Jinx

It is all coming together nicely....haha famous last words.

 

I can't believe it has been almost been 2 months since my last post - and what a frustrating 2 months it has been.  I really did think all the communication problems and delays were over now we were in the building phase but I was wrong. Frustrating is not quite the word for it.

 

I have begun to think that building companies have their own special take on communication.  In my line of work if we make a commitment that something is going to happen on a specific date and things change we communicate the change, in order to minimise the customers disappointment.  In the building game you call the customer on Friday and let them know what you think might happen over the next week (you don't use the words 'think' or 'might' mind you - you say it will happen). The next Friday give them another call, if what you say would happen last week didn't happen, that's ok promise it again for the next week and blame 1 of the trades that left you down. Now the following Friday make sure you call the customer again (because that is the most important thing) and if what you promised the previous 2 weeks still hasn't happened, that's ok promise if for the next week....and so on and so on.

 

This happened to us with the bricks for the top storey.  We were promised 2 weeks in a row that they would start on following Monday which didn't happen. On the 3rd Friday our SS said he actually wished I hadn't picked up and the call had gone to messagebank as he hates to deliver bad news but the brickies definitely would be on site on Monday.  Well they didn't turn up and I left it until Tuesday afternoon to call him and he informed me, after we spoke on Friday, he called the bricklayer who said he wouldn't be able to get to our job until Thursday/Friday the following week.  He was very surprised when I said I would have thought he would call me back on Friday if the weekly update was found to be incorrect an hour later.  He also said he was hurt because he prides himself on his communication WTF??? 

 

At this stage I think we have to agree to disagree on what good communication is and keep going... and despite all the delays we are still moving forward albeit slowly. The good thing to come out of all miscommunication is we did receive confirmation from Wisdom that we are still on track to complete by the end of March. That is good news!!

 

We are now in the Christmas shutdown period however here are a few photos of where we are up to...

 

  

 

 

 

   2nd storey roof tiles complete (love them!!!)

 

 

  

 

Render to front complete although the painters started to paint the 2nd storey the wrong colour (Grrrr!). It is supposed to be a light colour but was painted a dark grey

 

 

This is the Alfresco area with bricks cleaned - they look amazing however there is a few spots where the bricks are chipped and the base colour is coming through - this is on the list of things to discuss with the SS in January

 

 

This the front entry. The render is beautiful - a lovely job. It is not painted yet (top storey painted the wrong colour)

 

 

Lots of action on our street as well over the last month.  Our 2 direct neighbours and 1 across the street managed to be finished and moved in by Christmas. We are very jealous although I don't envy them in a few weeks being woken early every day by noisy tradies starting their day.

 

Here's to exciting (and less frustrating!!) times in 2015...

Bricks, bricks and more bricks.....

Lots more progress this week...

Monday the plumber came in and installed the water and gas pipes to the whole house. We couldn't believe it was all done in 1 day. 

Tuesday the brickes (a team of them!) arrived bright and early and it looks like they didn't stop all week. It was very exciting every day to go and see what progress that had made. Here is the progress from 4 days...

    Front facade taking shape 

   The entry way

We are loving our brick (PGH Vino) - or at least we will when it is all cleaned up - it is a painted brick so we were worried about chipping and the base colour coming through but at this stage it looks like it will be great

SS called (cannot believe he actually calls every week - where was all this communication during admin?) and the brickies will finish on site on Monday to make way for the scaffolding on tues/wed. Gutters are scheduled for Thur/Fri, roof tiles will start next week and then the brickies will come back and finish the second storey. Apparently they laid 5500 bricks this week with a further 4000 to go!

It is all coming together nicely:)

We have a frame!!!

Well what a difference a week makes!  We started with a slab and 3 days later we had a house.....a very exciting week.

    Day 1- first storey

    Day 2 - 2nd storey!

    Day 3 - a roof and windows

   The front door!!!

It looks amazing - we couldn't be happier. This is a new design by Wisdom, and there is no display home to look at, so this was the first time we could actually walk around the house and see how all the rooms work together. It's stunning and everything we wanted. 

I was particularly worried that the living/dining room was going to be too small but it looks huge...big relief!

We were just getting over all the action this week when we went for a look this morning and the bricks had been delivered. This was followed by a call from SS to say the Brickies will start Monday or Tuesday. I can't believe how quickly it is all going now. Hopefully we will be at lock up before Christmas and, fingers crossed, all finished for Easter. Exciting times ahead

We have a Slab!

Well the week we have been waiting for for so long finally arrived - our slab was poured!!! 

 

    Here are a few pics...

 

    This is the gap from the Alfresco to the pool - about 3 metres.

    Its so big I couldn't get it all in 1 picture.  This is the garage side

The view from the back of the block.  Those are the Blue Mountains in the distance - we are hoping that a single storey is built across the road so we will have a good view from our balcony (fingers crossed).

 

 

The slab was poured last Saturday (12/10) and since then the external drainage has been completed (in the rain would you believe) and the frames have been delivered all ready for the carpenters to start on Monday.  It is crazy how fast it is moving now. 

 

Even more crazy is the communication from Wisdom - our SS calls every week with an update and lets us know the plan for the next week. If only we had this service from the beginning.  We did laugh though when we received the request for the slab payment the day after it was poured. They have never been so quick with the paperwork before - they must want some money lol. 

 

We are officially loving the construction phase and are slowly beginning to forget about the painful Admin process...

 

 

We finally enter the construction phase..

Big news this week....... the all important Port-a-loo has arrived!  

For anyone building you will know what an event this is. We are very excited.  We also had our fence installed so we are all ready to start. I can't believe after all these months we are finally have some action! Our last email from Wisdom said construction would start in 3-4 weeks so it is all systems go.

 

The pool has been completed also and now has a cover over it and a temporary fence around. Following is a photo before the cover was installed (sorry terrible photo).  The colour is a bit darker than what I was expecting but we are hoping it will look ok when it is clean and up and running.

 

 

There is also lots of action in our street with another house starting this week.  I love driving up to see every ones progress - it is almost as exciting as watching our own build. We have now met 1 of our new neighbours that are almost at lock up.  They have had a bit of theft from there block (all their windows were stolen one night after they were delivered) so have taken to sleeping in their car out the front of their block on the weekends. Now that is dedication!  It is crazy the amount of theft and vandalism that occurs in new housing estates. The sooner we are all finished and moved in, the better.

Pool progress

Finally some action on our block....our new pool. Very excited!!!

Not sure about having the pool sitting on site for a few days without a fence. With all the vandals around the area sounds like we are just inviting trouble. I will feel a lot better when it finds its way into its new home.

We also received our final building documents today. It is all happening.....finally!

We have been approved by council...

We were told unofficially by Wisdom last week, but today it is official - we have council approval!!!! It took 7 weeks in total which isn't too bad although it felt like a lifetime.  Now to complete the boring paperwork stuff before the excitement can really begin.

Our block is about 5 minutes from where we live now so I try and drive past everyday to see the progress of all the builds in the development - not to mention the new sporting fields.  There has been heaps of progress in our street.  This week our neighbours on 1 side (single storey) have had their roof tiles laid while on the other side (double storey) the frames have all gone up. The block behind (double storey) also had their slab laid this week so it is all happening.  I can't wait until our house slots right in the middle.

Plans lodged to council

Great news today.....our plans have been sent to council. Looking from my post from last week I feel bad for wingeing - it took 3 days not 3 weeks! Who would have thought???  We are very excited but now the long wait for council approval starts. 1 step closer.....



The 2nd exciting email received today is from Knebel kitchens with the 3D picture of our kitchen.

We chose our house design off a plan and there is no display home, so it was very exciting to finally see what it my kitchen will look like. I'm over-the-moon!!!!!   Great day

101 shades of grey!

It has been a very long and stressful few weeks which is why I haven't posted for a while.  This long drawn out Admin process really does take all the excitement out of building a new house!

We have now received all of our quotes back and ALL of them came in more than what we expected. We have added over $30,000 from our building price which has come as a bit of a shock at this late stage. Especially as we felt during the kitchen and electrical appointment that we didn't make as many changes/upgrades that we wanted to - to try and save money.  We keep saying to each other that in the end it will be worth it but man the price better not go up anymore!

We heard back from Wisdom on Friday that our plans have been approved by Mulgoa Rise. Great news but then we were told that it takes 10-15 working days to get the file ready for council. 3 weeks???  It seems so crazy to me that the file is not already ready to go to council but now we have to wait again.  Crazy!!!

Once the file finally reaches council it can take 2 months (even longer!) so I am getting very concerned that we will not meet our Building Contract deadline of 30 August....and that will mean more money that we do not have!  I think a few stressful weeks lie ahead

On a different note we have been trying to choose the paint colour for the walls (only 1 colour for the whole house as any additional colour is $600).  We are going for a light grey colour which will contrast well with the dark floors and white skirting boards and architraves. Finding the right shade of grey as proven to be a problem - who would have thought there were so many different shades of grey! lol   I bought a couple of canvases and sample pots and have been painting up a storm but still not 100% happy. I think another trip to Bunnings is on the cards....

Colour selection appointments

We are back after our wonderfully relaxing cruise.

The last 2 days have been spent completing all our selection appointments.  When they were all booked for the 2 days I thought it was great however it has turned out to be a very stressful and intense couple of days....not to mention expensive.

First was the landscaping appointment. Thankfully the designer from Wisdom did not laugh at my poor amateur sketch and was able to draw up a lovely design on the computer.  The problem came at the end when he realised that a maximum of 40% of the outside can be 'hard landscaping'. Well when you put in a driveway and he pool we are at 42%.  He is hopeful that this will be acceptable and that we will be able obtain approval for decking or tiling around the pool once construction is complete - I certainly hope so or we will end up with grass around the pool! We are waiting on the quote this week which should be interesting however we think we will just be going with the driveway using the $5000 voucher.

Next was the external selections with the lovely Cassandra.  We were very prepared so this one was very easy.  We loved the picture of the Savannah façade so we pretty much went with those colours.  The best news is we didn't upgrade anything except for getting translucent glass in the front door.

Bricks: PGH Vino
Gutter, Fascia, Downpipes: Night sky
Render: Quarry
Feature render: Ironstone
Garage: Surfmist


From there we went to the staircase appointment which was a bit of a disappointment.  The consultant seemed to be in a bad mood and wasn't very helpful.  We will be going with the standard staircase with just the bottom 3 steps wood stained and the rest carpet.


Last appointment for that day was the kitchen selection at Knebel Kitchens.  I was looking forward to this one but was a little stressed when we got there. We rearranged the sink position and asked to be quoted for Polyurethane cabinet upgrade, waterfall edge to bench top and bench top to be extended outside as a servery to the alfresco area.  Quote is due back next week.

Following day we had the air-conditioning appointment which was uneventful.

Next was the appointment I was dreading Tiles and carpet at Dilorenzo. Bathrooms and laundry we stuck to the standard range only extra charge was having the mosaic tiles in the shower niches instead of just 1 line down the wall. I still don't understand why! We went with a large Bluestone colour tile for the floors with white wall tiles and grey mosaics.

Floor tiles for the ground floor has always been my weakness. I fell in love with the Belgique wood effect tiles in the display homes and had to have them. Cannot believe how expensive they are and that you have to pay extra to have them laid.  I am not looking forward to getting this quote back.

Carpet: I thought this one was going to be easy - in fact I gave it very little thought. However there is lots of different types with different warranties and the builders range felt horrible. In the end we did upgrade from the standard and upgraded the underlay as well.  We did manage to match the colour almost exactly to the tiles so I cant wait to see how it all looks together.

Last appointment was the electrical with Clipsal.  Consultant was lovely (and a fellow Wanderers supporter!) and we had been prepared for months so it was an easy appointment. Well easy to spend lots of money lol.  We went with down lights downstairs and the standard lights upstairs. The most expense was the TV points - 4 in total including 1 outside in the alfresco (hubby's request). We did spend a bit more than expected but we got everything we wanted.

Well that was an eventful few days - now we just have to wait for the quotes to come back.  Something I am not looking forward to.   It is exciting that the colour choices have been made and that I can now start to see how it all will look together.

Happy Easter!

Easter weekend brings a long overdue break.  Hosting my family for Good Friday lunch I couldn't help but think maybe the Easter Bunny will be coming to the new house next year. That would be exciting!  We are off on a family cruise in a couple of days and I can't wait to get away. It will be a good break from the stress of work and the build - and nice to spend some quality time with my 3 favourite people!

Our colour selection appointments have been all booked for the 2 days after we get back from our trip. Very exciting but also very stressful. Lots of decisions to be made in such a small amount of time.

We have spent the last week going over every part of the house for what seems like the hundredth time. Many 'discussions' have been had as, while I thought we had it all decided, it appears hubby has an opinion at the last minute. We have made trips to Knebel Kitchens, Di Lorenzo Tiles and spent countless hours on the internet for inspiration. It will be great when all the selections have been made and we can get the plans submitted to Mulgoa Rise for approval. 

Oh well it will all have to wait until after our holiday - next stop the South Pacific...

Building contracts signed

Well it has been a very productive and exciting week. 

Monday - received the revised Tender from Wisdom. It was approx. what we expected so we were happy.

Wednesday - received the revised plans with all problems now corrected.

Thursday - received the Building Contract

Friday - signed Building Contract.


lol  just reading this makes its sound like everything is running smoothly and fast which couldn't be further from the truth.  I haven't posted too much about it but we have had many (MANY!) issues with the admin process with Wisdom. It has been very frustrating and to our detriment we have been far too patient. Well that all changed this week. I put the pressure on and things started to move.  I hate that it came to that, as I know in my job I would much rather deal with the nice clients rather than the demanding ones, but we were very patient for too long.

Had it not been for he fact we were looking for our 'perfect' house for over 2 years and have fallen in love with our design, we would have walked away a month ago (as it seems a few of their clients have done). Fingers crossed we are now back on track

To Wisdom's credit they have acknowledged their shortcomings and have gone out of their way this week to get us back on track.  They even extended our contract for 2 months (without being asked) due to the delays which is a huge wait off our shoulders and has gone a long way to making us happy again.  I have said it before and I will probably say it again but this building a house business is a real emotional roller-coaster.

Next is to set up appointments for the external and landscaping so we can submit to Mulgoa Rise and then council.  This probably happen won't before Easter but we will see.....

The other exciting news for the week is we have met (well in the cyber world) our new next door neighbours.  They also have 2 boys like us which is great. Where we live now there has never been any children around so it is great that there are so many families building with small children. It is all very exciting!

Finally the land is ours!!!

Very big day today. Finally after many months the land is ours! Very exciting!!!

There has been a few developments on the building front as well. After I replied to the email from Wisdom with the increased tender we have now someone new looking after us. He looked over our plans and suggested some changes he thinks we should make. It was nice to have a fresh set of eyes looking at them and the changes he proposed made sense. Nothing can make up for the poor communication in the beginning but hopefully things will start moving now. Hopefully we will get a revised plan and Tender (mark 3) this week.

Tender mysteriously increases

This house building is a real rollacoaster! After the goods news of the land being registered yesterday, today we received from Wisdom with a revised tender attached. No explanation but tender has gone up $3k. 

We are a bit frustrated (understatement) and have decided to sleep on it before sending a reply tomorrow.  

Land is registered!!!

After over 4 long months since we paid the deposit on our land, we got word today that it is finally registered. Solicitor said settlement will be in 2 weeks! Very exciting!

We have plans

After many weeks of waiting we finally received our draft plans this week.  So exciting..





Ground Floor



 

1st floor

We are ecstatic but there is a few changes to be made.  We will know every nook and cranny of the house before the building even starts.

We have taken a huge leap of faith as there is no display home for this design so we have had the tape measure out trying to visualise how big the rooms will be and how they will look finished.  I think the consensus is all the rooms will be big. Too big??? Never!!!

We also heard this week that the land should be registered middle of March so not long now...fingers crossed

It has taken us a while to get here...

Having been inspired by the many fellow builders on the Home Building Forum’s I have decided to start my own blog of our building journey. Partly to keep a record of this exciting time and partly to help me keep motivated during the many days and weeks were it seems like nothing is happening. A big thank you to all the other people out there blogging about their home building experience as it has been a valuable source of information and inspiration over the last few months.
 
Hubby and I decided to build over 18 months ago and it took that long to find ‘OUR’ perfect block of land and perfect house design.  This is our 2^nd build (we made many mistakes 14 years ago) and we are determined to do it right this time – even if it takes twice as long!!! Unfortunately it is looking like it will cost twice as much too

THE LAND

We paid the deposit on our block at Mulgoa Rise on 2/11/2013 - it is to be registered any week now. 

 

THE HOUSE

We are building a new design by Wisdom Homes called the Newport 41. Well it started at 41 but not sure what it is now lol.  I will be eternally grateful to the Wisdom Homes sales assistant at The Ponds for showing us the new design when we were discussing making changes to another one of their houses. It is perfect - exactly what we wanted (with a few….ok many changes) and we paid the initial deposit in late November 2013.  We accepted the tender before Christmas but since then not much has happened. We are waiting for the initial plans to arrive – they said late last week lol. We are trying to be patient.

Hopefully some news this week....