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He will definitely thank you later!
At the moment our 'study' is out in our family room, so is quite available to the kids, which makes work and uni interesting sometimes
A door on the lounge room is a great idea, gives you the option of closing off if you'd like it to be a separate living area.
We've put a door on the rumpus/theatre room as it is intended to be a playroom while the kids are little. I'm so looking forward to closing the door evernight and not have Fisher Price stuff staring at me all evening!
Wow, having a study with a door will definitely be a nice change for you then lol.
Yes well we thought the lounge could be our children's playroom later too and when they're teenagers they'll prob want their own hangout spot so the lounge will be basically theirs!
We also put a sliding door to the rumpus room too but just to minimize noise from the room and vice versa.
We also put a door to the hallway with bed 2, 3 and main bath, again to minimize noise for when the kids are sleeping etc. I
As you can tell, I've planned this house all around the hubby and kid(s) lol
It's just our current house (a 1986 townhouse) has such thin walls and creaking stairs etc, that anything can wake up our sleeping toddler at night! Gosh this next house will be such a luxury
This is our plan flipped as per the Hunter Metford display.
Wow having a door near those two bedrooms and bathroom is such a good idea. Totally didn't think of that!
When we bought the house we are in, we weren't planning on having more than 2 kids, so poor child #3 is in the room that was the study that is directly off the lounge room so noise is a major issue. Child #2's bedroom is directly off the kitchen so we are sooo excited to get this house built so we can actually do stuff after the kids are in bed!
So update on our finance...
Our broker only got us to sign land loan docs last Thursday when settlement was on Friday! So the loan docs weren't processed in Sydney in time for settlement. Our broker is going to pay the interest charged because we missed settlement too.
Hubby also found out this morning that the guy at the bank who witnessed our docs wrote the branch's address on the docs instead of our lot number!
so the docs were wrong anyways! Arghh
So this morning we signed new land loan docs and hopefully settlement happened today otherwise will be tomorrow.
Also got told our construction loan was finally going through after we had dramas with the valuation coming in short last week!
So *finally* we can see a light at the end of the finance tunnel and hopefully onto the building journey soon!
Omg metford33mumma, what a nightmare! Darn financial people, it's a worry when they can't get the smallest and simplest of details correct!
Thank goodness you're on the home stretch now - fingers crossed you have no more hiccups!
We are off to our electrical appointment tomorrow. Have a feeling I'm going to have to rein hubby in
This is our final plan that has been submitted. Hopefully this works, I'm a tapatalk newbie
Omg metford33mumma, what a nightmare! Darn financial people, it's a worry when they can't get the smallest and simplest of details correct!
Thank goodness you're on the home stretch now - fingers crossed you have no more hiccups!
We are off to our electrical appointment tomorrow. Have a feeling I'm going to have to rein hubby in
So last night hubby called me (as he's away for work atm) to tell me the good news, that our construction loan was approved and we could start the process with rawsons!
So gladly called Rawsons this morning to let them know. He said plans will take 2-3 weeks to come back and we'll sign the forms that came with our colour selection pack and drop them in this weekend.
Land settlement either happened today or set for tomorrow as we got a msg from the bank notifying that our land loan was finalized and to contact the conveyancer to arrange settlement.
Ahhh I think I'll finally be getting my photo with the land sold sign this weekend! Lol
So sounds like we aren't too far behind you now since you've got your plans back and now onto electrical?
I had a quick look at the colour selections pack last night and tried to match the colours to the old Metford display but looks like most of their selections were outside of the standard range (of course
). I really like their smooth face brick they used but can't really justify $13k upgrade for the bricks!
Have you made colour selections yet? Are you going mostly with the standard range or some upgrades?
I like your plan too, are you planning to use the area outside bed 4 and study as a courtyard like the display has? Can't tell if there is a sliding door access to the outside from one of those rooms.
We are also expending the alfresco out like yours and the display too.
Yaaaaay! What a relief that must be. Congratulations
one step closer!
We are still in the electrical process...we were quite shocked at the price of a data point - $426 for during construction whereas a sparky after handover can do it for under $130 and that's with the plaster up etc. We are now scaling right back and will get a sparky to do a lot of our downlights and data points after handover. We already had an extra $6k allowance for electrical but they wanted over $10k - nope
Colour selections are so tricky! Especially when the displays use every single upgrade available. We were going to upgrade our bricks but found one that we liked enough in the inclusion range so ended up going with that. It's quite similar to the brick used at the hunter display.
Colour selections are all made. We've upgraded the front door and are getting it stained rather than painted to match the rafters and beams in the pillars.
We have our tiles and carpet selections next month. We've already pretty much decided what we will go with though, which unfortunately includes some upgrades but it'll be worth it in the end!
We are going to use the space outside bedroom 4 and study as where the clothesline will be (sorry first born child haha). We could put it around the other side of the house but it's nice and close to the laundry this way and on the side where we don't like the neighbours much
Saving the other side for our grass/garden/play area on the food neighbour side. No sliding door from the study.
I love the extended alfresco! It's going to eat a lot into the rear of our block but the extra space will be worth it
unfortunately where we live, in the established suburbs on blocks over 950m2, you have to have a massive setback from the road so we can't move forward despite having lots of space.
Hi ladies, looks like lots of progress! We have had *some* progress but have been adding $10k sums like they're going out of fashion. We won't have our construction loan considered until we are at contract
This makes me nervous, as our total price is now north of where the agent was comfortable. They don't call it the money pit for nothing, I guess.
Arrrgh! What have they been adding on?
We've found they've been adding lots of little 'add ons' now that we have signed
today's bill was $120 for ERR rating variation - wtf is that?!
Fingers crossed your lender is still happy for the go ahead! It's a bit nerve wracking isn't it!
$10k for EER compliance was a bit of a shock. But the upside is double glazing and better insulation. Just waiting for the demo/asbestos removal quote to come in and finalise kitchen layouts and we will be done. Still nothing from the bank, but they won't come back to us until we have the final contract price. As you say, at least once that's locked in we know it's pretty much a fixed price. I am very ready for the old house to come down now. I have just about exhausted my decision-making capacity!!!
Yikes $10k is a lot more than our piddly amount! I suppose we will be thankful in the canberra winters for it.
Our asbestos removal cost came back at $3k. But annoyed as we were told it was covered in the demo cost but then it got changed and they 'forgot' to tell us. Not a massive sum in the grand scheme of things but it certainly adds up!
Hi Ezza, you must be just about ready to start your build? We were delayed by three months due to the bank not being willing to lend us the total build amount. We had to sell my FIL's property in Bendigo (all part of the grand scheme) and wait for it to settle. We are now waiting for one more piece of paper to go from the bank to Rawson and we'll be underway. Can't wait till the 46-year-old house is gone and the block cleared. It will all start to feel real then!
Well we have had our insulation removed, asbestos removed, demolition and now site cut
things are finally starting to happen thanks to our wonderful and proactive site manager
We may even get back on schedule at this rate (famous last words!!)
Demo:
Site being cut:
They're continuing to cut the site today and level it out. Thankfully we are only on a slight slope!
That's wonderful! Congratulations!! Our demo is due to happen in the next two weeks (hopefully next week). We too only have a slight cut and fill (less than 40cm either side of level), so hope that the block will be cleared by the end of Feb. Who is your site supervisor? Ours is Tom.
That's so exciting! It's all happening now
We have Craig
And the brickies started today