Nearly go time!

14:46 0 Comments

Hi all, sorry for the lack of updates. Things have been quite busy lately but there has been a fair amount of progress.

We're almost at the start of the building process now. We've had all our main appointments: Tiles, Electrical and Colours & selections. All three went really well, the people who helped us make our choices were all fantastic, we couldn't have asked for more.

Beaumont Tiles for tiles. We have gone for a fairly basic set of tiles, with 60cm x 60cm white porcelain rectified tiles for the main living areas and a brown theme in the bathrooms. Our ensuite should look nice as the vanity is brown too and should go nicely with the feature tiles that run up under the bath and up the wall.

The electrical appointment at Clipsal went well, I think we were done in around an hour and a half and was mostly stress-free. We ended up upgrading light switches to their sapphire Zen range and some motion sensors etc. so in the end we went $2k over our initial budget but still we were quite happy. We only have to provide the kitchen island pendants.

The Colours selection at Coral Homes went well too, done in around two hours. We were actually under budget, woohoo! We've gone for wood-effect garage door, off-white mortar to go with light coloured double-height bricks, lots of brown paint in lots of rooms (to keep the theme going) and a nice dark grey carpet for the bedrooms.

We only have one issue at the moment - Coral are trying to charge us nearly $3k for the wood piers to the alfresco. Utterly barmy. I'm doing my best to fight it though and feel confident that they'll see sense in the end... here's hoping. Hopefully once sorted and everything is signed we'll get a date for when the build will actually commence!

Soil survey is back!

19:48 0 Comments

The soil survey came back as an M! Woohoo! Very happy and relieved campers all round. The report was very, very similar to the QM soil survey and has made me question very much either Plantation's integrity or competency - or maybe both. So glad we moved away from them now.

Anyway, below is a rough plan of what the house will be like. Main changes are the heavily modified ensuite (as per the Style Master Piazza bathroom), even larger alfresco, wider bifolding doors and portico entrance. 


Here's how it should look on the plot:


Oh and yesterday we went to the bank and signed all the paper work for the land part of the loan. Things are ticking along nicely.

How to do a complete 180 and feel like a prize turd at the same time...

02:23 0 Comments

So PH refused to allow for an independent soil survey. Well, their exact words were 'we don't accept independent soil surveys but we are happy to review them'... i.e. go do one.

So we have. It was a strange co-incidence but we got a message back from Coral Homes and they offered us a good deal.  Another quote on the Daydream 30 (with some fairly cool mods that I'll go into in a later post) and went over and paid our deposit today. :) We're saving around $40k by going with Coral and sticking with a standard design rather than an acreage style house. With any luck we'll be at the council stage in six weeks or so.

I'll have to let PH know tomorrow that we're not going to progress with them any further and I feel sorry for the salesman as it wasn't his fault at all. Shame.

With any luck Coral's site report will come back with a lower classification!

The soil survey, part 2

14:23 0 Comments

Our QM salesman sent us through the old soil report and indeed it was classed as M. I've forwarded this at QM's permission to Plantation and they have agreed to query the report with the engineer. It'll be interesting to see what they respond with.

They appear to use their own engineers to do the survey so I am starting to wonder if they artificially inflate the soil rating to make more profit (30% of 10k is more than 30% of 3k, for instance). The Plantation Homes salesman has confirmed that it'll cost us 7k more if it's H2 rather than M.

I've contacted an independent soil surveyor who charges $400. It may be worth it if it saves us $400. We'll wait and see what PH come back with before deciding.

Deposit down!

04:14 0 Comments

Edit - this is out of sequence for some reason. This was originally posted 8th March.

Well, we've only gone and put a deposit down on the fanastic Longreach home by Coral Homes. Oh, wait, no we haven't. After a last minute change of mind we've plumped for a Colorado Q2 by Plantation Homes. Total shocker, it came out of absolutely nowhere with a killer hook and landed us.

Friday night I was just sat at home thinking that I couldn't remember what acreage homes Plantation offered. So I got out one of the many many brochures of theirs that we have (!) and had a look. I flipped to the Colorado and wait just a minute, that's exactly what we want - a wide design with an L-shaped dining/lounge area! Just flip the master room area over and bam! Pretty much perfect. The only other change was to change the stacker doors to tall bi-folds (for that open feel) and change the window in the master to a stacker door (which actually gave us cash back).

I contacted the Plantation Homes salesman and asked to go see him. Luckily enough he could see me yesterday (Saturday 7th March 2015) and we got a good quote sorted out - it was actually 20k cheaper than the Retreat Vogue because it already has a porch and doesn't need render. Fantastic! There was an option for the Q1, a good 50 square metres bigger for just $20k but in the end, after comparing the sizes of the rooms in the smaller Q2 we decided that the Q2 was all we needed.

Today (Sunday 8th March) we went back to see Troy and put down our deposit. Very exciting. We even got a folder to put our documents in - Telle said it was the most expensive folder she's ever bought :).

So, we're now at tender stage! We might jump to the contract stage but let's wait and see.

Oh, and the craziest thing is that Troy, our Plantation Homes Sales Consultant is actually the brother of Jules, the Coral Homes Sales Consultant! Mad! So we went from one sibling to the other. Talk about keeping it in the family. Hopefully she isn't too upset.

Very exciting times, if we're lucky we'll be in just before Christmas. Let's hope that Santa is kind this year!

Preliminary soil survey results

04:14 0 Comments

So today I received the results of the preliminary soil survey. H2. Which means Highly Reactive and is bad news in that it will cost more than we thought for the foundations and slab.

What made it a bit of a shock was that the land sales rep had told us that a previous soil test had been done and it had come back as a M - Mildly Reactive. H2 is two grades worse. Can it really have changed that much in two years when all there is is grass on it?

I'm going to hopefully send Plantation Homes the old survey and query how they could be so different. We've yet to find out what the cost difference will be but I think it'll be quite significant. Not a good day for the house dream.

I've also been looking into window fittings and holy hell they are expensive down under. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars per window. Thousands if you want plantation style shutters. Bonkers. Totally bonkers. Luckily IKEA will partly save the day as they have some roller blinds that will fit some of the less important windows (like the walk in wardrobes and spare bedrooms). $54 rather than $154 per blind is quite some saving. I am actually quite flabbergasted at how expensive they are. Ah well, add it to the list of expenses. It'll all be worth it.  :)

A day out at the Brisbane Home show

02:20 0 Comments

Today we celebrated choose our builder / house design by going to the Brisbane Home show, just to do something totally unconnected ;) We got there nice and early and manged to get around the show and have a good few very informative conversations with pool, solar power, building regs, building inspections, decking, concrete, carpets and tile companies. We collected so many flyers, business cards and brochures!

We also managed to get a base ball cap, an umbrella, a measuring tape and lots and lots of sweets (or lollies as they're called over here) - not a bad haul! We also entered every contest going so who knows! Wouldn't mind winning a pool.

So now we get a week to chill out and try and do some non-house-building stuff for a well earned break.  

The Modified Coral Homes Longreach 33

02:09 3 Comments

We've only gone and chosen!

We nearly went potty trying to decide between all the various house builders and their designs so thank heavens we've finally settled on Coral Homes and the acreage design called the Longreach 33.

The Coral Homes Longreach 33

We've actually modified it fairly significantly already, by extending the dining room, flipping and enlarging the master bedroom and two alfresco areas either side of the dining room. We've changed the ensuite to match the bathroom from the Stylemaster Piazza (the most WOW bathroom I've been in - go see it for yourself at the Springfield Lakes display home).


As you can see in the above image, we've also added a cornerless stacker between the kitchen and dining, another stacker to the left side of the dining room and yet another stacker for the bedroom. We like doors :)

We've chosen these changes as we like the inclusive feeling you get from the cornerless doors (as seen with the Plantation Retreat homes) and as standard the Longreach's dining / living / kitchen area was just a bit too cramped and corridor-like. We really liked the longer but still-wide houses like the Plantation Retreat or the Coral Homes Daydream 30 but the Longreach suits our plot much better since it's wider than it is long.

It's such a relief to have finally chosen our home! We can't wait to go and see Jules next weekend to put the initial deposit down and get the ball rolling.

SOLD!

02:35 0 Comments

Telle had an interesting time with Simon the GJ Gardner Lockyer sales consultant this morning and their house, the Kinaroy 302 is definitely in the running. We're going to adapt the shape a little and ask for a new quote. But we do like the funky design of it and Telle even got to see one in the flesh (er the brick) since there's one around the corner from our plot.

Guess what she saw when she paid our plot a visit?!


Very exciting! Another view over the plot....


The overflow creek at the bottom of our plot was bone dry today, which is a good sign. Hurricane Marcia did her best to upset us but the overflow did us proud. It was actually quite nice to have the pop-up stream at the bottom of our garden-to-be.

Telle also popped into the bank (NAB, who have so far been amazing) and dropped off the land contract. All looking good, should all be finalised pretty soon. They also said the pool can be included in the mortgage. GJ Gardner also do pools so we have that as option and will decide after we see the pool companies at the show at the weekend.

May we all live in exciting times, to paraphrase.

A new start...

03:34 0 Comments

Well, where to begin.

When I first met Telle? Or when we went to the Live Down Under show at the NEC? Perhaps when we found out my skills assessment had passed and we were able to start applying for our visa for a new life down under? What about when we finally heard after nearly two years that our visa had finally been granted? Or when Telle finally joined me out here in Brisbane, QLD after six long weeks of being here without her?

No, let's start with when we finally found a plot of land (after weeks of house hunting where we realised there wasn't a house within our budget we'd be happy with - we actually decided between the land and a cheap property in Eagleby with a coin toss!) and signed our contract with the friendly George Jones of QM. 4009 (the 9 is important!) square meters of land, all our own. 30 - 45 minutes out from Brisbane and not far from Ipswich for the every day things we'll no doubt need. The signed contract back from QM was received yesterday and today I spoke to our solicitors and confirmed that they'll be acting on our behalf - fingers crossed they aren't as bad as the solicitors I 'used' to sell my house in England!

Since we decided to go the land route we've been very busy trying to get quotes from the various house builders of Queensland. For recent immigrants to this incredible country this is no small task. The range of builders is enormous and each company has it's own way of offering their houses - it seems to us that they take perverse pleasure in confusing us poor customers as much as possible.

So far we've had fairly comprehensive quotes from Hallmark Homes (the very nice and able Julie), Stylemaster (they of the amazingly mind-blowing and truly wonderful display home in Springfield Lakes) from the friendly Stephen, Plantation (courtesy of the very efficient Troy at Rochedale), Aaron at G and P Builder, and Jules of Coral Homes. We're waiting on a quote from the expensive but all-inclusive McCarthy Homes (Kepler the astronomer / cricketer) and tomorrow Telle has an early appointment with Simon from GJ Gardner.

At the moment I think we're favouring Plantation Homes and the Retreat Vogue or Nouveau. Main reasons for this being the inclusion of many items as standard (we understand that most companies start with the basic build and allow you to add all your options in but to be frank it annoys the p@ss out of us - termite treated wood as an option, seriously??) and especially the corner-less timber stacking doors. We like the house design because our view is to the rear of the property and the master bedroom and living areas are too the rear, along with the alfresco. The quote with most of our options has come back a little bit expensive, however, and has caused a bit of concern for us. We're seeing Troy on Saturday though so we'll go through it again then.

On Sunday we're off to the Home Show at the Brisbane Convention Centre where we'll get to discuss all things house related - hopefully we'll get some good quotes on pools, carpets and tiles, landscaping and fencing.

We had a bit of a shock yesterday when the signed contract from QM arrived - they'd stipulated that we nominate our builder by this Friday the 27th. What!?! We're not picking a sandwich for lunch here people. I rang George and he rang his bosses and along with our solicitors have requested the dates be put back two weeks. Hopefully this won't be necessary as with any luck we'll decide this weekend once all the quotes are in.

Overall we're feeling nervous, worried and apprehensive! We've already signed on the dotted line however so no backing out now.