The block
10 Acres at Cockatoo Valley (), the arrival at deciding on this block was a protracted journey. After having our first child we decided we'd had a gutful of suburbia (despite living in a decent suburb on 1000sqm) and decided to go searching for a decent amount of space, initially we decided to look for 2-4 acres with a view (wife is into art (art-by-kiv.com cheap plug
) - gotta have a view to art good apparently 
As we work in the "norf" we scoured the hills face from Athlestone to Kersbrook/Birdwood for almost a year and nothing came up. Everything was either 1000 acres with no services or 1/2 an acre for $500k! Then one day we were just toddling around the back-blocks near our current address and stumbled upon a "development" that wasn't well advertised. 25 blocks of between 10 and 15 acres. We were a bit hesitant, 10 acres was 2.5 time bigger than our upper limit, but then we checked the development regs in the area, 200sqm shed allowed? SIGN ME UP! Bonus was mains water and 3 phase, 5 mins to Gawler, 2 mins to Springwood which should have a supermarket etc. Settled September 2014.Awesome middle of winter shots (it's not really this dreary a place
)From the road down to the bottom (300m away)
Bottom of the block back up to the road
The block has a perceived gentle slope in two directions down to a flat area of ~5 acres. Naturally we wanted to build on the elevated section for views/drainage. About 6 months after purchasing - thought I'd better check that slope over our desired build envelope. Guessed 1m or so over the whole envelope. Dragged out the waterlevel.... oh dear 2.5m fall over 30m run.... eyes don't work very well at guestimating over 10 acres apparently
Lesson Learnt - get a survey.So the house - we spent the usual 18 months of touring around display homes picking out the pieces we wanted and effectively came up with the following and after input from our design consultant at ADH after a bit of backwards and forwards settled on
The bad
Way too big for 3 people
Not the best solar efficiency being E/W facing
Slight wastage area with large hallways
The Good
Way too big for 3 people
Room for a dedicated art studio for wife
Room for a HT room for me
Activity room for son - later to transform in to his private study - No computers in bedroom!
Big bedrooms
Room to build bar into rumpus niche - (we currently have beer on tap at home and didn't want to lose this! haha - makes us sound like drunks :S)
The good and bad:
3.3m ceiling to large sections of the house - should look good - but heating and cooling is painful.
Changes to plans so far (not shown above)
Have made a bit of extra clearance around the partition wall between the rumpus/family area and made it double thickness in case we hang a tv on each side
Changed highlights over stacks from 2400h door + 400 highlight - to 2700h double glazed door (hopefully they don't weigh too many tons)
Progress:
- Signed Contract Feb'15
- Footings variation -Mid Mar '15 - 7k on top of the original guestimate -
- cried a little - Received the variation-Mid Mar '15 -
- extra sewerage (1k) (only 45m allowed in contract - should have spotted this :
- 1.5k for extra electricity run / remote meter on boundary
- Spectic/Door variation-Early April '15
- decided to change to aerobic system instead of soakage as the trench would've ended up running through our future pool or shed unless we trenched like 50m away with the associated costs of doing that - 4.5k upgrade (incl electrical allowance and irrigation etc)
- Door change - an extra 1.2k - was going to look funny with a 200mm stacker frame and a 50mm highlight frame perched on top.
- Final plan signoff - Mid April '15
- Selections completed - Mid Jun '15
- Final builders interview/selections - 15 July '15 - looks like were up for ~25k in selections variations
- 8k of this was electrical which we were prepared fo
- 6k in kitchen/bath (after allowing for stone in kitchen in contract and 2pac- and then not using 2pac but selecting every other option)
- 1k for tiling upgrades
- 2.2k for clear anodised aluminium doors/windows
- 1.2k for front door (hume xs11)
- the rest was all that small stuff that just adds up (door stops/taps/baths etc etc)
Still waiting for planning approval (is "verbally approved" just sign the damn paper)
Licking our wounds being about 45k over initial contract price
(woops that became a somewhat long post)
TomCat
