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Just to introduce us & our build, my husband and I will have been married one year this Saturday. For the past almost-three we've been living in what we've taken to calling our "vertical shoebox" - basically a one bedroom apartment on two levels, kitchen & *tiny* living area downstairs, bathroom & bedroom upstairs. This was a renovators delight that hadn't seen any love since the 80s - Chris basically bought it as a shell & ripped everything out. It's done us well for the past while but there's no denying we've outgrown it now.
Initially we were planning on buying around the Seaford area but became disillusioned with what was available in our price bracket. After the experience doing up our current place neither of us was in the mood for a reno anytime soon and the stress etc it would cause. When we realised that for a similar price we could move a little further out to the Cranbourne area and build we decided to go for it. As a newly married couple we're keen for a pup and hopefully a kiddo or two in the coming years, so as I put in this title, this has very much become our 10 year (+!) plan: we're going with a four bedroom two bath two living area plan which will give our family plenty of room to expand and still have a guest room for friends and for my Kiwi parents when they visit.
Finding a builder was surprisingly straightforward - we'd heard good things about Porter Davis and they had the floorplan we liked best and we were impressed with the inclusions. We've chosen to build a Livingstone - 23 sq, one storey - I have a chronic illness and I cannot wait to no longer have to deal with the pain of negotiating our stairs. We loved the flow of the bedrooms in particular, with an obvious guest room and the two kid bedrooms (yes, we're looking long term!) close to the bathroom. We've chosen to build with the standard alfresco:
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The next stage was to find a place to build. We'd already narrowed our search to Cranbourne based on it's proximity to hubby's parents & my brother, and to our favourite Mornington beaches. We took a drive out there with a shortlist and straight away those at the top fell down the list as we were unimpressed with the closeness of adjacent houses, the way the estates all fronted straight onto the road and their generic feel. "Mayfield" wasn't actually on our originally list but we wanted to view the Livingstone display home, and as soon as we got there we knew it was the right place. We love that the estate starts with natural woodland and that the houses are hidden from the road. There seems to be more space and it has more soul. And it helped that with the display home being there, we really could picture our lives there. Within a couple of weeks we had a deposit down on our land, a 448 sq block with our preferred orientation, the last block PD had available in the release (second group from the bottom)
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Our first appointment with our salesperson lasted for two hours and we were impressed with his thoroughness and openness (and his patience, considering we had a list of about 50 questions, intent on not having the wool pulled over our eyes!) He took us through the display pointing out what was and wasn't standard and we walked away with a quote which we weren't expecting so quickly. On 16 February we met with him again for a three hour marathon on site from 7-10pm on a Monday night (phew!) to nail down the finer points. With Access we don't get tender appointment so it was stressed that any structural changes needed to be communicated before we are put in touch with the BC.
Currently we are still waiting to be connected to our BC and to tee up our colours appointment. We've already made four or five visits to World of Style and are now eagerly awaiting selections which will help us narrow down pricing further. We *love* the Scandinavian style in the display home for colours and fittings and plan to largely be guided by that.
House link: http://www.porterdavis.com.au/homes/access/livingstone
Our chosen facade (without the pretties of colourbond roofing & wooden garage door):
This gives a good sense of it methinks
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Land is expected to title in May/June and we're in for a July site start, although I am prepared for and resigned to holdups along the way.
Already I've found the community in here has given some wonderful advice and I'm looking forward to recording our progress as it happens
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