Firstly thanks to all those who have come before us and posted about their Henley build, especially those building the Palace (we seem to be a smallish group).
We have over the last 6-8 months taken inspiration, and a few ideas, from those who have posted before us. We feel it is now time to add to the knowledge base and share our build journey. We will post as often as we can to share our successes and stresses in this journey to build our dream family home.
I will be updating this post with additional stage data (see bottom of this post) as we progress.
Being the first post of many to come feel free to comment and ask questions along the way.
Brief Background
We have been on this journey now since July 2017 when we made the decision to conduct a knock-down re-build. The money that we would have "wasted" on stamp duty to buy a new house/land we instead decided to use on the demolition of our primary residence and rebuild on the land we already owned (better we use the money than hand it to the taxman).
So off we went to look as display locations. Many a weekend was spent traveling all over to get a feel and idea of what we wanted. We then came across the Palace, thus we did not need to look anymore. It was exactly what we, unknowingly at the time, were looking for all along. No wasted internal space was a big draw card (we even put in the under stair storage room like many before us). We loved the layout, central stair location, large rooms and a master bedroom walk in robe that was not the size of a bedroom (we hate overkill and wasted spaces) were all pluses.
Now we knew the base house we wanted, so it was off to sales to nut out the finer details and customize what we could to better suit our requirements. Our requests during sales consultation were all accommodated except our Alfresco change, but in the end even this was eventually included. Other than the sales/initial quote stage experience, which was great knowing our dream house was one step closer, i will always remember this advise from the Henley sales team. "Allow around $50K for additions and upgrades". Well let me just say once we started to customize, fit-out and make the house what we wanted, that $50K was gone in the time it took to say the words. It was only later reading forums like those posted by homeone members that i learnt the display homes have had upwards of $200K of "additions" depending on the house to make them what they are. Lets just say it looks like we might be in for a display home like end result.
Over the coming posts I will expand on changes and additions but below you can see plans and views.
The main changes are:
- the inclusion of the original alfresco into the main house to create a "grand dining" by using a dwarf wall
- alfresco added across the entire back of the house (my favorite addition)
- larger garage 7.5mx6.5m (also my favorite addition) with larger roller door (5.6m wide)
- various cavity sliding doors for better access (laundry, theater, study, ground powder, master ensuite water closet and bathroom). The study we later removed in favor of just an opening (like the displays) as we pushed the theater wall into the study by 1mtr (theater is now just shy of 6m long). The bathrrom cavity slider not shown as we added this on one of last plan changes.
- under stair storage room
- kitchen and butlers pantry window splash backs (butler not shown on plan/drawings - missed initially by Henley)
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Henley - Palace 41
- Sales - Jul 2017 to Dec 2017
- Colour - Jan 2018 - Complete
- Tender - Mar 2018 - Complete
- Electrical 1 - Apr 2018 - Complete
- Services Abolished - May 2018 - Complete
- Electrical 2 - May 2018 - Complete
- Demolition - July 2018 - Complete
- 2nd Soil Report / 2nd Land Survey / Re-Establishment Survey / Arborist Report - August/September 2018 - Complete
- Final Contract Signing - October 2018 - Complete
- Minor Changes, Updates & Clarifications - initiated by Henley - November/December 2018 - Complete
- Moved to Construction - January 2019 - Complete
- Slab Installation - March 2019 - Complete
- Frame Start - March 2019 - In Progress
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