Lance and Stacey's house

A back-yard in progress

2010-06-20T23:28:00.000+10:00

It's been a little while since we updated the blog, so quite a bit has changed. The deck is finished (don't ask how long it took me to pre-drill and then screw in all of the deck screws), we have a pergola (still only half painted and no roof yet) and we've well and truly got the garden underway. So there's plenty happening.

Garden wise, we have just planted our 'big' items - a Japanese maple and a Magnolia 'little-gem'. We wanted to buy these a little bigger so that we wouldn't have to wait as long for them to grow. That also meant we had to wait til Winter before we picked these up, since that's a better time to transplant trees and give them the best chance to establish before the dryer weather comes. We've also put in a couple of big cordylines that Stacey's folks gave to us. Here is how things are looking at the moment:

Back deck area

As you can see from the photo, the cordylines are placed in front of the posts for the pergola and the maple is in the corner. In between are syzygiums - an Australian plant that is often called a lily-pilly and you might see it at Bunnings as an 'orange twist' plant. They grow pretty quickly and will screen out the fence (and the neighbours' satellite dish). We've also put in some bearded iris bulbs along the front edge of the garden, between the cordylines, and a little herb garden along the side fence.

I haven't taken a photo of the front but it's still very much a work in progress. We have planted out some small shrubs and planted the magnolia, but I'm still working on the nature strip. We purchased some pot plants when we picked up the trees, but I'm still getting the garden bed ready. It's hard clay and there's still a bit of builders rubble buried not far beneath the surface, so I've spread some gypsum and started to dig it over, fishing out things like broken bricks and rocks as I go. The plan is to have a garden bed around the tree in the nature strip, filling most of it up, and then just a small patch of lawn either side of the garden in the middle. It will make the nature strip look like a continuation of the front garden. Hopefully the council don't mind...

So I'll do another post shortly with a photo of the front. Stay tuned!

And the "Most Ambitious Use of a Dingo Digger" Award goes to....

2010-01-20T12:04:00.000+11:00

Well, the photos really tell the story.... we decided to make a start on the front yard, so I hired a Dingo and dug up what was there to make room for some rocks. We just made a little flat area at the front of the garden bed, behind the path. Then we had the rocks delivered. The rocks are 'river mud rocks' and we ordered them from a local supplier called SoilWorx. They're very good... The price was excellent but on the downside, with this type of rock they only do bulk lots (minimum 1 cubic metre) and you can't pick out individual rocks. I described what I was after though and they were able to aim their big front end loader at the side of the pile that had mostly rocks that fitted the description I gave. So there is an element of chance to it, but in our case we did ok.

Once the rocks arrived, we had to put them in place... this was a little more difficult than I anticipated! The rocks were larger than I expected and the poor little Dingo just wasn't qite big enough for the job! But, with the help of a ratchet strap (which, predictably enough, eventually broke), I was able to drag them around and then push them into place. It was very difficult though, and probably not real good for the Dingo either!

It's obviously not finished.... Later today we will have some top soil delivered to fill out the garden bed behind the rocks, which will make it look a lot better! And of course, we need to put plants in there yet....

We've also made a start on the back yard. We've started to build the deck, which will cover pretty much the whole yard, leaving just a garden bed around the edges. Stacey's dad, Mick, is a carpenter by trade, so he's doing the deck for us. I'm helping.... but Mick is the one who knows what he's doing. We're very lucky to have Mick giving us a hand with this. I couldn't do it myself and paying someone to do all of this would cost a fortune!

I'll put up some more pics after this weekend, when more progress has been made, but here's the backyard at the moment:

In by Christmas

2010-01-09T12:08:00.002+11:00

Well, we made it! We managed to cajole our builder into finishing the house by the first weekend in December. We moved in, set up, and had the folks over for Christmas lunch!

With so many delays through the construction, we didn't quite have time to complete the garden, but that's no biggy. The week before Christmas I hired a 'dingo' digger (mini skid-steer loader is the technical name), leveled out the back yard, put in a retaining wall with the help of my brother, Jim (who - being a tradie - is more suited to physical labour than I am!) and wheelbarrowed three cubic metres of gravel into the back yard to make it level enough to sit a garden setting on.

We also have a few outstanding items for the builder to come back and fix this month. Minor things, for the most part. The largest is a timber door that was actually damaged when it left the factory, but the damage wasn't evident until it was stained. So the whole door is getting replaced by the builder, and he's making a claim on the manufacturer's warranty. Other than that, there were a few marks in the paintwork which were fixed the day after we moved in; some brickwork that needs to be cleaned again; a problem with the hot water service (again, a manufacturer problem that apparently takes about 5 minutes for them to fix - basically, the problem is the pressure relief valve spurts out water more often than it should); and there's a small dent in the garage door that happened when it was installed (barely noticeable, but the builder will have the whole section replaced to fix it anyway).

Overall, we can't complain too much. The biggest disappointment has been the delays - and they're largely because our builder told us things would be done at a particular time, raised our expectations and then failed to meet his own deadlines. What he should have done is under promise and over deliver. But we've been wandering around our estate each evening and looking at some of the other houses still under construction... and for most of them, the sites are a terrible mess and there's paint, mud, mortar and mess splattered everywhere, left to be cleaned or covered up at some later stage. Our site - even at the times we were complaining to the builder about the messy painters - was never anywhere near as bad. And from speaking to other people who have recently built or renovated, it seems our hiccups have been relatively minor compared to some of the other stories you hear!

And now that we've moved in, it's just AWESOME. We've set about making it our home... shopping sprees at homewares stores... more trips to Bunnings than I can count.... arranging and rearranging the pictures on the walls... Setting up a home together is an indescribable pleasure.

So what's next? The garden of course! Stay tuned....

Photos: these ones were taken just after our floor was installed, before we moved in.

These ones were taken the day we started moving furniture in.

These photos were taken Christmas Day. As you can see, the blinds are in and look great! Note also the AWESOME retaining wall, built by Lance and Jim...

Lights... Concrete... Action!

2009-11-23T22:02:00.000+11:00

Credit to Stacey for the title of this entry...

Well, it's all happening... FINALLY! The lights are in and we can even switch them on and off. You have no idea how much fun it is to play with the lights in a new house until you try it. We also had our concrete driveway done on Friday - we went with the exposed aggregate, which had overwhelming support from our blog readers, judging by the poll (see left). I may have voted more than once...

So, we have some photos... things are changing rapidly though and even as I type this, I know that the place already looks different. The basins, sink, taps, and (I think) the oven were all plumbed in today. We'll get to check all of that out tomorrow when we meet the builder on site at 8am... we can't wait!

So we're obviously getting close to finished... Tomorrow they start installing our timber floors; the carpet is laid on Friday. There will be a few things to finish off next week, but we should be ready to move in around the 4th / 5th of December!

Latest pics:

Kitchen (obviously) with lights over the bench

This is where the dining table goes

Fancy antique looking light in the formal lounge

Fancy drum light in the main bedroom

Fancy antique looking light in the entry, with downlights along the hall.

Driveway prepared for concrete...

Driveway with concrete!

Front path

Side path. Self explanatory really.

We have tiles.... woohoo!

2009-11-14T23:43:00.000+11:00

OK so things still seem to be going slower than we would like.... but things are happening. The plumber has finally finished his work on the outside, and the tiler looks like he has very nearly finished too. Only things left for the tiler are a strip of wall tiles above the ensuite vanity and the tiles around the bath. The builder tells us there will be a lot happening in the next week too.

Things are going to have to start moving quickly. We've starting booking in the tradies that we have to organise ourselves. There's a few things that we excluded from the building contract - particularly the driveway and the floor coverings (except for the tiles in the wet areas). So we've booked the concreter to start next Wednesday, and we have also booked in our flooring for the last week of November. We could probably have booked these things to happen a week or so later but frankly, we want to put some pressure on the builder. He told us a while back that booking flooring for the last week of November would be allowing him plenty of time. Now it seems like a tight deadline. But he'll just have to deal with that!

We took a couple of pics of the tiles in the ensuite and bathroom (there are also tiles in the laundry, but didn't take a pic - sorry!). The tiler has done an awesome job. Apparently he's a bit of a perfectionist. Anyway, we're very happy with our tiles!

Ensuite

Ensuite shower (with soap niche)

Bathroom shower

Bathroom

Towards Completion

2009-11-04T22:35:00.006+11:00

It's been a while since we posted an update, so there's a bit to cover in this one. Changes since the previous post include: paint, eaves, internal doors, benchtops, render on the front pillars, mouldings around the front windows, garage door installed and some floor tiles.

We've also had some niggling issues.

Firstly, everything is taking longer than we expected. We're told that we should now be about 3 weeks away from handover. But we were also told we were 8 weeks away from handover about 15 weeks ago, so 3 weeks could very well mean 5 or 6. We're not too fussed, so long as we're in before Christmas. If not, our builder will be facing the fury of Stacey. Some of you may not realise it, but Stacey in furious mode is quite a thing to behold.

Secondly, there's a great bick crack in the brickwork along the back wall. Which means the slab has moved. The builder has had the slab checked by an engineer, and the movement is within tolerance levels for a H class slab (H class means it's for highly reactive soil - ie: soil that moves a lot). So they'll re-do the brickwork on that wall, and it will all be fine. Also, if there are further cracks that appear in years to come, the builder will have to fix them under his warranty.

But the whole reason it has moved is becaue the downpipes weren't installed until about a week ago - which meant that water was pooling in the back yard, right beside the slab. In particular, on one corner there are two downpipes quite close to each other, one on the side wall and one on the back wall, but without the downpipes there was a lot of water pooling particularly at that corner. So the water has caused the ground underneath that corner to swell and push the slab upwards, and that has caused the brickwork to crack. It's not a huge issue - it should only take the bricky a day to pull down part of the wall and re-lay the bricks - but it's annoying.

There have been other little things along the way too. The soap niche was put in the wrong spot initially; a plain bath was ordered instead of the spa bath that we're meant to get, that sort of thing. Nothing major, just annoying.

My final whinge is about the plumber (again). We have been hassling the builder about the plumbing of the downpipes because we need to get our cocreting done for the driveway and paths. But the job is still not completed. It seems every time the plumber comes out, he does half the job and then leaves with the job still only half done. At the moment, we're waiting on one last downpipe. Apparently there was a blockage somewhere that stopped him from completing the job on his last visit. But what's annoying is that the plumber could have been donig this about two months ago, and we'd have no trouble booking in our concreting and probably no crack in the back wall.

On the positive side, it's looking great! We're actually very happy with how it is all coming along and despite the issues, overall we are pretty happy. And most of the tradies seem very good. The painters - who looked pretty rough, were messy and even smoked inside the house - have actually done a really good job. The paint looks great! The semi-gloss on the door frames is so smooth it looks like the timber has been coated in shiny white plastic, and where the wall colour meets the white of the ceiling cornice or the door frames there are clean, straight lines.

The tiler also seems to be very good. The tiles are dead straight and perfectly centered. The cuts around the door frames are perfect. Our builder said the guy is only about 24 but he's already a great tiler. He obviously takes pride in his work, which is good to see!

Here's a selection of the latest images...

View of the front with garage door, eaves, rendered pillars and window mouldings

We love our garage door...

The crack in the back wall. It's minor enough that they could scrape out the mortar and re-fill it without pulling down any of the brickwork. But the builder wants to pull down the bricks and re-do it properly anyway. Which suits us fine.

View of the kitchen, painted and benchtops installed. I still think the white benchtops would have looked better....

Ensuite with the white benchtop. Very nice!

This is where the shower goes. Soap niche is now in the correct location.

We're plastered

2009-09-23T21:44:00.006+10:00

We were excited when the outside started to look like a house. Now the inside is starting to look rather house-like too! There is now plaster on the walls and ceiling and we even have our bathroom and kitchen cabinets! The joins have been plastered over but not sanded back yet, and the cornice is yet to be glued in place. Hopefully the cornice and the finishing of the plaster will all be done by this weekend.

Here's how it looked the last time we checked:

Garage

Bedroom, looking towards wardrobe and hallway

Bedroom, looking towards ensuite

Ensuite - double vanity

Study

Formal lounge

Kitchen

Family / meals area

Locked up and roughed out

2009-09-05T20:11:00.006+10:00

Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds...

We're now at lock-up stage, which means the outside is basically done and all of the doors are fitted. Although it's called 'lock-up' stage, you can still get into the house. Not all of the locks are fitted yet and besides, there's no garage door and no plaster, so you can just walk into the garage and jump through the wall to get inside.

We were very excited to see the doors fitted though. Especially the big bi-fold door at the back of the house! It looks awesome! Will look even better when there's a deck in the backyard, rather than the current mud-pit.

The wiring and plumbing has also been 'roughed out'. So the wiring has been fed through the ceiling and wall frames, and backing plates for the switches and power points are put in place in readiness for plastering. Insulation has also been put in place in the frames along the inside of the external walls, which means they're very close to starting the plastering. They'll probably start hanging plaster this week.

So, this is how things are looking now:

The bi-fold door. You need to use some imagination and picture this opening out onto a deck.

Inside view of the bi-fold, looking from the kitchen towards the lounge area.

French doors on the side of the house. These open into the formal lounge.

Inside view of the french doors, from the hallway looking into the formal lounge.

The front door, still in undercoat. It will be painted 'paperbark' eventually.

Flooring

2009-08-06T23:06:00.007+10:00

We haven't had much change to the house in the last week or so. The bricks have been cleaned - and they look great! - and the site tidied up (brickies are messy buggers), but that's about it. We met with our builder on site last Wednesday and that was very helpful, just to know what happens next. Apparently the carpenter will come out and make sure all the framework is straight and square, and will fit the doors - front door, doors at the back of the garage, laundry door, french doors on the side, big fancy bi-fold at the back. And that pretty much gets us to 'lock-up' stage!

We'll head out this weekend and take a look to see if any doors have appeared, but in the meantime, it might be useful to let you know that...

We've sorted out our flooring!

We removed most of the flooring from the building contract so that we could have a bit more choice and look at options that aren't available through the builder, like a timber floating floor. The only things we left for the builder to do are the tiles in the bathroom, ensuite and laundry.

So, we went through a process of gathering quotes and tossing up the options. It was quite a process. We decided to go for carpet in the bedrooms and timber everywhere else. We just wanted a basic, neutral coloured carpet, so that part was easy to sort out. The timber, on the other hand, was a little more difficult....

We discovered that timber can get very expensive! Merbau and Kempas are generally the cheapest, while Australian hardwoods like Jarra are at the higher end. The one we fell in love with was Spotted Gum - which, of course, happens to be at the expensive end of the spectrum.

Choosing the timber is just one part of the equation. You then have to consider options like solid floorboards vs engineered floor; one-strip vs two or three strip; colour, brand, underlay... you get the idea.

Balancing all these various options against the price that they cost, we ended up going for a two-strip engineered floor called 'Boral Silkwood' (a product that is sourced from sustainable forrestry), in the spotted gum. We would have preferred the one-strip, but we decided the two-strip was an acceptable compromise between appearance and cost.

We've ordered it through Western Distributors in North Sunshine. We had a range of quotes and they were by far the best - they wer half the price of some of the other quotes! Thanks go to Stacey's dad for the recommendation.

We can't show you what it will look like yet, but if you click here you can download the brochure in pdf format. And it should look somewhat similar to this:

We have also organised some changes to the lighting and bought some furniture - more on those matters later! The next thing on our agenda is the driveway - so if you have any ideas or recommendations, let us know!

The roof is on!

2009-07-25T23:36:00.004+10:00

Well, now it really does look like a house. Heck, it's got four walls and a roof - it basically IS a house! As you can see, the bricklayer has finished and the roof is on. We have also given the builder a heap more money. We actually used the First Home Owners Grant to pay for this stage... so we have still only drawn down a relatively small portion of the loan, which gives us a little more time to keep saving! Thanks Kevin!

As you can see, we're pretty close to 'lock up'. Basically the only thing left for lock-up is to fit the doors... which is slightly more complicated than it sounds. In addition to the fairly standard front door, we have ordered a big bi-fold door that slots into the big hole at the back of the house and some french doors that go in the 'formal lounge' and open out onto the side. They're the sort of doors that can't be left lying around on a building site because someone might knock them off. So they've been left til last and the builder will fit them as soon as they're delivered. In theory, they'll be very difficult to knock off once they're bolted to the bricks.

We are scheduled to meet with the builder 'on site' this Wednesday to go over everything that comes next - including what's left for lock-up, electrical plans (which we're wanting to change substantially) and all the other stuff that goes inside. We'll be sure to keep you posted on developments!

More bricks...

2009-07-19T22:11:00.004+10:00

Not much change since the last pictures were taken. Just more bricks! And better light. The house is really starting to take shape!

Progress!

2009-07-14T19:17:00.004+10:00

What a difference a few weeks can make! Two months ago we had a vacant block of land... and we were bemoaning the delays. We now have something that is starting to resemble a house! Of course, we were told this part would move quickly. But actually seeing it happen is very exciting!

If the latest pics look a bit dark, it's probably because we took them in the dark. We headed out after work to sneak around and take a peek while none of the tradies were around. Our builder had tipped us off that the bricklayer had started this week... and we just couldn't wait 'til the weekend to check out the progress!

OMG - We have a frame!

2009-07-01T18:27:00.004+10:00

My understanding of this whole process is that for the next few weeks it will seem like everything is moving along really quickly before it all slows down again, but I don't care, I'm relishing the moving quickly stage.

Lance's sister had her baby shower last weekend, but Lance and I were really anxious to see if any progress had been made on our home. So we headed off to Mooroolbark via Deer Park (completely out of the way in case you're wondering).

It was worth it, because this is what we saw when we got there:

It is now easier than ever to visualise what the final product will look like.

The contracted date of completion is 28 October 2009 and we are looking forward to inviting you to our new home.

Adjacent is the rear of our house where we'll dine when you come over.

The end of the beginning

2009-06-13T21:49:00.003+10:00

We have a slab! Which means the first stage of construction - 'base stage' is complete! There's not a great deal to say about a great big slab of concrete on the ground... so here's the pic:

Apologies for the poor lighting, it was fairly late in the day when we went out to take a look. In case you're wondering, Stacey is standing roughly where our hallway will be.

Completion of base stage means we have some more paperwork to send to our bank, in order to make the first draw-down on our construction loan (we paid for the first stge with savings).

And it gets pretty exciting now... because the next step is the frame! Which is apparently going up this Thursday! So stay tuned for more progress pics.

We have a retaining wall!

2009-05-27T23:03:00.005+10:00

I never thought I would be so happy to have a little wooden fence on a block of dirt.

It has taken a lot to get to this point. Construction was supposed to start in February, but annoying little delays got in the way and all of a sudden it was May.

I don't want to go into all those details here because they make me frustrated and I can't seem to write about it without it becoming a rant, so we'll focus on the positives.

Three months on from the initial construction date and we have movement at the station. We were so excited when they excavated our site that we went out there and took photos of the flat land. Here's what it looked like:

Anyway, after marvelling over our flattened site, we had to arrange for a retaining wall to be built.

We got the builder to cut deeper into the site than initially intended because we thought it would make sense to get our backyard levelled at this stage rather than once the house had been built and fences raised, so the retaining wall is more like a little border for our garden beds than anything else.

Lance's dad, Lionel, put the "wall" up for us. Here it is:

So, we have a flat site and a retaining wall and this week the builder went out there to put our pipes in. We have been told that our slab will be poured next week! So at long last it is all happening and this blog might actually have some interesting updates on it, provided Lance is the one doing the blogging.

Thanks for reading guys - it will all be worth it when we get to the housewarming!

Turning the first sod

2009-05-13T13:08:00.003+10:00

I think I've been hanging around with politicians for too long. You see, I had in my head that they'd give us a call when they were ready to start digging up our site to level it out - maybe we'd head out there with a shiny, new, never-been-used shovel, to dig up the first chunk of dirt and turn it over, Kevin Rudd style, in front of the cameras.

But they obviously they don't do that with residential houses. Instead, I just drove past the other day and discovered someone has come around and levelled the whole thing out! Without even a courtesy call so we could rush out with a camera to capture the moment!

Quite seriously, we're just stoked to see something happening! Everything seems to take longer than we expect, so to see actual work being done on our block is very exciting!

We did actually create some of the delay with the site cut ourselves... you see, the standard site cut is they dig up enough dirt to level out the area for the slab - so just enough for the house to go on. On our block, there is a slight upward slope towards the back fence, so if they just levelled out enough for the house, then you would step out of the back door and onto a hill. We thought about this and figured that it would be far better to get them to level out the backyard now rather than get a landscaper to do it after the house has been built. So that meant we had to rejig some paperwork and pay a little bit extra.

Our next step is to put in a retaining wall, which will form part of the garden / landscaping at the end. Since my old man is a landscaper, we're getting him to do it. It's his birthday this weekend, so we've told him it's ok if he leaves it til next week. I did suggest we celebrate his birthday with a barbecue at Deer Park and build the retaining wall while we're there, but he didn't go for it.

Anyway, here is a photo of our block, all levelled off and with the OHS temporary fencing in place.

Building Permit issued

2009-04-10T09:35:00.003+10:00

We have a building permit! Which should mean things start happening very quickly from now. You see, when you do your building contract there are time limits written in... so our building contract says that the builder has a maximum of 6 months to build our house (including all the potential delays from weather, public holidays, etc). But the clock doesn't start ticking when you sign the building contract - it actually starts from the issuing of the permit. Now that we have the permit, the clock starts ticking and the builder has to get to work!

Getting the building permit has taken longer than we expected, mainly because our builder took a while to submit the application. The delays were partly due to our builder taking a 2 week holiday in March, but I suspect also partly that he wasn't ready to start building.

There was also a slight glitch with our paperwork. Something to do with a flood overlay and needing to note the levels on our plan. I don't have a clue where this came from - all of the certificates from the water authority and the Council (you get these through your conveyancer when you purchase the land) say that our block is not subject to flooding. But somewhere, somehow, we missed something.

As a result, an extra soil test was needed to determine the appropriate level to build at on our block. Fortunately, the council had a test result from our nature strip that was done when they were putting in the sewer pipes. So our builder rang the people that had done those tests, had the results emailed over, and the draftsperson used those test results to work out the correct levels and write them in on our plans, and the builder resubmitted everything. If we had to have the extra test done it would have meant coughing up an additional $500.00, so we're very pleased that our builder was able to find a way around it.

Even with that glitch, it was a remarkably quick process. The time from the builder submitting the original application to approval was still only around a week. Brimbank Council told me on the phone it would take 3 weeks... but, given the arrangement our builder made with the soil test, I think he might hae some contacts in there.

Our builder has actually handled everything very well so far. Hopefully we're still singing his praises in six months time... But for now, we're very happy and very excited! With the building permit is issued, all the action is about to begin!

Kitchen appliances and accessories

2009-02-28T19:14:00.003+11:00

We thought that by now we would have our building permit and that someone would be digging into our site and getting ready to lay a slab. But everything in this process takes a whole lot longer than you think it should, so the action is still yet to begin. Since we don't have any new news, we'll have to give you some more of the old news.

The way it works with appliances is that each builder negotiates some deal with a supplier, so what brand / model appliance you get depends on what builder has done their deal with. National Builders go with Blanco appliances, which we're pretty happy with. Anyway, here's the pics:

Oven (BFS95W)

Rangehood (BWCE9X)

Dishwasher (BFD9X)

Kitchen tap (B5899)

Kitchen sink (Blanco BTIPO8S)

Ensuite and Bathroom

2009-02-07T09:32:00.005+11:00

The extent to which Stacey and I agreed on this stuff is bizarre. We heard all these horror stories about couples fighting over colours and the like, but for us it was pretty smooth sailing. The Kitchen Bench Drama was actually not as controversial as we've portrayed it here. I would have preferred the white one, but the one Stacey liked was a close second preference and probably the 'safer' option, so hey, I'm happy. If that's the biggest hurdle we face then we'll be doing very well indeed.

Ensuite:
So, with the kitchen out of the way, it's time to move on to the ensuite and bathroom. First thing to note is the changed ensuite layout. The standard design had a single ensuite (ie: one basin), and we wanted a double (ie: two basins) like all the fancy display homes we looked at. Only problem was space... it's a pretty small ensuite, so we had to do some re-arranging. The easieast way to explain is with the drawing:

As you can see, we changed the door to a sliding door to create some room, put the vanity along one wall and the toilet and shower on the other. It's a bigger shower too. All of that meant we had to swap the big window for a tall skinny one.

The actual vanity / mirror and the shower will look like this:

There's so many choices to make... once we've gone over the bathroom layout, I'll see if I can get pictures of all the bathroom / ensuite fixtures...

Bathroom:
We just left the bathroom layout as standard - except we're getting a spa bath instead of just a normal bath. Nothing overly fancy but we figure when we sell this place in a few years time some idiot will pay more on the basis that we put in fancy stuff like spa baths. So, the drawings look like this:

The Kitchen

2009-02-05T20:04:00.010+11:00

Lance suggested it would be best for me to do the update on the kitchen. Take that as you will, I'm choosing to believe it's because I won the battle of the bench-top.

The drawings really speak for themselves, so I'll just update you on the changes we made and the things you can't see:

The pantry: We moved the pantry from the end of the bench where the window is in Kitchen 2 and made it a corner pantry. As you can see it gives us a bigger pantry and a bigger window. It also gives us nice bench space and a neat little area for the oven and glass splashback.

The glass splashback: Lance picked the colour for the splashback. It's called silver dollar and is a really light blue-green so it just looks like frosted glass. We wanted to go with this look because we felt we would get sick of a colour and the frosted glass effect looks really fresh.

The wine-rack: My work mate Chris Peachey was telling me all about the groovy wine-rack she has built into her kitchen and I thought that wine drinkers like Lance and I could really do with a built-in wine-rack. We are getting it put in above the fridge.

The island: When going through the final plans Lance suddenly said: "Where are we going to put the microwave?" The solution was to turn two of the cupboards in the island into a microwave shelf and draw.

The cupboards: We both liked the nice, clean look of white cupboards... but of course there's about 100 different shades of 'white' you can choose from. We went with Frosty White. The kickboards along the bottom are Slate Grey for contrast. The handles are slender satin-chrome barrels that are about 20cm long. They will all be positioned horizontally on the doors and draws.

The bench-tops: Our bench-tops are stone and there were about five standard colours we could choose from. Lance liked the dark grey initially, but I liked Blanco City, which is kind of a putty colour. We have agreed on everything except these bench-tops the whole way through! Finally I convinced him that grey was too dark for the floorboards and he changed his preference to Blanco Maple (white). I had been telling people that I had succeeded in getting him from one end of the colour spectrum to the other and was confident that I would convince him to go the next shade down the day of the colour selection. It was a tough battle, but with the colour consultant in line with my way of thinking, Blanco City prevailed. See what you think:

For all the Lance fans, I did compromise I promise. We're getting the white stone in the bathrooms...

More design stuff - facades

2009-02-05T01:04:00.006+11:00

So, once we had the plan worked out, we had to work out how we want the thing to look. You have soooo many choices... I could bore you to death with all the different possibilities, but I'd be here forever, so I'll just tell you where we ended up...

This is roughly how the front will look:

Main features worth noting are:
- We've gone for the 'Brighton' facade from National Builders, which gives us eaves and the three vertical windows with fancy little mouldings around them;
- brick front, including brick infill above the garage door (instead of a wooden beam); and
- Rendering on the pillars to the 'portico' at the front, just a design feature to help comply with estate covenants (they insist on some different textures or different materials along the front).

The back of the house will look sorta like this:

The main features here are:
- The big bi-fold door in the middle (an idea we ripped off from the Porter Davis Kensington display home);
- We changed the windows along the back a couple of times before settling on these ones - wide, half height (again, a lot like the Porter Davis home); and
- Brick infill above all the windows along the back.

Basic design - the plan

2009-02-04T22:18:00.002+11:00

After walking through many different display homes and considering many different builders, we finally settled on a design from the National Builders Group. This was a pretty tough decision. We originally liked a Porter Davis design, but when we arranged a quote, we couldn't help but feel like the whole thing was a great big rip-off. We ended up spending more with National Builders - so it wasn't a matter of outright price, we just didn't feel like we were getting value for money.

The Porter Davis design we liked was the Kensington. Stacey and I walked through a display home in Caroline Springs, and Stacey just 'fell in love' with it. But, mindful of the fact that a lot of the things we liked about it were going to be costly 'extras', we decided to look into the Cumberland, which is a smaller version of the same house. You can view them on the Porter Davis website by clicking here for the Kensington and here for the Cumberland.

When the quote came back, we were very disappointed. We took another look at the Kensington display and on second inspection, it wasn't quite as impressive. On concluding that the Porter Davis quote really sucked, we decided to keep looking.

Eventually, we found a design from National Builders that fitted almost exactly with everything we wanted. We then changed a few things around - and, in fact, incorporated some things we liked from the Porter Davis design.

To check out the original floorplan of the National Builders design, click here. Don't bother looking at the display home photos - the display was done up like an old nana's place, and looks terrible!

With our changes, the final floorplan we ended up with was this one here (click the image for large view):

Finding the land

2009-02-04T12:41:00.005+11:00

Finding a block of land to build our new home on proved to be more challenging than we first thought.

Challenging because Lance grew up on acres and I grew up in West Footscray where everything was five minutes away.

We visited a new estate in Braybrook near the old quarries on one occasion, but couldn't get onto anyone from the sales office to assist us. I don't think we would have purchased there anyway because the estate was basically one giant hill.

We then visited an estate in Essendon. It was very nice, but had a price tag to match. We promptly decided that if we ever bought a lottery ticket and won we would come back, but until that day we would have to search elsewhere.

It was then we discovered three new estates being developed in Deer Park, just near Caroline Springs.

St Andrews Field - an Australand development - was almost complete and prices for land there were higher than we budgeted for, so we moved up the road to Brimbank Gardens.

Brimbank Gardens was more in our price range and they had a lovely little block just near the creek that we thought would be nice. It was a decent size and surrounded by open space, so we made contact with PEET and arranged a time to put a deposit on the land and sign a contract.

Thank goodness for Lance's legal training, because when we sat down to sign the paperwork, Lance checked the subdivision at the back of the contract to discover we were about to purchase a completely different block of land to the one we thought we were getting!

Let me just say that plenty of drama ensued and I hope that Lance has the energy to elaborate on that, because I don't. I was angry and upset a lot and I let everyone know about it. But the point is, we walked away (and it was a wise decision in the end because they had all sorts of problems with that creek) and made friends with the good people of Devine who were developing the Central Park Estate.

Central Park was more expensive than Brimbank Gardens, but cheaper than St Andrews. Devine had also already released quite a few stages, so in July 2008 we settled on a little block just near the park!

The decision to build

2009-02-04T12:25:00.002+11:00

It was this time last year that Lance and I decided to buy a house together.

Lance had been "visiting" me a lot and had found employment out in the west. I had decided it was time to stop sponging off my parents.

We did what any normal couple would do and started saving our pennies while we looked into the market. Lance would spend hours on the internet looking at what was for sale.

We had decided that Sunshine would be a good suburb for us as the prices were still quite reasonable and it would put us in the state seat of Footscray and the federal seat of Maribyrnong (it's sad, I know).

We looked at a lovely place just near my sister and the Muttons and even attended the auction to see how it turned out. It sold for about $400,000.

It was then that we realised we had missed the boat and that prices in Sunshine were already too high for a first home. We discovered that for a mortgage of $300,000 we could buy a run-down old house in Sunshine that we would then have to find the time (and money) to do up or we could move to a new estate two suburbs away and build a brand new house just the way we wanted it, not mention the savings on stamp duty and the first home-buyers grant (oh, and we got a really great bonus thanks to Kevy because we were building).

It was a no-brainer, but finding a block of land proved - at first - to be more difficult than we realised...

Welcome to our house blog!

2009-02-03T17:30:00.003+11:00

Welcome! Thank you for visiting our blog. Our hope is to keep you informed of all the progress on the construction of our house, and document our experiences and thoughts as we go.

It won't come as much of a surprise to you to learn that Stacey and I have very similar taste - good taste, of course - so most of the time we have pretty much agreed on things.... with the exception of the kitchen bench, but we'll get to that later...

Anyway, welcome! Let's get onto the good stuff... bringing you up to speed with all of the things we've been through so far!