Building the Chifley with Rawson - Update Photos - 24th Aug

SheridanBenjamin · Mar 12, 2013 10:48 am

Hopefully we'll be building the Chifley 42 with Rawson at Caddens (the new Landcom release near Penrith). We have 3 young boys and our current smallish 3 bedroom house, while ok for now, will not fit 3 teenage boys!

So far:
We decided in January to sell our current house and look into purchasing land at Caddens and building.
The house sold in 1 week, so now we are looking for rentals as we have to be out by 25th March!
The 2nd release from Caddens happened a bit earlier than we were expecting, so the deposit for the land is due 1 week before settlement on our sale. So we are trying to get some of the money from our house sale released early so we can pay for the deposit on the land.
Our youngest son (17months) has suspected epilepsy so we have been going to specialists and appointments for tests with him.
We have met a couple of times with Rawson and are up to the stage of scheduling our Tender Presentation, however we will now have to wait for the settlement on our house so we have the funds available to go to the next step. At our last meeting they had the contours back. Our block is 45m long and has a fall of 4m across it. Across where the ouse will go it is approx. 1.5m.

It is all very exciting!

I have been reading through the other Rawson threads with interest, but wanted to start my own.

Tondar · Mar 12, 2013 12:43 pm

good luck with it all.

we have found the experience to date very rewarding.

based on our experience, R appear to be the most transparent.

SheridanBenjamin · Apr 20, 2013 9:03 am

So the sale of our house all went through. Settlement on the land is set for 29th of this month. We signed the tender with Rawson on the 15th. All set to go!

Jen1977 · Apr 20, 2013 1:28 pm

Welcome to the Rawson family

Forg · Apr 20, 2013 4:04 pm

Well done!

Still wish they'd wanted to build one o' those for us ...

smorgzzz · Apr 20, 2013 4:05 pm

Hope everything goes well with your build.

Melspring · Apr 20, 2013 4:09 pm

Hi SheridanBenjamin! We are building the Chifley 42 in Canberra (with a few modifications). We are just about to go to site! Very exciting! Will be interested to see how your home develops!

VandM · Apr 20, 2013 5:52 pm

We are only at the very beginning of our building journey (we haven't even bought a block of land yet!). However, after looking at previous threads I am almost convinced that Rawson is going to be the home builder for us. We loved the Seaview at Kellyville but also like the Chifley and Fernside. We just need to see them all on display and weigh up which is going to be the best design for us. We are hoping that once we can secure a block of land and sell the house we have made a decision to get the ball rolling (as it appears that once it starts it moves quite slowly!)

Can I ask those that are building the Chifley what modifications you have made?

Melspring · Apr 20, 2013 8:48 pm

Hi VandM, we added a walk in pantry to the kitchen, extended the garage so the we have a 3 car garage in a tandem and single format. We also made bed 2 and 5 into a single suite ( extra large bedroom).

Good luck finding the right block of land, selling your house and choosing your builder!!! We have had a great experience so far with rawsons.

Jen1977 · Apr 20, 2013 8:58 pm

VandM we are building the fernside 38 but we have extended it and now it is a 43. We enclosed the original alfresco to make it part of the house and then added the alfresco on again.

SheridanBenjamin · Apr 20, 2013 10:18 pm

Encouraging to see another chifley in the works. We have deleted the 3rd bathroom and turned the space left into more storage. The plan it this stage is to use the bedroom as a playroom.
Now the exciting part... Choosing colours!

VandM · Apr 21, 2013 7:33 am

Melspring...we would want to extend the garage and insert a wallk in pantry as well. My husband is a cyclist and we need plenty of storage for bikes etc so we would like a bigger garage if we could (depending on the size of our land of course). How big will your pantry be? Where will it be in the kitchen? I love the butlers pantry in the Seaview and would like to see if we could add one to the Chifley somehow (depending on cost of course!)

SheridanBenjamin....we will also delete the 3rd bathroom for storage. I figure that the kids only need the one bathroom between them (I have 2 kids) and I would much rather more storage than cleaning another bathroom! Have you decided on what facade you would like yet?

Jen1977...we are still contemplating the Fernside as well. I just wish they were all at the one display village! It will be interesting to watch your progress!

We are heading to the display village at Gledswood Hills today to check out the Chifley!

B and K · Apr 21, 2013 9:29 am

SheridanBenjamin, congrats on signing the tender and have fun at the colour appointment. We were really nervous about choosing our colours but the colour consultant (Tracey) was so good. She made the process really easy and it has been my favourite part of the process thus far.

VandM- We are building the Seaview 39 with Rawson. Our file is being handed to the site supervisor this Tuesday so construction should start taking place very soon

The best way to decide on which house to build is to visit the display homes. We fell in love with the layout of the Seaview and found it best suited our family's needs.
Have fun looking at the Chifley today- its a very grand looking house

smorgzzz · Apr 21, 2013 11:48 am

VandM - We built the Seaview 36 and love the layout and it's very open and spacious.

Melspring · Apr 21, 2013 2:47 pm

VandM

Melspring...we would want to extend the garage and insert a wallk in pantry as well. My husband is a cyclist and we need plenty of storage for bikes etc so we would like a bigger garage if we could (depending on the size of our land of course). How big will your pantry be? Where will it be in the kitchen? I love the butlers pantry in the Seaview and would like to see if we could add one to the Chifley somehow (depending on cost

Hi VandM, our walk in pantry entrance is next to the oven. You walk through what was the pantry to the walk in pantry. The size is 4170 x 1580. We removed the pantry doors and added a RIMM 820 door.

To add in the extra space in the garage is great but is a bit expensive (however after colours and electrical it is all relative.... ::wink::

).

Hope you enjoy looking at the Chifley at Gledwood Hills. It is lovely!

Forg · Apr 21, 2013 3:03 pm

VandM

We are heading to the display village at Gledswood Hills today to check out the Chifley!

Are you planning on building a 42 or 37?
Only asking because there's a 37 in Canberra; it's a bit of a hike, but not that far in the house-buying scheme of things! And the 37 has quite a different feel to the 42, more light gets into the stairwell upstairs because that's the back of the house in the 37, whereas the 42 has bedrooms behind that so feels quite a lot bigger upstairs while not as "light" downstairs.

VandM · Apr 21, 2013 4:51 pm

Thanks for that info Melspring!

Forg, we are looking at the 42 as we want the upstairs lounge area.

The Chifley is very nice and it is funny you say that as I was expecting it to feel a little lighter. It is a beautiful house, however, I think I may actually be leaning towards the Seaview. I think my partner is leaning towards the Chifley...

I like the L shape to the living and alfresco areas in the Seaview as well as the slightly bigger feel to the bedrooms. The Seaview also has the butlers pantry already. I remember the feel of the main bed to be a little more luxurious in the Seaview as it is a bit bigger and has that great bath and mosaic tiled wall! (which I am sure costs a lot of $$$). I do still like the Chifley a lot though and will see how I feel when we look at the Seaview again.

We have plenty of time to think about it as we haven't even bought the land yet. The house we choose will probably depend on the land we can get.

I should also add that we did look at a lot of other houses today by other builders but all bar one other came close!

Mrs Brown Bear · Apr 21, 2013 8:55 pm

Love this topic! We were just out at Gledswood Hills today again looking at the Chifley 42. It probably is my favourite out of all our shortlist (and Rawson has such a great rep too). Will come down to price after tender I guess.

Mr Brown Bear is toying with the idea of deleting that back ensuite upstairs and trying to extend the bedroom space a little and maybe a little more linen space (you can never have too much linen space!) Will also merge that tiny main bathroom toilet space into the main bathroom itself. Its a bit pokey and no room really to fit a hand basin in there. Not much point in having a separate toilet if you can't wash your hands.

I want to make the kitchen and dining room bigger, and join the front two living areas downstairs together to form a large lounge area. In the kitchen I'll probably add a wall separating the dining room which will allow me to put in large corner pantry and some overheads on that side. I'll do a traditional U shaped kitchen with servery window to outside.

Well, these are our plans anyway. We are settling on our land within a week so have to ramp up our plans to go to tender. In a rental at the moment and are 1 month into our 12 month lease, so really want to move straight into our new home afterwards.

I particularly like the 42 as it has the lounge area upstairs (thinking extra TV area for gaming etc. when kids are older). The roof line out the back is minimal as well, so the back windows aren't too disrupted in size. Houses with extended roof line have tiny up high windows as the roof line cuts into their available area. Haven't explained that too well sorry, just tired from our long trip today I guess.

VandM · Apr 21, 2013 11:04 pm

Mrs Brown Bear, great to hear yet another person considering Rawson. I am loving the modifications that people are suggesting, it is really giving me some good ideas! Can't wait to see how your plans eventuate!

Jen1977 · Apr 22, 2013 7:26 am

MrsBB I think that you will be hard pressed to move into your new house in less than a year. We signed our tender with Rawson at the beginning of June last year. We got through the admin phase in 136 days (a lot have taken up to 200 days) and a Rawson two storey house has a 40 week contract. Our build contract ends beginning of August and we will be pretty close to that date.

Good luck with your searching. We wanted a 5 bedroom house with a study as well and by adding extra space onto the back of the fernside we have made it 43sq.