Our Nova by McDonald Jones Homes: 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: