Building in Northern Tas

Hi everyone I am starting my own build thread - I am not sure if I have done it right - by posting a new topic or if i am meant to post it somewhere else? We are building in Northern Tas and due to start in around 2 - 3 weeks - I am super nervous but excited

Here is a pic of our block - there is no beautiful view or anything but it's our first home and it is a bit bigger standing on it then it looks here.
Here are a few of our colour choices:
Bricks - but with white mortar


Carpet, tiles, and floorboards


Pendants above kitchen island ( the cement and copper ones )



The cupboards ( Burnished wood ) and the benchtop ( Antarctic stone ) and will have a black subway tile as backsplash



Roof and gutters are colourbond night sky and fascia and garage door is monument (dark grey)

Plan:


How it sits on our block:


Everyone's ideas and opinions would be greatly appreciated. I have found this forum a great help and so many interesting and different designs look at.

Hi just wondering if anyone has any feedback on my choices any feedback would be greatly appreciated Thanks everyone

The plan and choices look great Plan is quite similar to ours, quite functional. Which way is north on your block? I love those cement pendants, they're very on trend right now.

Thanks for your feedback Ilaeria - I will check out your build thread. North is on the family, lounge room, dining room side of the house - we are switching the family and dining area's around though

YES! You started a thread.

I love your floorboards and colour choices. I agree with Ilaeria - you plan is very functional and appealing.
I look forward to watching the rest of your build

I did, finally ....... I can't wait until something starts happening so I can post something a bit more exciting hahaha

Just waiting on all the bank approvals and first home builders grant red tape to go through then hopefully the slab will be going down soon !! I am super scared, nervous but excited at the same time! One thing that has bugged me recently is our colour consultant she wasn't too helpful and they splash around that you get a colour consultant 3 hour consult included so I was robably expecting a bit more but we sort of sat there while she went through a list and asked what we wanted without actually showing us any of our options until we asked well what can we choose from ! Now I am kicking myself for not realising a lot of people have their downpipe made a colour to match their bricks so it is less obvious, I wish she had mentioned this so we could have gone that way but being firsttime building and having so much to think/ decide about i didn't really think about it much just said to go with same as roof and fascia .... oh well minor problem just wanted to share incase it may help someone who hasn't thought of it! Now I drive around checking out everyone's downpipes lol

We had a downpipe problem too because we didn't check placements and ended up with one on our feature alfresco post! So we had to change the color of the post to match the downpipes. It's impossible to think of everything.


Sent from Tapatalk

So this last couple of weeks I have been getting anxious about starting the build ! Just worried that things won't be right like the roof colour ( we went nights sky roof and gutter and Monument for fascia ) but it's too late now lol

Also feeling bad this week we realised the lounge / media room didn't have doors as standard so had to ask to add them ( even though we had asked our sales guy on sign off too add it which he says he doesn't remember ....) we couldn't decide between a cavity slider ( 820mm ) or two double doors ( 2x720mm doors ) and went with the cavity slider being cheaper and after thinking about it changed our mind to double doors for the aesthetics of the room ect - and got a bit of a cranky reply back from the builder saying it was the absolute last variation they would do - I feel a bit annoyed about it as we are spending a lot of money on it - I realise it would be a pain to change things and extra work but for what they make off it I'm sure it shouldn't be a big deal. Anyway just waiting them getting all the things ordered to go on site eek

Oh that's annoying nat_luke1. I think they're a smaller builder right? But still, they should be open to working with you even if they charge you or something. That's pretty unreasonable.

It's with gj Gardner, they have been really great and he did the variation on the doors with no variation fee because of the mix up which is awesome or it would have been at least $200 more but I hate feeling like I'm being a pain when I just want it to be right

GJ should be more flexible I would have thought. Don't let them bully you, just be polite but firm. Like you said, it's your house and you're paying a LOT of money!

Hi Ilaeria, your plans and colours look great. Congratulations on starting your building journey.

I think sometimes our builders forget that we don't do this everyday. From my experience no matter how throughly you go through your plans something is always going to be missed. It wasn't until we were on site that we got a call about what colour we wanted our colourbond roof (we are having tiles). We didn't realise but in a part of our roof (and not visible to the street) the pitch only allowed for a colourbond roof in that particular area. Anyway, that's been sorted now and we just kind of took it in our stride and moved on.

Talking about downpipes - we are in a bit of a predicament. We chose jasper (brown) to blend in with our bricks but we've been out to site and they have actually put up surfmist (white). So now we have to decide if we ask them to change it or not. I don't mind the surfmist but our water tank will be jasper and so will our laundry door. I'm wondering if it will look odd or not?!

Erin

Are they actually colorbond downpipes, or are they just plastic ones that aren't painted yet? If they're definitely the wrong ones, and different to your color selection, and you're not happy, then they have to change them.

I would ask them to change it, I'm sure if it was you who made a mistake they would be the first to jump on it and your paying so much you want to have it exactly how you want it. But yeah just ask first if it's yet to be painted because it's not the colour you chose

Just got word work will begin first week in sept so that's only two weeks away !!! yay! But means that completion date works out around 23rd Dec arghhhhh so of course their time off due to Christmas isn't included in construction time - so a tad stressed about the delays there and getting everything sorted around that time does anyone know how long it roughly takes between completion and moving in ?

Our site was scrapped about May 22 & we are looking to have a completed house in a month, so say end of sept, but we have another 3/4 weeks of outside stuff that not everyone gets. Driveways, front yard landscaped/grassed.
We should be doing PCI mid Oct.
They moved very fast on ours, so use our times as a 'best case scenario' perhaps.

We are doing all the landscaping and driveway after handover so at least that won't hold us up. On the other hand I wish they were doing t so it was all finished when we move in but hubby enjoys landscaping ect so should keep him busy lol that's exciting room2breathe that's not very far away !!!

I would base 6 months for the whole build. Ours started in April and everything except for the finishing touches (paint, door hardware, wardrobes, carpet, blinds, site clean up etc) were finished a month ago and we have a completion date still 6 weeks away. Our builder won't let more than one trade into the home at a time and although the first stages went super quick the end is dragging along.

Every builder is different and i'd base it on the contract times.