After a busy weekend, I'm now looking to the week ahead and hoping that our site gets scraped this week. I have noticed one massive fence around 3 x blocks in a row on our street this week and they are all MJH houses, so I'd say they will be ahead of us. Hopefully we all get a bit of site action this week! Right now it's raining, wish it would stop as we have had enough already. Let's see how this week pans out...
Sunday 30 March 2014
Hope for this week...
Well it's official - I have turned into one of those people who dread the weekends because it means nothing much will happen with the house! And we haven't really started yet, how will I survive the next 6 months?!
Thursday 27 March 2014
We've been pegged!!
As the title says, we've been pegged!! Drove down there at lunch time and saw one measly peg. I was quite annoyed as I thought if this is their way of starting then I'm not one bit impressed. I drove away in a huff to run an errand.
After that, even though I had taken a little too long on my lunch break, I couldn't help myself as I had a feeling that something would be happening, so I detoured by the block on my way home and there were surveyors there putting the rest of the pegs down! My gut instinct was right as usual. I didn't want to take a photo whilst I was there as the surveyors would've thought I was a weirdo. I'll go back tomorrow. I did get a pic of the one peg though :)
And so it begins...
Wednesday 26 March 2014
Fun stuff...Fixtures...Fittings
I realised I posted photos of our colour selections yesterday but didn't list what our selections actually were, so if you care, read on!
External:
Roof - Colorbond Dune
Fascia - Colorbond Surfmist
Gutters - Colorbond Dune
Windows - Surfmist
Water Tank - Colorbond Dune
Bag n Paint (to front facade only) - Taubmans Twiggy
Bricks - Austral Everyday Engage
Garage - Caoba
Internally, I don't remember what the name of our selections were! All I remember the names of are our walls (Taubmans Stonebridge for the main areas of the house, and in the wet areas it will be Taubmans Tombstone). Our flooring will be Gerflor Creation Clic in Deep Forest colour which McDonald Jones will be doing for us as their pricing was quite reasonable, but we will be doing carpet after handover.
Other things we will be doing after handover is driveway and window dressings. No idea what colour driveway or what type (probably just coloured concrete) however window dressings we will be getting plantation shutters for the whole house except for the stacker doors, which will be the double roller blinds where one is sheer and the other completely blocks.
Our kitchen is where we went crazy $$ wise because we wanted a kitchen we felt inspired to cook in. I have always dreamt of having a beautiful shiny white kitchen, so that is what we have gone for. Cupboards are 2-pac polyurethane, high gloss. No handles, we got the shark nose option instead of push to open (though we got push to open in the bathrooms to save a bit of $$). We also opted for the under bench bin as well as 2 x banks of pot drawers. We got the Lin 1 door with translucent glass panel for our pantry door and a long vertical chrome handle on the pantry door (can't remember the proper name for it!). We upgraded to the melamine shelving in the pantry, as well as the rest of the house (as you cannot only upgrade to it in one area of the house, it's all or nothing! Which is fine because we wanted to do that anyway - not a fan of the ventilated shelving and didn't want to worry about it after handover). The splashback colour is a similar colour to the translucent glass in the Lin 1 door - best way to describe it really!
Island bench is Caesarstone Osprey, we have increased to 40mm with waterfall edges. We also upgraded the tap to a Tecknobili vegie sprayer.
One of the promotions they had at the time we put our deposit down was the free Smeg appliances upgrade, so we are getting the 900mm freestanding cooktop / oven, as well as rangehood (which we are getting ducted) and even a microwave and dishwasher! Pretty happy with that, I love the Smeg brand.
Another promo was a $4K discount on the Derby ducted air conditioning system. There is a lot of controversy and mixed reviews around this system however we aren't big aircon users so it will do. We will be getting ceiling fans in all bedrooms so these will be used first and foremost - aircon has always just been a back up for us which has been when we are desperate, which is usually just a few times per year. We will also buy a gas heater to keep us warm in winter.
We also had the Impressions Package thrown in for free which was great as I would have been more than willing to pay for it anyway - it is great value!
We have chosen to have mirrored sliding robes to the bedrooms. For the master bedroom we have upgraded to the Lin 1 translucent glass doors for the WIR and ensuite, only because we had a little bit of money left in the budget at the end of colours so thought we'd add a touch of luxury to our room! We also had some shelving / drawers added to our WIR.
Bedroom 3 has been extended by 450mm just to make it slightly bigger than the original 3x3 size, and we have a TV pop out in the main living area just to create a bit more space as that area is quite small in the Nova so every little bit of space helps. Another little thing we did to create more space for storage is we had the ensuite vanity moved over to abut the ensuite wall so that we could fit a shelf unit in there next to the vanity. I will be all about the storage in this house because it isn't huge so I will be very storage conscious! It does have a very decent size linen closet though so I am happy about that.
Electrical we mainly doubled the amount of powerpoints (and they are all double powerpoints too), got lots of downlights, pendant lights for over the island bench in the kitchen plus a larger pendant light (same style as the kitchen ones) in our entry hallway. We also got an alarm system.
Flyscreens, chrome lever door handles were also an added selection plus in the bathrooms we have the 2-pac polyurethane high gloss cupboards with push to open for the drawers and cupboard doors.
I think that is it! Ciao for now...
PS - Still no pegs! They have until tomorrow so we will wait and see!
External:
Roof - Colorbond Dune
Fascia - Colorbond Surfmist
Gutters - Colorbond Dune
Windows - Surfmist
Water Tank - Colorbond Dune
Bag n Paint (to front facade only) - Taubmans Twiggy
Bricks - Austral Everyday Engage
Garage - Caoba
Internally, I don't remember what the name of our selections were! All I remember the names of are our walls (Taubmans Stonebridge for the main areas of the house, and in the wet areas it will be Taubmans Tombstone). Our flooring will be Gerflor Creation Clic in Deep Forest colour which McDonald Jones will be doing for us as their pricing was quite reasonable, but we will be doing carpet after handover.
Other things we will be doing after handover is driveway and window dressings. No idea what colour driveway or what type (probably just coloured concrete) however window dressings we will be getting plantation shutters for the whole house except for the stacker doors, which will be the double roller blinds where one is sheer and the other completely blocks.
Our kitchen is where we went crazy $$ wise because we wanted a kitchen we felt inspired to cook in. I have always dreamt of having a beautiful shiny white kitchen, so that is what we have gone for. Cupboards are 2-pac polyurethane, high gloss. No handles, we got the shark nose option instead of push to open (though we got push to open in the bathrooms to save a bit of $$). We also opted for the under bench bin as well as 2 x banks of pot drawers. We got the Lin 1 door with translucent glass panel for our pantry door and a long vertical chrome handle on the pantry door (can't remember the proper name for it!). We upgraded to the melamine shelving in the pantry, as well as the rest of the house (as you cannot only upgrade to it in one area of the house, it's all or nothing! Which is fine because we wanted to do that anyway - not a fan of the ventilated shelving and didn't want to worry about it after handover). The splashback colour is a similar colour to the translucent glass in the Lin 1 door - best way to describe it really!
Island bench is Caesarstone Osprey, we have increased to 40mm with waterfall edges. We also upgraded the tap to a Tecknobili vegie sprayer.
One of the promotions they had at the time we put our deposit down was the free Smeg appliances upgrade, so we are getting the 900mm freestanding cooktop / oven, as well as rangehood (which we are getting ducted) and even a microwave and dishwasher! Pretty happy with that, I love the Smeg brand.
Another promo was a $4K discount on the Derby ducted air conditioning system. There is a lot of controversy and mixed reviews around this system however we aren't big aircon users so it will do. We will be getting ceiling fans in all bedrooms so these will be used first and foremost - aircon has always just been a back up for us which has been when we are desperate, which is usually just a few times per year. We will also buy a gas heater to keep us warm in winter.
We also had the Impressions Package thrown in for free which was great as I would have been more than willing to pay for it anyway - it is great value!
We have chosen to have mirrored sliding robes to the bedrooms. For the master bedroom we have upgraded to the Lin 1 translucent glass doors for the WIR and ensuite, only because we had a little bit of money left in the budget at the end of colours so thought we'd add a touch of luxury to our room! We also had some shelving / drawers added to our WIR.
Bedroom 3 has been extended by 450mm just to make it slightly bigger than the original 3x3 size, and we have a TV pop out in the main living area just to create a bit more space as that area is quite small in the Nova so every little bit of space helps. Another little thing we did to create more space for storage is we had the ensuite vanity moved over to abut the ensuite wall so that we could fit a shelf unit in there next to the vanity. I will be all about the storage in this house because it isn't huge so I will be very storage conscious! It does have a very decent size linen closet though so I am happy about that.
Electrical we mainly doubled the amount of powerpoints (and they are all double powerpoints too), got lots of downlights, pendant lights for over the island bench in the kitchen plus a larger pendant light (same style as the kitchen ones) in our entry hallway. We also got an alarm system.
Flyscreens, chrome lever door handles were also an added selection plus in the bathrooms we have the 2-pac polyurethane high gloss cupboards with push to open for the drawers and cupboard doors.
I think that is it! Ciao for now...
PS - Still no pegs! They have until tomorrow so we will wait and see!
Tuesday 25 March 2014
It's about time...
The title of this post has so many meanings! It's about time I started a blog. It's about time our build started. Here's how it all started, rewind about a year ago (see, I told you it's about time!)...
Vas and I bought a lovely brand spankin' new townhouse in the northern suburbs of Wollongong in October 2008. We absolutely loved it there but a few years later we decided if we were ever going to be able to afford something bigger one day and realise our dream of owning an investment property then now was the time to do something. So we leased it out and moved in with his parents in December 2011. It was actually quite an easy decision, despite the fact that it is a sacrifice on the marriage in the sense that we aren't on our own anymore, but for us we were prepared to make that sacrifice. We have been together for a long time and we both know what each other needs and we understand each other. We have had our ups and downs no doubt about it, but the sacrifice has made us stronger and has also brought us to this point, where we are about to build a brand new home!
After working with my company for 3 years on a contract, I was finally offered a permanent position at the beginning of 2013 so I grabbed it with both hands. After having lived with Vas's parents for over a year and not really knowing what direction we were going in (when we would be able to get somewhere basically) this finally provided us with the opportunity to get somewhere. We were planning on either buying a bigger house or building - the dream has always been to build. Hearing about Brooks Reach Estate which is about 20 mins south of where we currently live, we checked it out and it was affordable for us - so we put down our deposit on a 450m2 block in February last year!
Then it was time to start thinking about a builder. We were so close to going with Allworth, we had been in and out of the sales office so many times they knew us by name. Then one day as we were driving away from Brooks Reach I saw all the blue frames going up around the estate, I said to Vas "let's just go to the McDonald Jones display homes and see what all the fuss is about!" and the rest, as they say, is history!
We dealt with Rob at the sales office and he was fantastic. We put our deposit down at the end of April 2013. Our land wasn't due to register until February 2014 so we extended our tender period at an additional cost. Our land ended up registering in November 2013 so a bit earlier - yay!
It has definitely been a long process for us - not just because we bought the land a long time before it was due to register, but also the admin side of getting to where we are now has taken some time for various reasons that have mainly been out of our control, but we are almost about to start building and had I known it would take this long I would have still chosen McDonald Jones. The home we are building ticks all the boxes for us and upgrades were reasonably priced in my opinion.
We are building the Nova in the GenOne range. We would have loved the Havana but we didn't want to spend too much just in case one of us were ever out of work. At the moment it is just the two of us so things are "easy" but you never know when the two of us could be three of us! And it was important to us to be able to keep our investment property - so we went for something more affordable but upgraded quite a bit so we could make it luxurious on the inside!
So we are now on the construction list - on Thursday 27th March the 20 working days will be up. We still have no pegs on the lot so they have either tomorrow or Thursday to get it done! It has been such a long road but I know it will all be worth it in the end when we get the keys to our brand new home. I am not normally a patient person so this experience has definitely tested me and I am pleasantly surprised with how I have coped!
And that is just a little bit about me...watch this space!
Here are some pics:
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| Front Elevation |
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| Floor Plan (manhole will be in the garage) |
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| Internal Colours |
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| Our amazeballs sink tap! |
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| External Colours |
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