News just in.

Saw the builders reps this afternoon and our plans have arrived. they are checking that it all matches with what we've agreed to and will be posting them to us tomorrow. Yippee

Plans should be here on Friday. :)

Site engineers will work out final site works costings now the plans are complete :) This takes around 3 weeks. sigh. Once this is done we can finally have prestart and sign the final priced contracts. Well final except that of course we have a couple of changes to window sizes ( 2) and some upgrades to kitchen gear and bathroom vanities to go.

From something I've read i saw a mention of 21 days .. But it might have been from council approval not from from sign of contracts. Fingers crossed.
At this stage our choices are as follows:

Main colours throughout

Ceiling /Cornice - flat white

Walls - wattyl " Augathella" We'll probably be doing this ourselves.
We painted one of the rooms in our last house a wattyl colour called "Tumbleweed" and I would like to use the colour again. Perhaps as a feature somewhere. ( hmm i "think" it was a wattyl colour. I'll have to hunt down my info sheets.

Timber capping - jarrah ( orange-red-brown not orange)

Doors and door frames -wattyl "chalkdust"
This may end up something a little darker yet. I'm a tad worried that it is a bit light.
Door furniture:
main front door will be from the Gainsborough trilock range
other internal door furniture will be Gainborough

All Satin Chrome-
Gainsborough Contractor 700 series Sofia ( internals)
Gainsborough Decorator 900 Series 8901 Precise trilock ( front door)
Gainsborough Governor entrance set or Contractor Terrace in Stainless Steel for Laundry and Garage


Flooring - cork flooring Premium Flooring- "copenhagen"
carpets for lounge/ main bedroom,/ office/ activity/ minor bedrooms still to be decided.


*****************************************
Bathrooms

En-suite Bathroom 200 x 200 mm tiles grey black marble look floor tiles with wisps of grey/white. Wall tiles are the reverse.
Floor: Verdi Alpi Black with Gunmetal grout
Skirtings: as per flooring including the grout
Wall: Cara grey with White grout Note: Double row of tiles above vanity unit as a splash back.
Future cabinet to be built in laminex polar white with mirrored front doors.
Vanity top ( cupboard top) : laminex Ebony Marble- dimensions finish
Cupboard -: laminex Polar white- flint finish
Soap dish: white standard
vanity sink- upgraded to Caroma Centro Vanity basin in white vitreous china.

Main Bathroom: 200mm x 200mm tiles mid brown/terracotta colourings
grout: lightish fawn colour
Floor: Eko 20B
Skirtings: EKO 20B
Hob: EKO20B
Wall: EKO 20J Note: Single row of tiles above vanity unit as a splash back with large bevelled edge mirror above it.
Bath front: EKO 20J
Vanity top ( cupboard top) : laminex- Luna Stone- flint finish
Cupboard: laminex-Stone Beige- flint finish
Bath: Caroma Verona Bath- white standard bath
vanity sink- upgraded to Caroma Centro Vanity basin in white vitreous china.


For both bathrooms-
Hardware / Taps - Bathroom tapware- Stylus- Venecia in chrome or white ( if available)
Shower heads - from same range


At this stage we are planning on white colour rather than the chrome.
Soap dishes : white standard
Handles - brushed aluminium plain handles or maybe chrome if we go chrome taps for bathrooms.
Bathroom Accessories- Silhouette series double towel rail and toilet roll holder in white and chrome or caroma "cosmo" range in chrome or white depending on taps

WC's- Stylus Minuet- white ( standard )
*****************************

Kitchen
Splashback areas 300mm x 200mm tiles vertically placed. Grout: dark grey
Tiles: DSB-PAV23DG-A Grey Black ( 37.59 sqm ) 23DG
Laminates for Cupboards below all workbench areas: Laminex- Zinc works- natural finish
benchtop
Absolute stone- q-stone graphite
Hardware / Taps - caroma "acqua" mixer
Kitchen cabinet knobs tapered bows in Black nickel
Sink- Clark Advance 3507 "1530mm Double centre Bowl"

******************************
laundry

Clark 45L stainless steeel sink with "chrome" taps in the same range as chosen for the bathrooms.
Linen cupboard- wrapped vinyl doors not sure of colour options. May add a colour if there is the possibility of it.
Taps for laundry tub and washing machine will be "chrome" finish in which ever style we select for the bathrooms.
*******************************

Externals
Brick - Austral " Collie"
Roof - colorbond "blue ridge"

Gutters - Wattyl colorbond "blue ridge"

Fascia - Wattyl colorbond "blue ridge"

Downpipes/meter box - wattyl "colorbond classic cream"

Eaves - flat white

Wooden Alfresco Post - wattyl "deep ocean"

Windows - dowell "mountain blue"

Doors - front door timber veneer- corinthian Solidcarve Psc1 -
laundry door corinthian 7A with obscure glass & back garage door an external flat panel type door. wattyl "kosciusko pebble"

Pavers - Atlas designer pave " limestone" with a "charcoal" border
This could still change as we are half considering either a gravel driveway or a coloured ashpalt type drive.

Garage Doors - b 'n' d panelift Grange "classic cream"

waiting, waiting, waiting

It's been nearly 4 weeks now that we've been waiting for our first formal house plans to arrive. We'd been told that it was likely to be last week or early this week. hmm we'll see. Arrived home on Monday night, checked emails before rushing out the door for mahjong at 7pm. The games went late and it was 11 before I got home. For some reason I rechecked my emails again before bed and there was an email from our builders rep. Grr they've just realised they drew the initial draft plans with a 25% pitch roof and want to know if we really want to go with that. it seems the house our design is based on has a 20% roof pitch. Too late to email or call and we have no idea what difference it makes or if it makes a difference to the Solahart hot water system. So yesterday hubby had to call the hot water system people to check if they had a recommendation and then ring the builders rep. hmm It seems it makes not real difference except over 28% pitch the hot water system needs a special install so it doesn't slide off the roof. It wasn't costed in the price we've been given. It turns out that if we want the 25% roof it will cost us another 1300 and will not look very different to a 20% roofline. I'm guessing the roof pitch was changed in the drawings because we were considering some gables but then took them out before we got pricing. so obviously the drafts people are not that close to completing the house plans. The rep suggested we've be better off using the money on an upgrade of something for better value.
The builders rep though told Hubby that the plans were imminent!. That could mean anything.
On a different note we've managed to get hold of the developer and he is likely to come out this week to see which trees need removing and possibly remove them. :) Great news.

These are the tiles and laminates in our en-suite bathroom The black marble laminate will be the dimensions finish though not the smooth glossy version in the picture. The cabinet front will be in Polar white and the vanity cabinet top in the laminex black marble.

more block pics

Looking towards the current plum farm behind the block.




Towards our future neighbours sand pad.
No one has bought any of the other blocks yet. We've decided if by some amazing means we win lotto we'd buy this block too so we can have even more privacy and say on who lives so close to us. I really think that if it had been possible to buy 10 acres in town hubby would have definitely gone for that option. He wants the space from neighbours that larger grounds would give us but being a city boy can't bring himself to imagine living out of town. How he thinks he would cope with the snakes etc that would come with a bush style block I do not know. He also would hate to have to turn it into garden and look after it.

light

just needed a url for a light fitting

A little about the block

* The block is 3/4 of an acre. 3000+ sq m
* A corner block. (not something we'd normally have been keen to purchase because of the wasted land area. As we see it.)
* Slightly higher than all the blocks around us.
* Plum farm directly behind us that is in the process of being re-zoned for residential. These blocks will be a minimum of 1/2 acre in size. They are lower down than us and when built on their "plate height" will be slightly lower than our building pad. Beyond the plum farm the land rises slightly and it is state forest.
* Across the road( also lower than us) on the what will eventually be a through road to the subdivided plum farm blocks, there are 1 acre blocks and behind that it is state forest.
* Our block is in a small dead end street that consists of 7 blocks only.

Title has Arrived

We have title!. That's kinda like saying we have lift off. For the past 6 weeks+ we've been waiting for our land title to arrive and it finally got here today. Yippee. Our Building Society (bank) has been asking for the title before they'd do the final processing of the equity loan paperwork and the builder wants to sight it so they know we do own the land and are not just wasting their time.. Well today it came so that's one more step towards building.
Hopefully next week we'd get site costs back from the builders and the first proper plans will be finished so we'll have all the proper measurements instead of trying to guess lengths etc from the draft plans like we are currently doing.
I must say the Title Deed itself was a disappointment. The title deed for our last house block was a little more ornate. I had planned to photocopy it as a keepsake since the Building society will keep the real one until we pay off the loan. This one has no fancy lettering, no printed out allotment details on it like our last one. However it's the real thing and thats' what matters. Will be heading over to the block on the weekend and getting our eldest to take a picture of us with title in hand on site.

2nd weekend job will be heading into Bunbury to the tile shops to ask to buy a sample title to keep of the tiles we've picked for the ensuite bathroom and the kitchen. It was such a drama finding tiles we both agreed on that I'm worried by the time the Builder comes to ordering them for our build the tiles will not be available and we'll have to choose something else. At least this way we'll have a sample and we can try and find something similar. Otherwise we'll want to re-pick laminates as well.