Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 06, 2014 11:17 pm After being a long time reader of the forum, spending many an evening stalking other people's wonderful builds, I've decided it's finally time to take the plunge and post about my own.
As a bit of a backstory, building a house was initially the last thing in the world my partner and I thought we'd end up doing when we started looking for our first home 2 years ago. We always intended to buy an existing property, however after looking through houses for months, we realised that each one we looked at wasn't quite right. Each of the houses we saw either needed significant renovations, had backyards that were smaller than we wanted, were too far away from work or had layouts that didn't work with our lifestyle...so eventually, we were brought around to the idea of building. That started our next search - the search for a block. Looking for a block in itself proved problematic, since it turned out that everyone in our area had figured out it was far more profitable to subdivide and sell land as two smaller blocks rather than sell it as a whole. So the the only blocks on the market were either too small for the house we wanted to build, or strangely shaped...so again, the floorplan we wanted wouldn't fit. However, in February 2013 we finally got lucky, and found the perfect block literally around the corner from where we currently live. It was rectangular, almost flat and about 700sqm in size, with the front facing east and side we wanted to use for living spaces/outdoor entertaining facing north, so it was exactly what we were looking for. Only catch - it already had a house on it. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And at that, an old, small, house badly in need of complete renovation. But somehow, we talked ourselves around that problem, put in an offer that was accepted, and settled on our ugly duckling at the end of March. We then tried to flesh out exactly what we wanted in our floor plan. We had already gone through a lot of display homes while looking for land, and combined ideas from many of them to come up with a plan that would work for us, so while waiting for settlement, we tweaked the plan to make sure it suited the land and fit our council requirements, wrote up our list of desired inclusions and went through the 'Things you forget' thread back to front until we were happy we'd covered as much as a pair of novices would. Then it was off to 5 builders who seemed to have a decent build quality, were willing to work with a custom design and could provide the inclusions we wanted for a reasonable price. After a few months of back and forth with various consultants, we came to a decision. And after many more months of soil tests, engineering, council approvals and what seemed like the longest selection process in history, we are proud to say our custom build with Adelaide Designer Homes is about to kick off. We're building a fairly modest 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 living house, which I've attached some piccies of below: Site Plan Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Floor Plan Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Elevations Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Will post our selections next, and hopefully use this thread to keep track of our progress, whinge about the things that are bound to go wrong along the way, and just generally share what I'm sure will be a fun, stressful, unpredictable experience! Hopefully we'll stay sane, and get a lovely new house at the end of it to call home. Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 2Apr 07, 2014 12:22 am I really like your plan! For some reason it kind of reminds me of mine. Perhaps why I like it... Like that all the bedrooms are fairly separate and a good size! Also really like you laundry/kitchen set up! Enjoy! Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 4Apr 07, 2014 11:37 am Plan looks great - following! http://boostaoakfordsa.wordpress.com Site works: 26/8/14 Trench: 2/9/14 Slab: 8/9/14 Frame: 18/9/14 Bricks: 24/10/14 2nd fix: 24/11/14 Handover: End Feb 2015 Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 5Apr 07, 2014 12:16 pm Lovely floorplan! Our original custom plan had the same Home Theatre configuration. We saw it in a Fairmont display and thought it worked well with the 2 doors either side of the wall cabinet. Looks great. Great use of space and well planned. Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66299 Slab: 16/6/14 Frame: 4/7/14 Roof: 22/7/14 Lock Up: 20/8/14 Fixing: 26/8/14 PCI: 9/10/14 Handover: 20/10/14 Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 6Apr 07, 2014 3:34 pm Welcome, look forward to following your build Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 7Apr 07, 2014 9:53 pm Thank you all for your lovely comments. It's nice to know there are people out there who are interested in our build...I think our family and friends are probably sick of us talking about it by now ! Continuing on from where I left off though...time to talk about selections! After signing the initial work agreements in June 2013, we went on to sign the contract to build with ADH in early July, and our plans in mid August. They were submitted to council for planning consent the same week - which is when we went into overdrive to book in all our selections appointments and get time off work to attend them. Our builder had a total of 8 appointments for us to attend....7 with suppliers, and then a final selection appointment at ADH head office a couple of weeks later. We booked these in for the first week of September, followed by the final appointment second week of October (for some reason, they couldn't book us in any earlier at the time). We more or less knew what we wanted by the time we got to the appointments...but it took a lot of debate and discussion beforehand to figure out what we liked, hated and just flat out didn't have an opinion on (don't think I even noticed the colour of the downpipes at our current house until I had to select one for the build!). We'll wait and see how it all turns out, but hopefully what we've picked will work! Be prepared to see grey, white and more grey...plus a bit of wood here and there. Most of our furniture (which we plan to keep for the new house) is also wood, so hopefully that will help tie things in. For tonight will start with the exteriors, and then when I have a bit more time, go through all the rest too. Roof, gutters and verandah posts: Colorbond Woodland Grey Fascia, downpipes and meter box: Colorbond Bushland Gables: DecoWood Ultraclad, Western Red Cedar Front windows: Timber, Wattyl Golden Oak stain Remaining windows: Colorbond Woodland Grey Bricks: PGH Cottage Blend Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Feature cladding to columns: 'Old Adelaide' bookleaf veneer (post handover) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Garage door: Flat Panel Classic Cedar Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Front door: Humes Newington XN5 – wooden skin, Wattyl Golden Oak stain Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 8Apr 08, 2014 6:52 pm Hi TandE, Has construction begun yet? We signed with ADH in December, have done all of our selections (other than the final one) and are now waiting for council approval. When we signed, ADH indicated a 9 month total build (4.5mths admin and 4.5mths construction) although I am starting to doubt those timeframes... Cheers Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 9Apr 08, 2014 8:57 pm Welcome to the forum. I really like your floor plan. Good luck with the build. First house - Statesman Greenock (modified) https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66876 Second house - Fairmont Grand Design (modified) https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=100789 Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 11Apr 09, 2014 12:27 am Asj25: thanks, we really love them too. In fact, for quite a few months we stopped at every single house we could find that had them, and took snaps. So apologies to all those people in Adelaide whose houses we've been stalking! Vladmari: thankyou Building the Dream: congratulations on your build...all the waiting is the admin stage is definitely the worst bit, but hopefully you'll be through it soon, and get into the fun stuff! For us, construction is starting, but only just. They brought fill in 2 weeks ago, the portaloo and skip last week and today it looked liked they were working on trenches. Even though we signed up in July, the key thing to note is probably the fact that we only progressed to the construction phase on the 26th of March! What's that you say? Signed up in July, selections finished in October but only went to construction in March? Yep, we were a bit confused by it too. Especially since we received planning consent on the 5th of September and received full development approval from council back on the 13th of November! Essentially, what held us up was the selections lady being very, very slow to get our final selections document organised, and even slower to correct the mistakes in it, so we didn't even get our first draft copy until a few days before they closed down for Christmas. It then took until most of the way through March until it was at a stage where it was ready to be signed (not because it had loads of errors in it, but just because it took weeks to get a reply to emails, and then many more weeks for corrections to be made). Part of it was probably my fault, because I'm not the sort to forever be on the phone harassing people for responses, and it was a busy time of year, so I expect we dropped of the radar a bit. Which wasn't a huge deal for us since we weren't in a rush to start, but the moral of the story is, if you do want to get through admin quickly, I'd recommend following up any email you send to her with a phone call, and then another phone call. Because if you think a polite email is enough (like I did), the 4.5 months could stretch into 9.5 months! That said, apart from the slowness of the selections, everyone else has been lovely, helpful and prompt. Our consultant was fantastic, the council admin lady very efficient, and the building manager knowledgeable and proactive. We've even spoken to one of the owners a few times, who seemed like an alright bloke. So I do have great hopes that the construction phase will go more smoothly. We've got a time frame of three weeks from finishing admin to getting action on site (which they've met), and 5 months from slab pour to completion, so we'll see how we go! Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 12Apr 09, 2014 5:29 am long time with selections love the bricks i would have chosen those if they were available were i live. Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 13Apr 09, 2014 9:44 am Very nice! Mu husband loved the Cottage Blend bricks.... he wanted those for our pillars, but they werent available. That is a bit slow on the admin side of things... Hopefully they make up for it with a zippy construction phase! Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66299 Slab: 16/6/14 Frame: 4/7/14 Roof: 22/7/14 Lock Up: 20/8/14 Fixing: 26/8/14 PCI: 9/10/14 Handover: 20/10/14 Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 14Apr 09, 2014 11:32 am Ha-ha, I am the one who would be harassing the office with the emails and phone calls but not until the time limit is up according to their time frame unfortunately, I have learned already that if you don't follow up everything will be done as slow as possible... First house - Statesman Greenock (modified) https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66876 Second house - Fairmont Grand Design (modified) https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=100789 Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 15Apr 09, 2014 12:10 pm 9.5 months is ridiculous. You shouldn't need to constantly follow up emails with a phone call. I am certainly one to crack the whip and have had to send heaps of emails and make lots of phone calls to get answers. Funny how prior to signing, the longest I ever waited for a response was a day. That has certainly changed. Don't even start me on the mistakes they make... Why is it so difficult to fix simple things??? Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 16Apr 09, 2014 7:30 pm The length of time it took for the selections lady to reply to emails actually became a bit of a running joke for us - we were extremely angry at the start, but after a few months of it, I think we were more perplexed than anything else. How she has kept her job for as long as she has, I don't know! (Although, the delay did mean we were able to save more money and afford all of the upgrades we wanted...so her glacial pace might have actually done us a favour ) Building the Dream: provided you survive the selections side of things, the service does get better. At least for us, the response times have improved dramatically, the people we're now dealing with seem to have some idea of what they're doing, and we're actually starting to enjoy the ride! Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 17Apr 09, 2014 8:58 pm And speaking of selections, I've got a few more to add to the list: Paint: Wall paint: Solver Scribbly Gum Ceiling paint: Ceiling White Doors/skirtings/architrave paint: Ceiling White (in full gloss enamel) Doors and mouldings Internal doors: solid core flush panels Door hardware: Lockwood saltbush (in satin chrome finish) Skirtings/achritraves: Square dressed Cornices: Cove Tiles (all from Italia Ceramics): Shower floor: Terrain Charcoal 300x300 Floor to bathroom, ensuite and laundry: Terrain Charcoal 450x450 (will probably do all the living spaces in the same tile post handover) Walls in bathroom, ensuite and laundry: FA04W 200x400 Kitchen splashback: Terrain Mist 300x600 (plus 3m of window splashback!) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Appliances: Electric Oven: Smeg SA990XR-8 Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Induction Cooktop: Smeg SIHP294S Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Retractable Rangehood: Smeg SAH490SS Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Dishwasher: Smeg DWA147X Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Sanitary ware Basins to bathroom and ensuite: Argent Zen undermount Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ WC to bathroom and ensuite: Argent Isis back-to-wall suite Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Shower heads (2 in ensuite, 1 in bathroom): Bauline overhead soaker Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Kitchen Sink: Oliveri Sonetto double bowl undermount Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Spa Bath: Novelli Kamiyu Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Kitchen drawings and selections still to come! Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 18Apr 09, 2014 10:52 pm Very nice! Love the charcoal tile... We've gone charcoal as well Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66299 Slab: 16/6/14 Frame: 4/7/14 Roof: 22/7/14 Lock Up: 20/8/14 Fixing: 26/8/14 PCI: 9/10/14 Handover: 20/10/14 Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 19Apr 09, 2014 11:34 pm Beautiful selections. We are thinking of ADH one of our big headaches were selections with our previous builder - umpteen emails to get each thing correct. May I ask if you appliances were upgrades and your toilet/basin (gorgeous) - were they exxy upgrades. (pm if you prefer : )) Good luck I look forward to seeing it all come together. Once construction starts it gets more real and exciting. Re: T and E's Custom build in Northfield, SA 20Apr 10, 2014 12:21 am Love the thread so far. Great plan and colours. I noticed your walk in robe arrangement is the same as ours and then I noticed you have a opening door. I just wondered if it might impinge on the wardrobe space or the door will knock into shelves etc. We went with a cavity slider. Anyway you probably have envisaged what you want. How big are your walk in robes if you don't mind me asking? Also love the charcoal tiles and your attitude about the delay. More money to upgrade is always good!! Following your build with excitement. 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 34273 6 55354 So it looks like we finally have some movement on site! Definitely later than expected, but I'll take any progress at this point. I'll drop by over the weekend to get… 5 27731 |