Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 10, 2014 12:52 pm Hi all. I have started a blog on another site but it doesn't appear to get much exposure. The whole purpose of this blog for me is to allow other people to have a look, and take and share ideas if need be. Just bear with me when it comes to updates as my wife and I are intentionally allowing this build to become a slow process. We currently have a house we live in, that we built with Statesman 7 years ago, and have up until Dec 2015 to put pen to paper on a contract to build. It won't take that long but obviously the longer we hold out the more we can save, and in turn the more we may need if we are stuck juggling two mortgages later on down the track. We have started the ball rolling. We do have land and have locked a fixed price contract in so far for our house. We are just now up to saving and fine tuning the quote to make sure we have made all the changes and upgrades we need while trying to cut back on things me may deem not a necessity. Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 2Sep 10, 2014 12:56 pm The Beginning I'd be fibbing if i said that this was my first blog regarding the house my Wife and I are going to build. We were originally looking at a Metricon design we fell in love with, but once we received our Construction Quote we knew it would be over our budget and therefore would make life less enjoyable later on. So we always kept an eye open for other ideas. We have already found our dream block of land and were contemplating whether to build our dream two-storey design through Metricon (and struggle to live week by week), to build a smaller design and re-sell for profit, or to keep looking for a similar design two-storey that we could work with and make affordable. Luckily, on one random adventure down South, we stumbled across Simonds Homes at Seaford. The designs they had there didn't appeal to what we were after for our own residence, but we did notice the way the houses were presented, and the appliances used were very close to the level of standard we had come accustomed to with Metricon. So that's when we grabbed a House Designs book and started crunching numbers. I automatically fell in love with the Avalon, i liked the floor plan and liked the size. My wife liked the biggest house they had, a 55sq/m monster that, even though would fit on the block, surely wasn't practical enough for the two of us....and i don't think having five or so bedrooms all with ensuites would be fun for me to clean every day if we were to have that many kids. So the focus was on the Avalon and what options and additions we could make. We travelled down to Simonds Blakeview and after a few face to face meetings with the Consultant there we received a quote for all the inclusions we wished our dream house had.....we literally had three or four pages of extras we wanted, some cosmetic, some structural, but all we felt was what would make a dream house a dream home. The quote blew us away. After the adjustments we made the house would end up being bigger than the Metricon design we liked, would have top spec appliances and extras, and still be over 100k cheaper. We even got to treat ourselves with adding a few "maybe" extra inclusions in that we thought would be a nice little touch but not necessary. So this is where we are currently at. We paid the $500 deposit to start the paperwork. The Consultant has been very formal and fantastic with us and we have got an appointment booked in their gallery to view Colour Selections so we can have a more indepth look as to the extras we are after and the available options too. We are in no rush to build, we made that clear with the Consultant, but felt we needed to at least lock the contract price in so we arent faced with a fluctuating price later on when we are ready to build. With the price being cheaper than our actual budget, and cheaper than what we expected, it has bumped forward our projected starting date. We were aiming to start by the end of the next year, but with our current savings and budgetting setup we could be possibly looking at early to mid next year. So excited Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 3Sep 10, 2014 1:04 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ So this is the ground floor. A few of the changes here are cosmetic and appliance upgrades, but we have paid some attention to the structure as well. We raised the ceiling height to 9ft, added a wall to separate the living and the library, and double doors to the newly formed theatre room. We removed the rear garage door to give ourselves a nice flat surface for a wall mountable clothesline directly from the laundry. We've taken the fridge from the butlers pantry and altered the powder room to make that one room, and to have the fridge out in the kitchen itself (felt two rooms in the powder room was a little excessive). We have also extended the alfresco and added two stacker doors to the alfresco, and one double slider from the dining. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ This is the first floor. We made very little structural changes here, only raising the ceiling to 8.5ft and we needed to make two of the bedroom windows privacy windows. Everything else up here is upgrades, eg freestanding bath and ceaserstone countertops. Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 4Sep 10, 2014 1:05 pm Sounds and looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing on here Your journey very much mirrors ours, even down to building through Construction Services Australia previously. We too really liked Haydn and how he was able to get all the inclusions up front with no surprises come contract time. We were going with Rendition right up until finding Simonds and like you the price was just growing and growing and we wondered if it was really worth it? What Simonds were able to offer us was far and away more than what Rendition were for a fair chunk less. Looking forward to seeing your choices and watching your build come together, such an exciting time. Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 6Sep 10, 2014 1:09 pm deluxes Sounds and looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing on here Your journey very much mirrors ours, even down to building through Construction Services Australia previously. We too really liked Haydn and how he was able to get all the inclusions up front with no surprises come contract time. We were going with Rendition right up until finding Simonds and like you the price was just growing and growing and we wondered if it was really worth it? What Simonds were able to offer us was far and away more than what Rendition were for a fair chunk less. Looking forward to seeing your choices and watching your build come together, such an exciting time. Thank you! You are spot on though, we do share a very similar journey. I think my wife and i were so set on a Metricon design because it was on display and was easily accessible for us, plus at the time we were only looking at display homes that were double storey so we were a bit naive in not giving certain builders a chance because they only had single storey homes available on display. I never even knew about the Simonds Blakeview displays and i live only five minutes away i couldn't believe it! Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 7Sep 10, 2014 1:19 pm Haha I hear you! We thought we'd visited every display in Adelaide and only stumbled across Simonds at the 11th hour, we walked in and saw their level of finishes (what we were angling for with Rendition but they were struggling to show us and come together on) we spoke to Haydn, and decided to go with our gut and switch to Simonds. The rest is history. I think you've made a great choice and very lucky to have stumbled across their display at Seaford. Sometimes things just have a funny way of working themselves out. Springwood is a great estate as well, we went up there a few months ago. Has a lovely feel to it. 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: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 8Sep 10, 2014 1:27 pm deluxes Haha I hear you! We thought we'd visited every display in Adelaide and only stumbled across Simonds at the 11th hour, we walked in and saw their level of finishes (what we were angling for with Rendition but they were struggling to show us and come together on) we spoke to Haydn, and decided to go with our gut and switch to Simonds. The rest is history. I think you've made a great choice and very lucky to have stumbled across their display at Seaford. Sometimes things just have a funny way of working themselves out. Springwood is a great estate as well, we went up there a few months ago. Has a lovely feel to it. Yeah you're definitely not wrong about Springwood. It's funny because we only originally went down to Springwood for the Metricon displays there. We were actually just looking for ideas in the two storey design they have there (the name escapes me at the moment) and we found ourselves just walking around and the same day we put a block of land on hold I definitely love how the whole area is presented, the country feel and the proposed developments planned in the future. Its funny because now we have seen Simonds, their level of finishes, and their competitive pricing we feel that we have probably wasted about six months driving around SA looking at display homes when there was a builder under our nose the whole time hahaha Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 9Sep 10, 2014 1:31 pm Ahh gosh, same with what happened to us at Bluestone Estate in Mt Barker, went in for the displays and walked out with a block! Loved the development, the country feel but being less than 30 mins to the Cbd. Hahaha glad to see we aren't the only ones who found their new plot in the same kind of way! Exactly!!! We wasted so much time... But I guess knowing that you've turned every stone and really researchEd the options can make you feel even more confident in the end decision with Simonds 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: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 10Sep 10, 2014 1:46 pm Nice house You made same fridge and 'powder' change as us, great idea, looks good! This is the third Avalon that I know of on here. Rob's in Vic is the one to watch - currently under construction. Our slab should be down before Christmas. Nice facade. I actually liked Simonds earlier facades (St Ives and Kew esp) but they dont seem to offer with the new home range. My husband said he wasn't fussy with colours BUT we had a hard time with our exterior colors. He insisted light colours to help with energy eff. There is a Harcrest build in Brisbane that I loved the colour scheme of but I couldn't find swap out colors for SA availability. It's so hard! Or are you enjoying that? I've been traumatized by selections - nice to see some enjoy it! Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 11Sep 10, 2014 2:54 pm I actually dont mind the colour selections side of things. We had a little tour in the Gallery the other day and then Haydn left us alone for a while to have a bit of a wander and grab samples. I look forward to it more this time around then the first house we built. The first time we had signed off on the contract and agreed to pay the selection extras out of pocket so we went very tightarse and went basic so we could upgrade things ourselves later. This time around it'll be part of the house contract and we want to make sure we get everything right the first time so we can just turn the key and walk into our dream house TomCat, i reckon Haydn showed us your plans because that's where i got the fridge alteration from Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 12Sep 10, 2014 2:56 pm @Deluxes My wife and I were considering the move out to Bluestone Mt Barker. It has a very similar feel to Springwood but it worked out too far for the both of us to travel to work and see family Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 13Sep 10, 2014 3:13 pm Ahhh I see! We are both northern dwellers originally, but we now both work on the southern side of the city and our family is now pretty evenly spread north and south, so luckily it wasn't an issue... But Springwood is perfect, and you can stay close to work and family. Glad to see Haydn is still doing the "build it all into the quote first up" thing. That was such a bonus, being able to shop and select every thing initially before doing full selections (again another similarity, we went very light on upgrades last time at selections as they were all after contracts) but we found this way soOOo much easier and we got exactly what we wanted I love the facade you've chosen too... That will look really grand and really suit the area youre building in as well. Love hearing about new Simonds builds... Especially in SA! 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: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 14Sep 30, 2014 8:45 am So the wife and i ventured back into the Gallery yesterday to do a bit more contemplating. The second time around was less overwhelming and i feel we made some significant progress with colours and textures. We have a few things to alter and discuss with Haydn just to further fine tune the price but i feel it was a very constructive experience this time around....plus the wife and I appear to be on the same page with our ideas so that makes the experience a lot easier and more enjoyable hahaha. I will put up a rough idea of our selections shortly, once i get around to taking all the pictures of my phone. Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 15Sep 30, 2014 10:25 am Good news Ahhh yes it is a much more pleasant experience when you are on the same page! Hubby and I had the opportunity to "veto" things we just couldn't live with, but I think we only used that option once. Made for a much more fun time when doing selections! Looking forward to seeing what you've selected! They have some really lovely options to choose from 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: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 16Sep 30, 2014 11:12 am Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ This is an external idea we are playing with at the moment. We did originally have a Cat 2 brick in mind but it would have clashed too much the other colour ideas we had, eg cladding and render. This picture depicts the tiling colour *Barramundi* with the gutters, window frames and facias colour being *Woodland Grey* The brick chosen here is *Hindmarsh*. We have gone with the darker wooden look garage door and will match that colour with the front door. The three samples on the left are ideas of cladding colours and rendering colours but we actually forgot to take the samples home so i dont have the names of them Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 17Sep 30, 2014 11:19 am Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ These are the internal colour selections We originally wanted tiles but the more we see the laminate flooring in the Gallery the more we like it, plus because that is the flooring used it is quite easy to match up colours with that flooring on display. Firstly we have chosen a darker carpet. Having two dogs and plenty of visitors has made us regret the beige carpet we currently have in our house. It may be a little too dark and is probably the only thing we may consider changing at a later date. We went the *Dark Oak* laminate flooring, coupled with the *Exotic Wood* kitchen cupboards and *Dreamy Marfill* Caeserstone bench top. The glass splashback is *Morgans Beach* and is one of my favourite things in the kitchen to choose . With the walls we went *Silver Screen*, which is not as bright as the off white so it should work well with the dark flooring, and then *Retreat* as the feature wall colour. The middle one in the picture is just there to show the transition Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 18Sep 30, 2014 12:39 pm Very nice, they all blend beautifully together. We have the Exotic Wood in our laundry, it's really lovely. I had to pick it for something! I love wooden floors as well, I think it'll add a really nice feel to your home 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: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 19Sep 30, 2014 9:26 pm Love it Nathan! Great schemes Similar colours to my choices (we picked Retreat with Whitewash ... same as the 'Isis' at Seaford). We have a mutt too, so chocolate carpet was a must. We currently have pink Seemed like a great idea 20 years ago! Re: Building the Simonds Avalon in the Springwood Estate, SA 20Oct 01, 2014 12:09 am Hi nathanc01, I've been reading on this forum for the past few weeks, as I've also just bought land at Springwood. I did the same thing as you. I have wanted to build for as long as I can remember, and am now in a position to do so, so went out to have a look at display homes for ideas, and to see how feasible the dream was. Fell in love with the area, it had the same feel that Golden Grove did 20-odd years ago. 2 weeks later I signed the contract, and settlement is happening on 14th October. I'll be doing the same as you - just sitting on the land for at least 12 months to save a bit more. When my lease expires in March we'll be moving in with my mum for 12-18 months. I'm really keen on the Simonds Palisade, which is very similar to the Sierra on display at BC. I had my heart set on a MainVue design, but they don't build in SA anymore When I spoke to Haydn he asked what lot I had purchased and he mentioned that the people next door are building a double storey...what street are you in? We could be neighbours! 2016 is going to be AWESOME! Building the Simonds Palisade Land settlement: 15/10/14 Contract signed: 8/10/15 Build start: 6/5/16 Slab: 9/6/16 I do enjoy the drama:-D In his latest two videos he has started bringing security guards to site, I am waiting for the punch on to begin lol 6 46235 Hey guys building a new place through a volume builder and just wondering if i should complain to the site supervisor as we just had plasterboard installed. Looks like… 0 11563 |