IMJAS' House in SA - We have KEYS!!!

Thalian72 · Nov 23, 2011 11:55 pm

Finally it is our time to start a thread and share our building adventure.

It’s been a long time to get to this stage and it is very exciting to finally see some action on the block. But let’s step back a little bit and start at the beginning.

We bought a 1888m² block in Adelaide’s Northern suburbs in June 2009 but were not in a big hurry to start building straight away. So we took our time to look for a suitable house plan, but couldn’t find any. To make a (very) long story short, we ended up designing our own plans together with the invaluable help of some fantastic people on this forum and we would like to say a big thank you to everyone who contributed (you may have seen some of the process in the “custom floor plan” thread). Special mentions have to go to: somewoman, chippy, barker, kiwi and deemaree.

So after we finally managed to come up with a plan that (hopefully) will suit all our needs, we signed a building contract with Adelaide Designer Homes in December 2010. These are the plans and elevations for our house:

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Unfortunately there were a few delays and problems throughout the pre-constructions phase and it took us over 10 months to get to the stage where there is finally some activity on our blog. Some of the delays were attributable to our builder but there was nothing too unusual about that. The more frustrating problems were not the fault of the builder at all. There were big problems with the council, some holdups with the construction loan from the bank and other things that cost us a week here or there.

If anybody is really interested in all the boring details and some more background about the house design and planning, you can have a look at my blog:
http://imjashouse.weebly.com

Thalian72 · Nov 23, 2011 11:59 pm

Some might be interested in some of our selections. For the colour selections we went with a fairly "neutral" theme using mainly brown and beige colours.

The house will be built with Hebel, which will be rendered, so therefore there was no brick selection necessary.

Render Colour: Half strength Colorbond Stone

Roof tiles: Elabana Mocha Choc

Gutters & Downpipes, Fascia and Windows: Colorbond Paperbark

Eaves: Quarter strength Colorbond Stone

Feature (Portico) and Front Door: Double Strength Kanga

Panel Lift Door (Garage): Colorbond Paperbark
Style: The Hampton

Internal Wall Colour: Solver First Snow

Bathroom Selections
Wall Tile: Gloss Snow White rectified 300×600

Vanity Tops: Caesar Stone “Urban”
Feature Tile: (not the one shown!)
Mosaic Glass Crystal Magic Smoke Mix
Floor Tile: Memory Stormy Charcoal
Semi-Gloss 300×300
Vanity Cupboards: Laminate Silk Polar White

The feature tile in the picture above is actually not the feature tile we have chosen. It has the same colors, however, the feature tile we have chosen does not have the small regular squares, but a mix of small squares, bigger squares and rectangles. Unfortunately Beaumont Tiles didn’t have a sample of our chosen feature tile but gave us the other one as it contains the same colors and is as close as we could get.

The feature tile will be laid up the side of the bathtub and continued up the wall and filling the shower recess in the kid’s bathroom.

In the Ensuite the feature tile will be laid in the shower up the wall through the center of the shower recess.

Kitchen Selections:

For the kitchen we have chosen a black and white theme. The overhead cupboards will be LAMINEX Diamandgloss Finish Black while the bottom cupboards will be LAMINEX Diamandgloss Finish Polar White. The kitchen Benchtops are going to be 40mm Caesarstone “Night Sky”.

There will also be a glass splashback all the way on the wall behind the cooktop (on the right hand side of the kitchen) and behind the basin/around the window (at the bottom of the kitchen): colour is Mushroom Metallic, which is a bronzeish colour that we thought will give a nice contrast to the black and white kitchen and tie the two halves together.

Thalian72 · Nov 24, 2011 12:02 am

The exciting bit started happening last Saturday. I was on my way to swimming lessons with my son and our drive there takes me down a road from which you can look across to our block. When I looked over, I was surprised to see that there was an excavator parked on our block and some earthworks had been done. WE HAVE ACTION ON THE BLOCK!!!!!!!!

We didn't quite expect this as we have only just sorted out our finance with the bank and hadn't heard anything from the builder yet. But we are very happy that we have finally started.

On the way back home I swung past the block to have a closer look and took a couple of pictures.

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dreamcometrue · Nov 24, 2011 10:06 pm

Hi T72

Great to see the thread started and I have had a look at your blog too. It seems we have very similar 'requirements' that need to be met ie the north facing aspect for as many rooms as possible, the double glazing and hebel. We also plan to have a pool which is one of the reasons we bought a bigger block. We are in the process of having the prelim engineering done - the block has been surveyed and the core/plugs whatever you want to call them, were done on Tuesday. We met with MB yesterday to tidy up a few things with our design and he will redraw them for our approval. Once that is done they will be drawn up by the engineers/draftsperson? We haven't signed up yet, need to get the final quote with footings cost.
I hope we don't have hassels with TTG as there is a possibility due to a small part of our front being forward of the 4m setback envelope. I would have thought you would be with Salis Council?
I am bookmarking your thread and will watch with interest. I particularly want to see how the hebel goes as I am not convinced, I am concerned that our house will look too bland with all that render (I like the look of bricks), but hubby is keen to get hebel.
There is a house being built at the settlement by ADH which is a split level. The frame has just started to go up. I drive past every time I go to our block.

Thalian72 · Nov 25, 2011 12:04 am

dreamcometrue

Hi T72

Great to see the thread started and I have had a look at your blog too. It seems we have very similar 'requirements' that need to be met ie the north facing aspect for as many rooms as possible, the double glazing and hebel. We also plan to have a pool which is one of the reasons we bought a bigger block.

Thanks dct. Yes, a decent solar passive design was very important to us because I believe it will have a big impact on the thermal performance of the house and it is something that is quite "easy" to take care of in the planning stage - and it doesn't cost anything extra.

dreamcometrue

I hope we don't have hassels with TTG as there is a possibility due to a small part of our front being forward of the 4m setback envelope. I would have thought you would be with Salis Council?

No, we are still in TTG council as their area goes quite a bit down Target Hill Road. I think the council boundary is at Stanford Road? Not sure about that though. Fingers crossed that you won't have any problems. Our new neighbours who moved into their house a few weeks ago told us that they had no problems at all with council and got their approvals within a couple of weeks!

dreamcometrue

I particularly want to see how the hebel goes as I am not convinced, I am concerned that our house will look too bland with all that render (I like the look of bricks), but hubby is keen to get hebel.

We wanted Hebel for two reasons. It has better insulating properties than bricks and so will hopefully help improve the thermal performance of the house. And both my wife and I don't like the look of bricks much so we would have rendered at least large parts of the house anyway. So it would have cost almost as much to build with bricks and render them as it did using Hebel.

dreamcometrue

There is a house being built at the settlement by ADH which is a split level. The frame has just started to go up. I drive past every time I go to our block.

I will have to go and have a look at that. Would be interesting to see another build that is just ahead of us to see what might be coming up soon for us.

Mclaren · Nov 25, 2011 11:28 am

Just found your thread ... can't wait to see your dream unfold - love the plan - looks like you will have a nice view too!! Good luck with it all!

tan39 · Nov 25, 2011 11:44 am

Guten Tag... Just started following. Nice floor plan, will be a lovely home. So you are from Deutschland? I was born in the south near ULM. Have been away from Germany for a long time though and lived here, there and everywhere. My mum is still in Germany though... I am looking forward to following youor progress...

Thalian72 · Nov 25, 2011 9:43 pm

Mclaren

Just found your thread ... can't wait to see your dream unfold - love the plan - looks like you will have a nice view too!! Good luck with it all!

Thank you and welcome. We are just happy to finally see something happening after the long wait we had to get here. Yes, we are sitting up high and have a bit of view down to the ocean. Not sure how much we will be seeing of that once it is all finished, but should provide some nice sunset viewing.

tan39

Guten Tag... Just started following. Nice floor plan, will be a lovely home. So you are from Deutschland? I was born in the south near ULM. Have been away from Germany for a long time though and lived here, there and everywhere. My mum is still in Germany though... I am looking forward to following youor progress...

Dir auch einen guten Tag und willkommen. Yes, I am from Germany (born in Heidelberg), my wife is Australian. I came to Adelaide 10 years ago for a Post-Doc. It was only meant for 3 years, but then I met a beautiful woman, we got married, had kids and now we are building a house.

The rest of my family is still in Germany, so we try to get back there every once in a while.

Thalian72 · Nov 28, 2011 9:26 pm

So after they've done the site scrape and leveled everything nicely, put a bit of a sand pad down, nothing else is happening. Not sure what they are waiting for. Maybe they have decided that it is not worth to hurry along too much with Christmas so close? I guess if they manage to put the slab down and then let it sit and cure over the X-mas break that would be OK. As long as they really get working full steam at the start of next year.

build2012 · Nov 28, 2011 9:39 pm

I'd ring them

"oh, just making sure everything was ok????" lol

It was so exciting to see things finally happening at ours as well. We're at similar stages, so I'll keep an eye on your thread

dreamcometrue · Nov 30, 2011 9:19 am

T- you remember I said there was one going up in GG, at framing stage? It is in the most recent stage at the end of the aged care facility. We found another one by the lake behind the lifestyle village, it's a corner house, has the plastic down etc, although that was on the weekend so it could be a slab now.
Our plan should be going to engineering this week as it's almost finalised.

Thalian72 · Nov 30, 2011 10:13 pm

dreamcometrue

T- you remember I said there was one going up in GG, at framing stage? It is in the most recent stage at the end of the aged care facility. We found another one by the lake behind the lifestyle village, it's a corner house, has the plastic down etc, although that was on the weekend so it could be a slab now.
Our plan should be going to engineering this week as it's almost finalised.

Thanks for the tip. I will have to go for a drive and have a look how they are going there. There is also an ADH built going up on Hancock Road, Fairview Park. Looks like two identical houses side by side. They just had the insulation put in and the gyprock put up the last few days.

No further action for us yet. They've done a nice job on preparing the site, flattening it all out and getting it ready.
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But no sign of trenches or slab preparations yet. I'll have to dig out the phone number of the SS and give him a call tomorrow to find out what's happening and if they plan to give us a slab before Christmas or not.

Thalian72 · Nov 30, 2011 10:59 pm

There was one thing though that I noticed now that we can see the outlines of the house and can discern where everything will be. There is a green ETSA electricity box that sits in the corner of our block. Because our house design is oriented towards that corner, it actually ends up just slightly to the side of our porch where the main entrance is going to be:
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We hadn't realized this before as the box was not drawn on the plans of the house that we were working with. It's not too bad as it is off to the side, but it might still look a bit strange. Anyway, I've contacted ETSA to see if the box can be moved off to the side a little bit more and how much that will cost. It will be a little while before we find out though as it takes up to 20 working days for a ETSA crew to come out and have a look.

Lesson to be learnt: have a good look at your engineering plans as it is the only plan that contains all those little details!

Mclaren · Dec 01, 2011 9:00 am

Lesson I learnt - had a good look at all of our plans a thousand times and I still missed something ::hyst::

dreamcometrue · Dec 01, 2011 10:09 am

I have been to the houses at FP too, had a chat with the roofie and brickie although we won't be having bricks. They both say ADH steel frame is the best

I will have to drop by again to see the gyprock.

We have an electricity box which appears to be right on the boundry of our block and the neighbours - not sure how the fence will go over it :th:

boganswife · Dec 01, 2011 5:01 pm

Congratulations on the site start! I'm really looking forward to watching your build, I love your plans, particularly the unique shape.

Hopefully the electrical box can be moved at not too much cost. If not, I'm sure it won't be too noticeable once you have your landscaping done.

Hopefully you will see a slab soon!

Thalian72 · Dec 01, 2011 11:34 pm

So I got in contact with our building supervisor today. He sounds like a nice guy. Although he told me that he will only take over responsibility for the build once the frame starts and he doesn't know anything about the slab pour, he assured me that according to his schedule the frames will be delivered on the 12th and the windows on the 14th.
So we should have a slab poured within the next week or so and then they will put up the frame before X-mas. :z:

No work progress on the block yet though. But we do have an ADH sign now!!!

Thalian72 · Dec 01, 2011 11:44 pm

boganswife

Congratulations on the site start! I'm really looking forward to watching your build, I love your plans, particularly the unique shape.

Hopefully the electrical box can be moved at not too much cost. If not, I'm sure it won't be too noticeable once you have your landscaping done.

Hopefully you will see a slab soon!

Hello and welcome. Yes, the plans were a bit of a struggle to get right, but we are pretty happy with how it's turned out. Now all the worry starts about if it will be as good and functional in real life as it is in our heads.

We'll see what happens with that box. If we don't end up moving it, we will just landscape around it and put a bush over the top of it or something. :lol:

It's not too bad really, it's just one of those little things that slips through and afterwards you think "where does that come from?"

kiwi · Dec 02, 2011 5:17 am

There you are!

You got the pantry in....whoaa!!!!! Congrats on starting. Well done, great job:)

Thalian72 · Dec 02, 2011 9:17 am

kiwi

There you are!

You got the pantry in....whoaa!!!!! Congrats on starting. Well done, great job:)

Hi Kiwi. Welcome to my humble thread!

Pantry was never in question. One of the key requirements of my wife, so that one was always going in! :lol: