Our new home

Wowee I haven't been on here for awhile. Good news we have final sold our house! Its unconditional at the moment and we only have till the 31st to get out, however the buyer is keen to get in earlier if we can sort it out! SO SO So excited we have been waiting so long for this 3rd time lucky.

Unfortunately in the process the house prices have gone up substantially, colours have changed and we have had to go back to square one. We are onto our 3rd/4th sales rep and things are missing from what we had quoted and changed. I had recently picked out all new colours based on the colour book stone (being essastone) and have been told today that no its actually ceaserstone- so peaved about that one as we only asked the week before what brand of stone it was.

Anyway so I may be updating a few things as we go further along. We are looking at having the laminate floating floorboards instead of the bamboo.

Anyway I have lost my train of thought.

Congrats on the house selling! It will be great to see you get going! Everyone I started on here with are either finished or nearly finished, you and might be the only ones left !

Are you saying that Kings have changed to caesarstone?

Hey Bank, I know I've watched everyone come and go with all their builds haha it is a bit depressing!

So last week or the week before we asked (over the phone) for a new colour book and was told that nothing had really changed, when we got it the stone colours, carpets, bricks and a few other things had changed version is from Jan this year. So hubby called and looking back there was confusion with the stones because we were told they had changed to ceaserstone and they were having issues with it or didn't like it or something so went back to essastone (or at least thats what i got from hubby relaying it to me) so I went and looked for the colours which were in the book got samples of the cat 1 stone colours etc chose all my cupboards etc and then we had an appointment with the sales rep to go back through everything we want (as previously mentioned its been so long prices have increased etc) and in the New home estimate thingy it says ceaserstone and so we questioned it and were told yes thats what it is! So now we are gutting the price of the essastone. because the cat 1 colours aren't very nice or at least not what we want. Im sure i could have said that with out the story hahah.

Im just annoyed that no more then two weeks apart we were told two different things. I am also annoyed that we had chosen windows doors etc and its not done (since the last sales rep has left, its gone missing) so have to do it all again. I have no idea what sizes we chose way back when. I would have thought as we were basically at contract stage that I wouldn't have to be re-doing everything from scratch.

Congratulations on the sale of your house finally! 3rd times a charm.

What a frustration about your selection. Good luck going through all that again, at least it will give you a fresh look at everything and see if you want it different from before. Glad that you can start to move forward though!

We found this stage with JGK to be slow and tedious but it got better in the end. It was almost like they were daring us to walk away.

One word of advice tho. The home estimates will form the basis of the contract spec later on which is what they build and price off. If there are errors in the new home estimates made by JGK sales people then those errors will appear in the contract spec too and become your problem once you sign them.

We had heaps of mistakes early on including 2 shower heads per shower at one point. Light fittings were also a drama. One mistake that filtered through to contract spec was that our front outside downlights are white and the rear alfresco downlights are chrome. We never asked for this as we wanted them all to be white but someone at JGK put the rear 4 in as chrome and the other 42 as white. We signed on this thinking no big deal and now it's locked in.

So what I am saying is this: they will make errors and when you spot them call it out straight away and tell them you won't be signing till the estimate is error free. Don't worry about how tedious you make it for them.

We didn't have any dramas changing things past the New Home Estimate, I'm not sure if that's the way it's supposed to be done but we were a fair way off having everything nailed down at the time we moved to admin and formal building quotes. We had a few New Home Estimates, then a few Formal Building Quotations and by the time we signed the Contract Spec we were up to no. 7. Just make sure everything is right before you sign the contract. We had plenty of double ups when we upgraded things, you really have to watch that they delete the first thing.

Do you have a stone colour in mind?

Completely out of the old house now, living with the parents . Ready to get this new house rolling.

Colour selection tomorrow 10/04/17. Got everything already written up from last time and have made the necessary changes so should be a quick visit. We only need to choose the tiles, carpet and floorboards, with colours in mind shouldn't be to hard to find something to match my ideas,

For those that have been following my post, you will know I have had issues picking external colours and I did a mock up of the colours I had in mind on page 5. Originally I had Gully as the colour bond roof (I still really like this colour) but have now changed this to Wallaby. I had also questioned whether to have the window frame the roof colour or the same colour as the pillars (which are Woodland Grey), I have now decided to go the same colour as the roof. I think having the grey roof will now tie the dark grey colour in. I THINK it should look good. I'll see if I can add some more photos shortly- i'm currently using the internet from my phone so its slow and have already gone over my data limit (Supposed to have internet on Friday but they wrecked the phone lines at the pit so have to wait till Monday hopefully )

I have also changed the internal colours a little as well! AS mentioned previously Essa Stone had changed their colours and then Kings had a change and went with Ceaserstone instead. We are also going to floating floorboards rather then bamboo as the price went up when we had to change the package we were locked into.

So kitchen colours;
Stone bench top- Essa Stone- Zinc
Bottom kitchen cupboards- Laminate- Battalion in natural finish
Top kitchen cupboards- Laminate- Ghost gum in natural finish

Bench tops in ensuite/bathroom- Ceaserstone- Osprey

kitchen colours haven't changed from this picture- zinc stone benchtop white top cupboards in ghost gum and darker bottom colours in battalion

Good luck today! I'm looking forward to seeing your final picks!

Outside colours- Wallaby tin sample for the roof gutters and windows. Evening haze for the fascia and doors. Feature pillars in woodland grey
Ensuite, bathroom and laundry floor and wall tile. Osprey stone for bathroom benches. The laminate sample has changed. The tile sample shown here is different to the sample in the next photo.
laminate flooring in a slightly different colour then anticipated! It's lighter and has a grey tone thru it. If you have a look at the next photo of it you will notice it's still a yellow(?) wood and not a completely grey board.

This is most of the colours- I think only bathroom ensuite and laundry cupboard is missing.

I think this is the colour we have picked for the ensuite bathroom and laundry cupboards the sample I had had a knot in the piece with a grey tinge that will fit in well with the grey tiles. Originally I wanted the Amati oak and although I still really like that colour I think it will be too dark and blend in with the dark tile too much- this colour and the white bench top should pop out from the tile??? Hopefully look good!

Looking great Sarah nice colours. It should come together nicely. Any idea when you'll get contracts and a start date.

Hi Surtees! I am a lot happier now with my exterior colours I think it will come together!

However i've had to change the window frame colours AGAIN! Apparently there is only like 4 or 5 colours to choose from which I wasn't aware of(didn't remember from last time). So now I've had to go back to the original woodland grey colour, but I think it should still be OK because I feel the colours all fit it better then my original colours.

Anyway we had to re-do our soil tests which happened today, because they couldn't use the last ones as it was over 18 months ago they did it! (I still have the old ones so it will be interesting to see the new compared with the old- hopefully its better not worse if any changes!).

Its gone to drafting to be drawn (1 week), then engineering (1 week), so in theory contracts will be ready in 2 weeks!?? Hoping to start in May, otherwise June. Definitely want to be started by June. Should be in by Christmas all going well.. YIPEE!

Everything looks great together Sarah! That's interesting re the window colours, I don't think it was that limited when we did our selections, however we were always set on monument so I don't think we spoke about it for more than a few seconds.
Fingers crossed you get off to a quick start. Don't hold your breath with the timeline though, it rarely seems to run as quickly as they say.

What are the chances of the build starting before the end of June? Drafting and engineering are being done now (for around 10 working days??) we were told it shouldn't take too long as our drawings were already done previoulsy.
Then onto contracts, which they were hoping would be in yesterday. Once we have the contracts we have to go to the bank for the loan, then to sign the actual contracts.

Is there anything else that i'm not aware of after that before the build? When do the council/approvals etc say their piece?

I think you would be very lucky to start before the end of June. Im not sure if Kings process is the same ( we were with Kings but changed builders), however our builder quoted 10 weeks from contract signing. We moved over to construction after 7 weeks.

Our bank ( one of the big 4) took one month to value and approve our loan. In the mean time your drawings should go to the developers for approval (if needed). Then lastly to council and to get building permits. We were lucky to have our building permit in 1 day.




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End of June isn't impossible but I wouldn't think it would be a lot earlier.

Because of all our council dramas we had our contract signed and finance unconditionally approved months before we got to the point where you are, so our case was very different however to give you an idea:
-Our contract was ready to sign a few days after engineering was back.
-The bank loan is the longest bit, about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks for us. I'm not sure whether they would apply for permit while they wait for that.
-The permit is the quick bit, I think 1 day for us second go, a few days the first attempt but changes were needed.

Basically contract and finance took about 3 weeks. And we went from final drawings to site start in about 3 weeks (contract and finance already done) I think we were lucky, that seemed faster than most people seem to get.

So about 6 weeks for what you have left. So many variables though.

Our detailed timeline is on the first page of my thread if you want all the ins and outs.

WOO!! Final drawings are in, got them yesterday found a couple of issues- sent them back this morning and plans are back this evening. Only one issue remaining is cupboard size in laundry bigger then we wanted, which I'm willing to forget about (cat litter trays will have to find themselves elsewhere haha) for the sake of just getting it done and having to go back to drawings again! Thought we may have lost a little bit of back yard, but we have reduced the garage by about 500mm so we could get the house as close to the front of the block. It was either remove the eaves off of the east wall or reduce the garage. The garage will save us more money and there is still enough room for what we wanted, we can still drive the car through the back yard etc etc, so it was an easy call. engineering is ready but haven't received them yet? think we should have them tomorrow.

Contact signing set for the 29th, bank will be earlier that day hopefully. Come on get this building started!

Should be receiving our contracts this week-- Hope so because we are dong contract signing on Monday! I have a copy of a blank contract to read through, however a lot of it is going over my head. Has anyone got some information on what I should be looking out for in the contracts, or point out a few things I should keep an eye on?

We have written consent from the neighbours saying they have no issue with us building on the fence line and having the set back towards the front. (The porch is at 4m, the bedroom is at 5.__m). So that should hopefully fasten rather than slow the permits side of things.

I wish we just had a fence or something up already... so close yet still so far.