Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Feb 08, 2014 7:57 pm Well after 12 months looking around at different display villages we have finally decided on a modified cedar retreat by Dechellis. We signed the preliminary agreement at the end of October and things have been moving very slowly (far slower than expected) but we have finally signed off on the floor plan and it is now with Council for planning approval. We live in the mitcham council area so we are trying to make our house look fairly traditional. We have changed the portico on the Cedar retreat to a bullnose verandah and made a couple of internal changes such as a bath in the ensuite ( my wife loves her baths so we want the ensuite and bedroom to be a bit of a parents retreat). I will try and post a photo of our floor plan and hopefully what our frontage will look like when I work out how.
The council is asking some questions I was not expecting at this stage such as they want to know the colour of our roof, render, brick, gables, gutters, front windows & doors etc and they want a scale landscape design for the front. Bearing in mind we haven't started selections yet we are trying to work out our basic colour scheme on the fly. Did anyone else get these sort of questions for planning approval ? So if we get planning approval (fingers crossed) hopefully things will move a bit quicker. We have started to have a look at the tile suppliers today and we think will find some tiles we really like in the builders standard range (this was one area i was thinking we would need to upgrade) but then went to a flooring place and fell in love with one of the higher-end laminate flooring which i think will blow our budget ( Quick step colonial range i think). This is all starting to feel very real now. Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 2Feb 08, 2014 9:51 pm You chose a builder, good choice too We are building in Mitcham Council too. Our builder asked for colour selections and they went to council so I think that it is normal. Re the landscaping that is a Mitcham Council thing. We did not have to complete this but that might be because we are set back from the street (hammerhead). Make sure you get all exterior things correct such as window/door heights as if you change your mind at a later date it has to go back through council, interior stuff does not matter. We tried to follow the council guidelines as much as possible (they are on their website) and by doing so we got approval in just a few weeks I think. Exciting times ahead, look forward to following it. Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 4Feb 09, 2014 3:50 pm trying to decide on colourbond roof colour. We like dark grey, but can't decide between Basalt and Woodland grey. We aren't sure if woodland greyis too dark. Has anyone used colour bond and if so which colours have you used/liked? Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 5Feb 09, 2014 6:07 pm Plan looks great, just wondering if it is worth considering a flush cavity sliding door in ens/wir? We have one and it saves having a door opening into the wir. As for colorbond my pick would be Basalt, such a gorgeous grey, yet to see pics in real life though. I have seen houses with woodland grey and while it is a bit on the brown side of grey for my liking it does look good. With choosing your other exterior colours you could ask dechellis for the names of their brick suppliers and the paint company they use (if you are rendering) so that you can start to think about it? Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 6Feb 10, 2014 6:14 pm Thanks! We asked the sales guy to put in a sliding cavity door in the ensuite, but it never happened for various reasons. We can't decide what to do. Has anyone else got advice on which way to go? Yes we like the Basalt too. We are waiting to hear back on suppliers for the exterior. Hopefully we can get samples soon which will help. We check out other houses in the area but it doesn't help cos we aren't certain of what the colour actually is on their houses! Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 7Feb 10, 2014 8:52 pm I found this website which has quite a good visualiser for colorbond. Also on the colorbond website they have a list of display homes and what colour roof they have. Also you could ask dechellis, they should be able to tell you which of their houses have the colours you like. http://www.jhstephenson.com/steel-roofi ... lours.html Oh and I used the metricon online visualiser which I found really useful for choosing exterior colours. The house actually looks very similar to the mock up I made Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 8Feb 10, 2014 9:15 pm Also I managed to track down their brochure which has their suppliers in it. For bricks there is pgh, they did used to use Austral too, not sure if this still the case. Paint is solver. Windows are A and L, they also supply our builder so we went to their showroom at wingfield. They were really nice and helpful and worth a visit so you can see their full range so you can know what you can upgrade to. Ultimately we used seaview joinery because A and L only supply aluminium. Also are you thinking of having your alfresco doors set so they are level with your flooring? We had ours rebated and while it is not completely flat because of the design of the door the step over/off is minimal. Not sure if you can do this if the alfresco is not part of your slab though. Anyway hope this helps and does not confuse you more. Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 9Feb 11, 2014 6:26 pm Thanks! I'd found one visualizer but it wasn't as good as the 2 you've mentioned. Thanks for the suppliers, that should help us out while we wait to hear more from a dechellis. We aren't having a slab for the alfresco, we will do our own paving or deck post-build. That is a good suggestion though, I hadn't thought of levels. Not confusing, helpful thanks!! We appreciate the help, we are new to this. Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 10Feb 11, 2014 6:52 pm Great to hear that it was helpful, never to sure how sharing info will go on forums I saw in the dechellis brochure that they have someone they can use for those vergola type roofs. Not sure if that is what you are thinking or something else? Decking you can raise to any level you want so that will work but if you are thinking pavers for me I would prefer the slab and tiling. No weeds can grow through, easier to clean and the level can be set right. Also our concreter doing the perimeter of the house told us that we can have the levels set at the same as the house because we have termite control around the house itself (white plastic stuff), might be worth considering? Otherwise we would have had a step down, not a big deal but it's a nice touch not having a step down. The only other thing that I can think of is whether you are having higher ceilings? If so consider higher doors. We have upgraded to 2340mm internal doors and as mentioned set the external window/door heights the same. Get the external heights right on your plan now because it needs to go through council. If I think of anything else I will let you know. Pannacotta had her doors rebated with dechellis, can have a chat with her. Oh and consider a building inspector, best investment we have made other than the house itself! Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 11Feb 12, 2014 8:21 am Good advice - especially the building inspector! Well worth the expense and peace of mind. Good luck with your build will look forward to following your progress For info on our build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43093 Built the McLaren by Dechellis - slab down 22 Feb - handover 30 Aug 2011 - and gardens finished 9 Dec 2012!! Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 12Feb 12, 2014 8:26 am I have been meaning to say thank you to you mclaren. Your thread was invaluable when I was starting the building process. We used your building inspector too who as I said has been awesome Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 13Feb 12, 2014 9:09 am That's great news -that's what H1 is all about - helping each other! For info on our build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43093 Built the McLaren by Dechellis - slab down 22 Feb - handover 30 Aug 2011 - and gardens finished 9 Dec 2012!! Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 14Feb 12, 2014 12:48 pm Exactly! Everyone has been so helpful. Mclaren I'll have to have a good look at your thread too. We are planning on using an Independent build inspector, but haven't picked one yet. If anyone has any recommendations please let us know either in this thread or PM. It'd be good to get one who comes well recommended. Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 15Feb 15, 2014 6:10 pm Ok so here is some of our pre-selection planning. Please feel free to share your thoughts or direct us to specific threads or photos you think might help us.... Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 16Feb 15, 2014 6:17 pm [ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ [/img] This is my wife's current favourite pic for kitchen inspiration. She's into white, as you can see. We have no direct light from windows into the kitchen, hence light colours are important. Although we will add a skylight. We both love new crystal salt for the essastone bench and polar white silk finish laminex cabinets e.g. [ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ [/img] In fact I will probably leave the photos and selections to her from now on, cos she's putting together her inspiration board and taking photos of our selections. We will hopefully do the actual selections next month but want to do our research first. Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 17Feb 15, 2014 6:34 pm Lovely floorplan and a gorgeous kitchen inspiration picture - your wife has taste Custom downslope build Build thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=61873 Blog http://www.buildingroyalmanor.blogspot.com.au Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 18Feb 15, 2014 6:38 pm Good idea doing your research, there are so many decisions to make. We have chosen a similar colour scheme for our kitchen so of course I am biased in liking it. Think about what fridge you are getting so you can make sure that the space is built big enough also if you will need a water tap for the fridge. We are going to have a skylight in our kitchen too but will go in post build, am yet to decide what I want. Also think about functional stuff that might you want such as pot drawers, cutlery drawer, built in bin, slide out pantry. Also have a rough think about layout, we had 3d pics drawn up privately and gave the pictures with all the dimensions to the kitchen company so we got exactly what we wanted. The layout of your kitchen is almost the same as ours so you could use ours for functional/layout ideas. We have pull out pantry either side of fridge. Can see pics on thread. Also in our wip I opted to have cupboards rather than shelving. I have found in the past that rodents have got into food if not in a secure cupboard or plastic containers. I also built in some cupboards and benchtop to make the space more functional. It means that when I walk though from garage I can put shopping on bench space in wip and sort it out from there. Our microwave will go in there which we don't use often so it did not take up room in our kitchen. We are also thinking of putting a second oven in there too. In my mind the kitchen is for display/cooking and wip for storage/function. There are pics of wip on thread Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 19Feb 15, 2014 7:09 pm Thanks all. Had a good look at your thread FairmontSA, some great inspiration there. I would love to hide the microwave in the pantry but I use it constantly for heating or thawing food for the little one. Re: Building in SA with Dechellis: the process begins 20Feb 15, 2014 8:05 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ These are just possible selections, as I mentioned before we are yet to do our selections officially. The dark tile is the floor tile, white wall tile. Laminex samples on the left are possible cupboards for ensuite, or the polar white on the right for ensuite and main. The laminex Antarctic stone diamond gloss with the straight side (instead of wrapped edges) is the bathroom bench tops. We think we'll wrap the dark floor tiles up around the (white) bath. But keep the walls around the bath white. What are people's thoughts on white walls, light benches, dark floors... Would you go white or dark cupboards?? Hmmm, I have checked your past posts and it seems that you are in NSW, not WA as I had thought. It pays to show your State in your avatar. Retaining wall regulations… 5 7857 Hi, you've probably already resolved this, however, Commbank will probably pay the funds to you after you send evidence the work is done regardless the change in the quotes. 1 35321 Ideally you would engage a landscaper to give you some insight what they may need in the space to make your vision come to life… 1 13637 |