Ausbuild Stretton Heights - First Home Build QLD

Mai Panda · May 07, 2017 10:46 pm

Hi everyone been lurking on this awesome forum since we planned to build our first home last year, I have to say there been a lot of awesome looking homes and heaps of information to take in from these threads. So we decided its time to put a thread up about ours.

We purchased our land from Ausbuild when we visited the display homes in Rochedale Brisbane south, immediately we fell in love with their homes with the first impression. We started asking a few questions with the sales and it end up they had a few blocks of land available in the area we wanted and we jumped on it and put a deposit down a month later. The land is still not registered with the council but hopefully not too far away. The land size is 580 sqm with 20 m frontage which is nice to have but with the way the blocks are these day most of Ausbuild designs is for narrow lots and our estate covenant require to have 14 m of frontage for the home.

We decided on their Oakland 36 (see floor plan below) because it suited the covenant requirement and we wanted to have a nice theatre at the front and an extra spare bedroom down stairs. Also the missus prefer to have master bed at the back of the house. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅
We made some changes to the plan to suit our need, and was ready to sign off until the day we saw our sales he mentioned they just releases a bunch of new plans for 2 story :-?

so we thought well the new plans might be better so we held off and back to the drawing board.

In the end we wanted to change to the new plan they hard and asked if we could since we already paid a cost for variations, we were dreading they may ask us to pay another fee. In the end they were happy for us to change and we settled on a mixture of their new plans Camden 38 (Ground floor) Emerson 34 (First floor) so we ended up with this design.

Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅

Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅

We extended the garage to suit the estate covenant and added a roller door at the back of the garage and widen the garage door. We also made change to the butler pantry to have a stone bench top and added a sink. The first floor we extended the walk in wardrobe and plan to put in Ikea pax system after handover, we also added few csd doors around the bedrooms.

Our colour appointment is this Friday we probably will upgrade a few things.

25/06/17 Site prep done
06/07/17 Footing completed
10/07/17 Underground plumbing completed
13/07/17 Slab poured
24/07/17 Frames stage started
02/08/17 Frames stage completed
02/08/17 Gutters installed
07/08/17 Main roof tiles started
08/08/17 Main roof completed
08/08/17 Stairs installed
11/08/17 Ground floor wrapped
11/08/17 Ground floor roof tiles started
14/07/17 Windows & sliding door frame & main bathtub delivered
18/08/17 Windows & front door installed
22/08/17 Plumbing rough in started
23/08/17 Plumbing completed
24/08/17 Sliding doors installed
24/08/17 Bricks started
25/08/17 Electrical rough in started
25/08/17 Security rough in started
28/08/17 Electrical rough in completed
29/08/17 Gyprocks delivered
02/09/17 Ground floor roof tiles completed
02/09/17 Bricks completed
06/09/17 1st floor wrapped
06/09/17 Internal batts installation started
12/09/17 Internal walls started
14/09/17 Plastering started
18/09/17 External cladding started
20/09/17 External cladding and eves completed
27/09/17 Painting external cladding started.
27/09/17 Cornices complted
04/10/17 Waterproofing for vanity completed
04/10/17 Internal doors, skirting and window framing materials delivered
05/10/17 Kitchen cabinetry and vanity cabinetry delivered
06/10/17 Kitchen cabinetry and vanity cabinetry installed
14/10/17 Internal doors, skirting and window framing completed
14/10/17 Shelving for WIR/laundry storage/linen completed
21/10/17 Kitchen bench and vanity bench installed
21/10/17 Garage doors installed
05/11/17 Wet area tiling and kitchen splashback completed
08/11/17 Plastering and sanding completed
08/11/17 Sink in butler pantry installed
22/11/17 Interior painting and ground floor painting started
23/11/17 Front door stained
23/11/17 Exterior lighting and powerpoints installed
24/11/17 Interior painting completed
25/11/17 Exterior painting completed
25/11/17 Electrical lighting started (downlights, switches and powerpoints)
25/11/17 Alfresco fan installed
28/11/17 Tapwares and shower rail installation started
28/11/17 Shower screens, toilets and bath installed
28/11/17 Hot water system installed
28/11/17 Flooring for the balcony installed

KatrinaH · May 08, 2017 11:01 am

Hi Mai

Wow, that plan is epic. Your ensuite is huge. Love it. Can't wait to see your colour selections.

Mai Panda · May 11, 2017 12:17 am

KatrinaH

Hi Mai

Wow, that plan is epic. Your ensuite is huge. Love it. Can't wait to see your colour selections.

Thanks Katrina! We can't wait for it to start

Mai Panda · May 11, 2017 12:20 am

I've contacted our developer and they have informed me land should be registered either this week or latest next week and also we got our covenant conditional approved we just need to submit our landscaping and let them know our choices for colour for external part of the house.

akashsethi10 · May 11, 2017 2:49 pm

How was the color selection appointment last week? We have ours next week, anything we need to know to prepare us better for the color selection? We haven't yet decided on our flooring, might get it done after the handover.

Mai Panda · May 11, 2017 4:12 pm

akashsethi10

How was the color selection appointment last week? We have ours next week, anything we need to know to prepare us better for the color selection? We haven't yet decided on our flooring, might get it done after the handover.

We having our colour appointment tomorrow

I will let you know how we went. We doing a fair amount of things after handover, this includes tiles (except bathrooms and laundry), carpets, driveway, landscaping and light fitting.

akashsethi10 · May 11, 2017 4:31 pm

Mai Panda

We having our colour appointment tomorrow

I will let you know how we went. We doing a fair amount of things after handover, this includes tiles (except bathrooms and laundry), carpets, driveway, landscaping and light fitting.

Ok great. Im looking forward to hearing from you. At this stage I have only planned to do the downstairs tiles (not wet areas) and landscaping after handover. We are getting Ausbuild to do the vinyl flooring upstairs (their price was only $600 dearer than carpet court's quote and I can also get the bank to pay for it and save some cash for other things).

With regards to light fittings, what made you to opt for this after handover and not through Ideal electrical (Ausbuild's supplier)?

Mai Panda · May 11, 2017 5:00 pm

akashsethi10

Mai Panda

We having our colour appointment tomorrow

I will let you know how we went. We doing a fair amount of things after handover, this includes tiles (except bathrooms and laundry), carpets, driveway, landscaping and light fitting.

Ok great. Im looking forward to hearing from you. At this stage I have only planned to do the downstairs tiles (not wet areas) and landscaping after handover. We are getting Ausbuild to do the vinyl flooring upstairs (their price was only $600 dearer than carpet court's quote and I can also get the bank to pay for it and save some cash for other things).

With regards to light fittings, what made you to opt for this after handover and not through Ideal electrical (Ausbuild's supplier)?

Hi Akashsethi we doing the light fittings after handover based on 2 things, we are first home buyer and we looking to get the first home owners grant and that limit us into how much we can spend on the build, therefore doing the light fitting after hand over help reduce the cost and we can use that money else where. Also we have an electrician mate who can do the fitting for us so its not going to cost a fortune, Ausbuild is happy to sign off on the rough ins for electrical and be still cover under warranty.

Where about are you building and which plan have you gone with?

akashsethi10 · May 11, 2017 5:51 pm

We are building very modified Dalton 33 at Gumdale (enclave).

Mai Panda · May 11, 2017 5:58 pm

Gumdale is a really popular area, has your land been registered? Dalton 33 looks really nice as well, be interested to see what your plan looks like. Do you have a build thread on here?

akashsethi10 · May 11, 2017 9:41 pm

No I don't have a build thread here. Yes gumdale is a great suburb. Have been living locally since 2012.

allblaqk · May 12, 2017 12:57 pm

You are building a MANSION! Love it! I am following along, can't wait to see it progress. Make sure you post your colours up too!

akashsethi10 · May 12, 2017 9:10 pm

How did the colour selection go? I'm nervous about ours next week

Mai Panda · May 14, 2017 10:40 pm

akashsethi10

How did the colour selection go? I'm nervous about ours next week

Colour selection went pretty well on Friday, I have to say we probably took less time than we through we would, we did however spent about 4 - 5 hours on the day. To make things easier I would recommend to have a look at all the suppliers website or showrooms at the samples available i.e. external bricks we went and saw Australbricks and the lady was really helpful on deciding our external colours for us and it made our job a lot easier by looking at some of the different colour combinations, and you also get some sample bricks to take away with you.

We ended up doing a lot of internal upgrades we originally didn't have in our contract. Another thing to make your job easier is talk to your partner first in terms of what you guys like and when you go in you are better prepared so you not there having to decide on what type of handle you want on the cupboard, or what colour you want for your gutter etc. Also if you have have any tile samples you want for your main flooring or bathrooms bring them with you this will help with choosing your internal colours.

Marissa was the lady we had for the appointment and she was pretty helpful with going through what we need on the day. Just don't rush things through, take your time can always come back to it if you not too sure which selection you want. At the end of the day you are not locked in so to be speak, there will be things you want to upgrade to or enquiry about and they will get the estimating team to give you a quote and then you can decide on if you want to go with the upgrade or stay with the standards. I hope this helps with your selection this week.

Mai Panda · May 14, 2017 11:51 pm

So on Friday we did our colour appointment, we spent about 4 - 5 hours there and we were a bit exhausted and overwhelmed with everything, however I think we did pretty good job and the ladies at the studio was more than helpful.

We started off doing our electrical stuff like light provisioning, light switches, power points, data and TV antenna allocation. We are doing the light installs after handover, we were advised by our electrician mate for the ground floor you would rather to go overboard with light provisioning because its harder for him to add down light after the plaster board is up. So we were allocated 30 lights provisions by Ausbuild for this home and we ended having 95 lights provisions on our plan haha we thought we went a bit overboard but were told on average its about 80 - 90 lights for this size house this made us feel a bit better. We ended up having around 5k upgrade for the electrical part.

We then did our external selection, we liked one of the bricks from Australbricks but it wasn't in the standard range. We told them we want the Metallix Bronze and a feature wall with different types of bricks. We were prepared to be told this will be an upgrade because its not in the standard range, however the lady surprised us saying we can select as many bricks from the standard range without needing to pay additional cost and we also can have the Metallix Bronze that wasn't in the standard range as our facebrick as long we don't need to have the whole house in that type of brick. So we ended up having the Metallix Bronze as our facebrick for the garage part of the house, the pier and the media centre part we be using the Urban One Cloud Grey bricks and the rest of the house we using the Urban One Chiffon bricks.

The garage door we went with Colorbond Terrain this gives that timber look in the standard range. The roof we selected is the Bristile Classic range Coal this is in the standard concrete tile, along with Monument gutter colour, and Woodland Grey for the fascia and Monument frame for the windows and sliding doors.

Other upgrades we did was changing to a pivot door, kitchen benchtop to 40 mm silestone, all bathroom benchtops to 20 mm silestone, undermount basin, upgrade to larger sink in the kitchen, and upgrade the bathroom bath tub.

Will now wait for the estimation team to come back with the cost of the upgrades, fingers crossed is not too much.

akashsethi10 · May 15, 2017 3:57 am

Thank you so much for sharing will do our homework before we go

akashsethi10 · May 15, 2017 9:46 am

Mai Panda

So on Friday we did our colour appointment, we spent about 4 - 5 hours there and we were a bit exhausted and overwhelmed with everything, however I think we did pretty good job and the ladies at the studio was more than helpful.

We started off doing our electrical stuff like light provisioning, light switches, power points, data and TV antenna allocation. We are doing the light installs after handover, we were advised by our electrician mate for the ground floor you would rather to go overboard with light provisioning because its harder for him to add down light after the plaster board is up. So we were allocated 30 lights provisions by Ausbuild for this home and we ended having 95 lights provisions on our plan haha we thought we went a bit overboard but were told on average its about 80 - 90 lights for this size house this made us feel a bit better. We ended up having around 5k upgrade for the electrical part.

We initially went with 65 lights in our contract to which the home and land consultant thought was too high. But I couldn't understand how this was high. 80 would be ideal for us.

Mai Panda

Other upgrades we did was changing to a pivot door, kitchen benchtop to 40 mm silestone, all bathroom benchtops to 20 mm silestone, undermount basin, upgrade to larger sink in the kitchen,

We did all these upgrades before the contract signing.

Really appreciate your help.

KangaBanga · May 25, 2017 8:04 pm

Hi Mai,
Congrats you can start building soon and probably get in before christmas.

One thing with pivot door you will be unable to put security screen or mosquito screen in the future due to the way the pivot door works.. Looks good but not that practical i think in Brisbane weather.

Otherwise all your plans looks good!

akashsethi10 · May 25, 2017 9:31 pm

You can put security screen on a pivot door. We currently have a 1.2m pivot with crimsafe. They leave a bigger gap between doors if it's a pivot door that's it.

Mai Panda · May 26, 2017 1:14 pm

KangaBanga

Hi Mai,
Congrats you can start building soon and probably get in before christmas.

One thing with pivot door you will be unable to put security screen or mosquito screen in the future due to the way the pivot door works.. Looks good but not that practical i think in Brisbane weather.

Otherwise all your plans looks good!

Thanks KangaBanga, hopefully we can get in before Christmas that would be ideal. Cheers for the info, I have seen people who has pivot doors that has security screen in front of them so its possible I guess. I just like the idea of able to bring large furniture through the door if need and we both like the bigger door design.