Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 01, 2013 10:29 pm Hi Everyone,
My partner and I are both 23 years old with a 6 month old son and have been looking to build a home for a couple years now. We are building our first home with Blueprint Homes in Annie's Landing, Ellenbrook. Land is being titled in December. We are both very excited AND nervous! We were overwhelmed with all the information but we are slowly processing everything and looking forward to embarking on this journey! We only just got pre approved a couple of weeks ago and had a look at a few different building companies for home and land packages. Finally we settled on Blueprint homes and have been really happy with our sales guy. We missed out on the first land we were shown and I was worried we weren't going to find anything else within our range. But fortunately our sales guy found a block for us which turned out to be bigger and changed the floor plan to suit our budget Our block is 365m2 and located on a corner. We signed off on our house plan and land contract this weekend and now have to find a settlement agent. It all seems like it's moving very fast but I know things will soon slow down waiting for our home to get 'slabbed down'. We received our precious white pre-start book, which I have been looking through religiously. It's now time for the fun part, looking through everything and choosing colours. I already have a few idea's with our tiling, I like the idea of charcoal coloured tiles throughout the living room as I currently have cream tiles and they are a pain to clean as they get messy so easily. Anyway, I would love to hear any feedback on anyone building with Blueprint homes or living in the same area or just any advice in general. Cheers, Steph Timeline: July 2013: Began thinking about building July 2013: Applied for a loan with keystart September 2013: Signed off initial plan with Blueprint and paid deposit. 6th October 2013: Hit a speed bump. Developers declined plan.Had to select a bigger plan which meant spending more $$$ 6th December: Signed building contracts 24th December: Formal finance approval 8th April 2014: After a massive delay, our Titles were finally issued. 28th April 2014: Settlement 9th June 2014: Prestart 1st August 2014: Scheduling Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 2Sep 02, 2013 1:04 am Hello!! I'm building just down the road in Whiteman Edge with Redink If you are able to post your plans there are lots of us that love having a look and making suggestions if you are still able to make minor changes! There are so many things you don't really think of or know about until you have been through the process...so many things I would change now to my house that I didn't know about and I'm only half way through the build Hope you find a good settlement agent Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 3Sep 02, 2013 12:31 pm Yay, how exciting. Is it your first home too or? I love this area, it has such a nice feel. I have posted a photo of our floor plan. There are a copy of things I noticed already that needs changing, like a door in the laundry (which seems so obvious) and I some more bench space in the kitchen. It's a small design but unfortunately that's all we could afford within our budget. But still perfect for the 3 of us. It would be great if you see anything else that needs changing, etc Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 4Sep 02, 2013 1:19 pm welcome! Is there space for a car somewhere? Also it's a little hard to tell where windows are, I would want a window in the bathroom and ensuite, and an additional window in Bed 2 and 3, it looks like there is only one small window at present? Also I would swap the sliding door to the meals side so you can use that wall in the kitchen for bench space, and have a window above for ventilation. Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 5Sep 02, 2013 1:29 pm Welcome My OH and I also only built a 3x2 on a 300m2 block but its a starting point Tina I could be wrong but I have a feeling the garage will be at the back and they are possibly building to both boundaries? Though if you aren't or that's what the original plan was for, I'd add more windows if possible Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 6Sep 02, 2013 2:35 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅
Here's a full photo of the plans, includes an alfresco and garage car space out the back with a bit of space in the back yard. I've circled the windows. But I agree there should be a window in the bathrooms. Oh we have a range hood in the kitchen so that should help with ventilation. I was thinking of putting more bench space in the kitchen near the pantry and having a corner pantry instead. Otherwise if we changed the sliding door in the kitchen to the meals area, where would our fridge go if we put more bench space on that wall? Yes, I would have loved a bigger kitchen but can only go with what we can afford at the moment and your right it's a starting point. Still happy we are able to build our own home Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 8Sep 02, 2013 3:03 pm I wouldn't change the alfresco, you could just extend the path a little. Just a suggestion anyway If it was me (and you have to satisfy yourself first!), I would swap the location of the fridge and pantry, make it a corner pantry, and have the bench curl around that way, with the entrance to the kitchen opposite the new fridge location (confusing enough for you lol!). As I say just an idea. The kaboodle site is good to play with for your kitchen design, you can move things around fairly easily. Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 9Sep 02, 2013 3:15 pm No, you explained it clearly Great idea! That in place, I would then put a window where the new bench space is so you can still see the alfresco area and ventilation. This is sounding rather good now! Thanks Tina. Will have to see what my partner says....although he already knows that the kitchen is my domain hehe. Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 10Sep 02, 2013 10:15 pm Love the idea to have the kitchen go along the back wall of the house, you could have the sink there with window above. I'd go a U type shape with pantry closest to minor bedrooms, fridge recess then stovetop, sink under the window and then a nice island facing the dining space. If looks like you aren't actually building to the boundary so I would be adding windows to the bathroom and ensuite.also the bedrooms. You might find changing the corner window currently in the master to not be a corner window saves you some money. When I asked about the corner windows I was told they are pretty expensive and they also make for more difficult window dressings I'm not sure how much money you have to play with I know we were n a very tight budget, but once you aren't actually on the boundary you could move bed 3's window to the left side and push the kitchen out to be inline with the bedrooms. It may actually make it a little easier.... And gives you a more specious kitchen. Also because I am assuming this plan is actually made for building boundary to boundary there are no eaves down the sides of the house. You might want to ask about this. Particularly if one of those walls faces west, eaves prtect the house from some of the heat from harsh summer sun! Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 11Sep 02, 2013 10:25 pm We are on a tight budget As to why we have a smaller house on a bigger lot. I love the idea of extending the kitchen to line up with the bedrooms. Can this be done in pre start and how much do you reckon it would cost? If there is one room I would pay extra money on it would be the kitchen. Thanks for the advice too Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 12Sep 02, 2013 10:33 pm Have you signed and paid deposit? Often you can't make structural changes after this stage.... Tough you can usually do it until final contracts are signed. While there would be additional charges for pushing it out I would have thought by having the house more square you would make roofing easier.... Kitchen can be expensive! I'd get it added now unless you have the cash to pay rather then being in mortgage! We paid about $1000 per extra metre of cabinets... Make sure your dishwasher recess has plumbing and electric and if you go with the U shaped kitchen get a PowerPoint added to the end of the island part of the bench. The worst thing is trying to cook in a kitchen with no enough power points! Or if you go with the U it could go on the wall before the island juts out... I hope that makes sense. We have a small block and small house. Our biggest structural change was making the house 1m longer to have a bigger kitchen and then all the kitchen upgrades, which added up quickly!! Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 13Sep 02, 2013 11:56 pm Yes unfortunately we have signed and paid our deposit. No harm in asking though, will see what they say although I am not going to get my hopes up. I agree, thought it would all make so much sense to have it extended in the first place. Sounds like this is going to add up...and it's just the kitchen. So how does pre start work? This may sound silly, but once your formal finance is approved does the extra costs go onto your mortgage or if you have cash do you just pay it then? Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 14Sep 03, 2013 12:09 am Different builders do it differently but for us we signed our contracts, got finance approval and then had prestart. It meant any upgrades and changes at prestart had to come out of our pocket. It is always worth asking. The time between now and final contracts is usually your last chance to make structural changes. And you can always pull the 'you didn't explain we couldn't do that after we signed/paid if we'd known we would have waited longer. It's one reason you will see many people suggest putting as much in at the beginning. We originally had A/C in our build but at prestart we took it out which gave us the $3,500 that had been in the contract to use on upgrades. We spent about $8000 at prestart. But we had a few big ticket items like our floors, some bench top, and my kitchen. We added cabinets over the firdge and a laminate wall between fridge recess and bench. Pushed pantry and fridge cabinets to the ceiling, 3 sets of pot draws and a microwave recess. Everything else was small things like extra tiling costs for non standard tiles, having tiles mitred, undermount sink etc. our extra electrical was about $1,500, the advantage of a long narrow home is you have a lot of double brick walls which you can have power points ariel points added to later. If you can't afford lots of extra points just make sure any you want/need on internal walls are done (move the ones they give you onto internal walls). Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 15Sep 03, 2013 12:52 am I have to say that Annies Landing looks amazing from all the concepts I have seen. We are basically at the gate of Annies Landing as we are in the final area of Lexia before the road curves round. I look forward to following your build in the coming months Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 16Sep 06, 2013 7:38 am Steph23 Hi Everyone, My partner and I are both 23 years old with a 6 month old son and have been looking to build a home for a couple years now. We are building our first home with Blueprint Homes in Annie's Landing, Ellenbrook. Land is being titled in December. We are both very excited AND nervous! We were overwhelmed with all the information but we are slowly processing everything and looking forward to embarking on this journey! We only just got pre approved a couple of weeks ago and had a look at a few different building companies for home and land packages. Finally we settled on Blueprint homes and have been really happy with our sales guy. We missed out on the first land we were shown and I was worried we weren't going to find anything else within our range. But fortunately our sales guy found a block for us which turned out to be bigger and changed the floor plan to suit our budget Our block is 365m2 and located on a corner. We signed off on our house plan and land contract this weekend and now have to find a settlement agent. It all seems like it's moving very fast but I know things will soon slow down waiting for our home to get 'slabbed down'. We received our precious white pre-start book, which I have been looking through religiously. It's now time for the fun part, looking through everything and choosing colours. I already have a few idea's with our tiling, I like the idea of charcoal coloured tiles throughout the living room as I currently have cream tiles and they are a pain to clean as they get messy so easily. Anyway, I would love to hear any feedback on anyone building with Blueprint homes or living in the same area or just any advice in general. Cheers, Steph I am also building with Blueprint homes in whiteman edge and fisrt time on this website. I dont know if I am replying at the right place. Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 17Sep 07, 2013 2:44 pm Quote: I am also building with Blueprint homes in whiteman edge and fisrt time on this website. I dont know if I am replying at the right place. Hello! Yay, that's so exciting. How have you found them so far? Our sales rep is great, he's really genuine and has a lot of knowledge. What stage are you at? Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 18Sep 07, 2013 2:47 pm fmac Have you signed and paid deposit? Often you can't make structural changes after this stage.... Tough you can usually do it until final contracts are signed. While there would be additional charges for pushing it out I would have thought by having the house more square you would make roofing easier.... Kitchen can be expensive! I'd get it added now unless you have the cash to pay rather then being in mortgage! We paid about $1000 per extra metre of cabinets... Make sure your dishwasher recess has plumbing and electric and if you go with the U shaped kitchen get a PowerPoint added to the end of the island part of the bench. The worst thing is trying to cook in a kitchen with no enough power points! Or if you go with the U it could go on the wall before the island juts out... I hope that makes sense. We have a small block and small house. Our biggest structural change was making the house 1m longer to have a bigger kitchen and then all the kitchen upgrades, which added up quickly!! I've spoken to our sales rep about making a small structural change to the kitchen and he said he will look into it but we may be able to change it in pre start as it's only moving one wall. *fingers crossed* I think that will just give us the space we need in the kitchen and then we can look at having a U shape kitchen, giving us more bench space Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 19Oct 06, 2013 12:22 pm We have hit a speed bump in our journey to building a home. Our sales rep came out earlier this week and told us our design we signed off for - 1 month ago - has been disapproved by the developer. Apparently Blueprint followed the guidelines and regulations but our design was too small for the block of land we purchased and council wouldn't approve. I was very annoyed I mean we had hoped for some progress but seems it's gone the other way. Anyway our sales rep has given us a larger design which fits in with everything BUT it costs $25000 over our budget with Keystart. Fortunately, my partner is receiving a lump sum of money and we have some savings so we are going to put that towards our loan. We had planned to use this money for other purposes but at the end of the day if its what is going to help us get a home then it is what we will do. Hopefully there isn't anymore surprises. Titles are still due for December. Hopefully we get formal finance soon. Here's a photo of our new design with some minor changes to cut costs. ( Vanity and shower is changed to single and kitchen bench is changed to island) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Will post new design with changed once we get it. Re: First home, yay! Blueprint Homes in Ellenbrook 20Oct 08, 2013 7:38 pm Feeling very overwhelmed at the moment. As it seems in 2 months we aren't where we thought we would be at this point of time. It feels like everyone (Blueprint, Keystart, Property Developer, Settlement Agent) is lining up behind one another, waiting for the first person to make a move - like a domino effect once that one company produces the goods, everyone else will fall behind and finally we will begin to make some progress. Anyone else feeling the same way? I can't even begin to imagine what it's going to be like when we start building. I am looking to design an entry door to a lower ground basement that has 2200mm between the external entry height to FFL of the ground floor. This door will provide an… 0 13028 We hired Darbecca to do every stage inspection, and I strongly recommend them to anyone that asks me. They were amazing. Thorough reports with photos at every stage,… 6 7697 i would not be signing anything on the day read your contract about when builder submits final invoice generally, have to meet builder within 7 days of receiving final… 1 5350 |