After reading so many build threads from other members, I thought it was time I started my own, and now that we finally got our unconditional approval for our construction loan, we know that we are definitely building and building the house we want.
About 2 years ago, my girlfriend and I decided to build our first home. For those of you who have read any of my other threads would probably know how much difficulty we have had to get to the point we are at now. Basically we are about a month away from the actual build starting, we only got our unconditional approval from our lender last week and now Porter Davis and our lender are in a mad rush to have everything organised for our guaranteed April 2010 start.
So, a brief history of what took place up till now.
August 30 2009: Deposit paid for a block of land in the Reflections Estate Tarneit
September 13 2009: paid the rest of our 5% deposit for the block pending finance
November 27 2009: Signed our house tender
December 4 2009: Got unconditional approval of our land loan and had our Tile appointment
December 14 2009: Colour and Electrical appointment
December 17 2009: House contract signed
December 23 2009: Our land settlement done
March 11 2010: Unconditional approval for construction loan
May 6 2010: Developer approval received (nearly a month late)
May 7 2010: Council permit received, Administration Complete
May 17 2010: Site Scrape
May 28 2010: Slab complete
June 4 2010: Frame complete
June 13 2010: Gutters and Facias installed
June 15 2010: Wrapping done
June 23 2010: Roof Tiles started
June 24 2010: Roof tiles complete
July 2 2010: Bricking Started
July 20 2010: Bricking finished, officially at lockup
August 3 2010: Issue with bricks
August 12 2010: Brick inspection failed
August 20 2010: Confirmation bricks will be ripped down and re-done
August 23 2010: Bricks start being ripped down
August 25 2010: All bricks removed
September 8 2010: New bricks delivered
September 9 2010: Re-bricking started
September 24 2010: Re-bricking complete
September 29 2010: Painting Started
September 30 2010: Cladding installed
October 6 2010: Bricks cleaned
October 12 2010: Tiling started
October 16 2010: Tiling completed
November 15 2010: Certificate of occupancy received
November 16 2010: PCI
November 23 2010: Keys
Before all this though, we spent months and months looking at display homes, after almost giving up, one day we pretty much stumbled upon a Porter Davis display centre in Point Cook. We had seen so many display homes that by now, we knew exactly what we wanted, and as soon as we walked into the displays, we knew if it was going to meet any of our expectations. One of the homes on display here was a Francis 29, we opened the door, looked at each other and smiled. It wasn’t perfect, but for the first time, we could both agree that we loved it and could both see the potential.
We made a couple of changes to the design, we extended the garage to allow for a rear garage door, moved the wall to the rumpus/family room and also move the alfresco closer to the backyard, bringing the house to 31.32 Squares
Here are our plans:
Our Site plan:
Our Facade:
(Taken directly from the PD website, not our colours)
External selections:
Roof:
Boral Macquarie: Charcoal Grey (Colour through)
Bricks:
Boral Mocha - Out of stock______________________New selection: Boral Blackheath
Gutters, Downpipes, Cladding, Facia and Windows:
Colorbond Woodland Grey
Garage Door:
Front door:
Front door hardware:
Internal selections:
Wall colour: Wattyl Kid Leather
Trim colour: Solver Whitetone
Skirting profile:
Door hardware:
Floor Tile:
Banur Storm
Feature tile in both showers:
Havana Basalt
Cabinets in bathrooms:
Formica Licorice Linea
Kitchen cabinets:
Laminex Prestige Walnut
Kitchen splashback:
Dulux Malay Grey
Kitchen and bathrooms benchtops:
Quantum Quartz Royal Base
Kitchen and bathrooms cupboard handles:
What some of the rooms will be used for:
Bed 2: Kids Study
Bed 3 and Bed 4, My daughters rooms
Lounge: Cinema / video games room
Future plans:
Remove the Hers WIR and put a spa in
Change the His WIR to the ensuite toilet (remove where the toilet is now)
Install new WIR behind master bedroom bed head
Install door to rumpus room, ensuite and new ensuite toilet
Put a void between study and family room
Maybe install bar near family room window (change window to bifold window)
Plus a few other small bits and pieces