Chris's Dale Alcock Build (WA)

Thanks for the positive comments.
To Answer some of your questions;
- The house will be built ~400m from the beach in Mandurah.
- I will be having overhead cupboards in the kitchen, but I will be having them made at Ikea (with a frosted glass panel in the center).

Here is a picture of the kitchen layout:
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The cupboards will be white, the bench top 30mm essa stone nougat, handles long horizontal thin chrome, feature tile will be a glass light grey
http://www.caesarstone.com.au/Colours/Colour-Detail.aspx?Collection=6600-Nougat%E2%84%A2

Here is a picture of the ensure layout:
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Benchtops - 80mm square edged- Oyster Linea Laminex
http://www.laminex.com.au/colour-palette.php#!/colour-palette/oyster-linea
Feature tiles (Vertical down shower) - sandstone discovery border:
http://www.southerncrossceramics.com.au/City_2.html
Floor - light sandstone 200mm x 200mm

Here is a picture of the 2nd bathroom layout:
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Benchtops - square form - Mushroom Linea Laminex
http://www.laminex.com.au/colour-palette.php#!/colour-palette/mushroom-linea
Feature tiles (horizonal under mirrow, across bath, through shower same height). - Charcoal discovery boarder:
http://www.southerncrossceramics.com.au/City_2.html
Floor - light sandstone 200mm x 200mm

Great changes to the plan!

My only other suggestion would be to push the Bed 2 door out into the passage a little - it's a common design thing that will give you more space in the bedroom and makes it appear roomier, and the passage is just wasted space anyway so you're better off putting the space in a usable area

Hi All,
I have now officially been slabbed!

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I was warned that when I see the slab it would look small... I think the slab looked huge! I'm now worried that the house may be bigger than I expected

Slab looks good, no cracks yet!

I had my first site meeting with my project supervisor now that the brickwork has started. So far I'm impressed with the customer service offered to me by both my supervisor and customer liaison contact. A recent example of where Dale Alcock seem to exceed my expectations was when I forgot to advise Dale Alcock that I planned on installing a garden bed after key handover up against one of the house walls, my supervisor has organised to get the termimesh company back to redo the termimesh at 8c height in that section (it had already been installed at 2c). I have also changed my prestart colour selections with no contract variation cost.

A quick snap of progress so far:
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nice plan specially large garage.

Hi all.

Just wondering if anyone has anything they'd like me to ask our Interior Designer? She's awesome and does all of our displays so she has loads of knowledge about decorating and furnishing a home.

I'd really appreciate your input - I'm doing the Q&A next week and she will be answering all your questions, so let me know!

Feel free to head over to our Facebook page and post your question there, or just reply to this post.

http://www.facebook.com/dalealcockhomes

Many thanks,

Jemima.

Hi All,
I am at plate height now. So can finally walk through the house and physically see what works and what does not. I keep hearing “You need to build three times to get it right”, so I thought I would share what I have noticed that I would change if I was back at the design stage.

1. The master bedroom (4m x 5.5m) seems very large! I am not complaining about the size being too big, but if I had visualised how big this space is, I would have taken 0.4m from Bed 1 and put it into Bed 2 (changing Bed 2’s size of 3.1m x 4.1m to 3.5m x 4.1m and making the master 4m x 5.1m). I think this change would have increased the resale price because Bed 2 would be large and the master still huge.

2. I never checked the size of the double garage (I just asked for a third garage to be added). The third garage is the size I asked for 7.5M internal length (8M overall), but the double garage is a standard size (measured 5.8M internal length, 6.1m overall). If I could design the house again, I would have added one extra course of bricks to the standard garage length making it 6.1M internal length. I am sure I can fit my cars in the garage; but it would have just been more comfortable to walk around the cars with the extra length. I raised the ceiling to 31c because I had heard that the standard ceiling height is sometimes too low for 4x4’s.

3. I should have pushed the alfresco brick pillars out to the same line as the third garage brick opening. I originally aligned the roof so the paving would be square, but the pillars look a little out of place in my opinion when seen in 3D and not on a 2D drawing.

Overall, I am still happy with the build and my design. I guess it is natural to notice things as you go along.

Looking forward to a roof!
-Chris

Hi Jemima, No I dont think Dale Alcock could have done much more - It's all 'Personal Preferences' i guess My recommendation would be for people planning a build to show as many people experienced with design your floorplans as possible. I relied on friends/family and Dale Alcock (who combined made so many small suggestions which I am really glad they did). Next time I would also draw upon the knowledge from this forum as well. I stress that overall, I am really happy with the build and agree that everybody must see little things which they would change if they had their time over.

Here's a quick snap of the front elevation at plate height:
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