/design did you decide on? Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 14Jan 11, 2014 10:25 pm Back Pocket Hey Mirz, that's the reason we did not go with the Hawthorn in the end because the houses we saw did not look as good as the display wall, and we were not sure what we would get. Which builder/design did you decide on? We are in exact same situation. Display wall looks very different from actual houses. We ended up with Henley Sahara Q1, with few changes to accommodate what exactly we were looking for. Going for colours selections on 24th, and tender mid Feb. How's your construction going? It should be very close by now. Re: Different Bricks on facade, a good idea? 15Jan 11, 2014 10:33 pm Just had a look at the Henley site. Looks like a good floorplan for what you need. Our house is currently being painted. Fingers crossed for March as our current house just went unconditional. Sahara Q1 build 20XIV 16Jan 12, 2014 9:23 am That's great to know, must be exciting time for you.
We are going to Cosham today for info session to attend. Hoping to finalize our selection today and be ready for 24th. Sahara Q1 build 20IV- Highlands 17Jan 12, 2014 9:00 pm Someone left this small rock on our block. It's about 400mm wide but not welcome here. I'll try to move this on next visit.
Our peg with a can of coke from someone. Not sure if it's normal but one of the rear peg covered by rear neighbour's temp fence. Re: Sahara Q1 build 20IV- Highlands 18Jan 12, 2014 10:14 pm We had a very productive day at Cosham today. It was information session to prepare for colouring appointment. It was strange to find out that cosham staff isn't aware of new colours from colorbond. We are particularly interested in Basalt. We wont be happy on 24th on appointment day if it would still be the same case. Other surprise was wooden windows. We are told at cosham that wooden windows are supplied by A&L and made of cedar. In all display homes, we been to, have stegbar windows and apparently they are made of meranti and not cedar. One can only hope that staff in colouring appointment or tender would be more knowledgeable. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Re: Sahara Q1 build 20IV- Highlands 19Jan 13, 2014 11:03 am Its possible that they changed companies since the display homes. I can advise that our timber windows are in fact supplied by A&L and we had them put in just before christmas. So they may not be too wrong on that one Re: Sahara Q1 build 20IV- Highlands 20Jan 13, 2014 12:06 pm stayxtrue Its possible that they changed companies since the display homes. I can advise that our timber windows are in fact supplied by A&L and we had them put in just before christmas. So they may not be too wrong on that one that's a good news, so it means your windows are made out of cedar and not meranti? we loved the way Henley has so many options in category 1, and there is hardly any need to upgrade stuff. even upgrade prices aren't too bad, except undermount sink $750, and other funky sink for $1500. did you upgrade toilet by any chance? we are thinking to upgrade to mid range one which goes all the way back to the wall. Cosham girl didn't know its upgrade price. We were lucky in that our old house was so small (86 square metres) compared to the new house, they were able to take enough readings around the old backyard house before… 8 37136 The concreter will take and reuse. In my case I bought structural LVLs and scraped them back and used them as joists. 1 5152 you need to understand the breakdown of warranties. 90 warranty is considered as minor defects rectification period where as the longer ones are more major/structural… 1 5338 |