On our way to Tamborine for a picnic today, we decided to stop in and see what progress had been made since last weekend given the lovely weather we have had so far this week.
To our surprise, the civil works have well and truly continued up in front of our block, with the ground being dug out in preparation for the road base and bitumen.
Given all the underground services are now in and the land has been excavated for the road, it's not going to be long until it all starts coming together.
It's also looking more and more like a June registration for the land. If that's the case (and Plantation have their act together), they should hopefully be able to hit the site around early-mid August (as we will need to wait for Council to approve our building plans once the lot is registered first). This will make it extremely tight to be in by our optimistic Christmas timeframe, but we will continue to cross our fingers!
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| The view from the front of our block looking down towards Stage 16 |
Thursday, 25 April 2013
We (nearly) have a road!
Our colours are locked in!
On Monday, we had our super-long appointment with Plantation:
- 9am to 12 noon was our Contract Appointment and;
- 1pm to 4pm was our Colour selection session at Cosham Studios
Although we finished both appointments about 1 hour early (it helped being super-organised!!), it still proved to be quite a "full on" day. We have, however, come out the other end confident with our colour selections - a sample of which are below.
As for the next steps, all our documents have now been handed to the Bank who are in the process of completing their valuation, of which we will know the result around Tuesday next week - it's going to be an anxious weekend!!
We have also now booked in for our Electrical Appointment. Plantation "outsource" their electrical planning and consulting to a company called Your Home Consulting. So next Wednesday we will attend their office at Slacks Creek to go over (and more than likely, add to) our Electrical Plan. Though in saying that, the standard allowance from Plantation is pretty inclusive (2 double power points to each bedroom; 3 to Master; 2 to most other rooms and 5 useable points in the kitchen + ones for all the applicances etc) so I highly doubt we are going to utilise our $3,000 allowance (which is good as we spent a bit on upgrades at our Colour Appointment!!).
The main things we want to do with the electrics is add a couple of power points, add an extra light to the Living & Alfresco areas, add some external lights to the front and side of the house (on the brickwork) and some network cabling for our fibre internet connection. Other things like exhaust fans to bathrooms and light fittings we will have installed after handover to save some costs initially.
Contract Plans
Now that we have had our contract appointment with Plantation, we would love to share our final plans with you!!
In our first appointment with Plantation, we decided upon the "Jasper" facade, however Bedroom 4 pushed out in front of Bedroom 3 and meant the whole house had to be pushed further towards the rear of the block. Not only did we end up with an abnormally large bedroom but we also lost around 80cm in yard space. So we ended up going with the "Urban" facade but tweaked Bedroom 4 slightly to bring it back in line with Bedroom 3 and moved the robe into the little alcove to provide more usable floor space. This also meant the house could come forward on the block again and we have ended up with close to 6m to the rear fence. We also have nearly 4m down the right side of the house - so overall, we will have an ample amount of yard area :)
In our first appointment with Plantation, we decided upon the "Jasper" facade, however Bedroom 4 pushed out in front of Bedroom 3 and meant the whole house had to be pushed further towards the rear of the block. Not only did we end up with an abnormally large bedroom but we also lost around 80cm in yard space. So we ended up going with the "Urban" facade but tweaked Bedroom 4 slightly to bring it back in line with Bedroom 3 and moved the robe into the little alcove to provide more usable floor space. This also meant the house could come forward on the block again and we have ended up with close to 6m to the rear fence. We also have nearly 4m down the right side of the house - so overall, we will have an ample amount of yard area :)
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| House Siting Plan - this is how our house will sit on the block (birdseye view) |
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| Floor Plan |
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| View from the street |
Saturday, 20 April 2013
Cosham Information Session & new photos from the block!
Today we attended Plantation's Cosham Studios information session at 10am. We were 1 of about 5 couples and it went for just on an hour. Although we have already spent a fair bit of time at Cosham Studios looking at all the different colours, fittings, tapware etc, we both still got some good advice and tips from it the session.
In a nutshell, one of the Plantation staff took us around the studio and explained what has included in our price and what was an upgrade. It is a relatively simple system as everything has labels on it so you can easily identify the basic and upgrade items and for some things, it is a no-brainer to upgrade (like $20 for a double towel rail instead of a single).
Due to the nature of some of the items (eg. bricks, skirting, flooring etc) it is impossible to get a price from them immediately as they will send it up to their estimating team and get back to you in around 7 days but if the price is too high, you can simply change back to one of the standard inclusions.
Needless to say we will probably upgrade quite a few items (like the kitchen sink and benches) to get a price, but we have already chosen our 'backups' should it be too pricey.
After our information session, we spent another hour or two going through some of the colours in a lot more detail and then headed to Beaumont Tiles to get a better idea of the range available to us. Given our Colour Appointment is on Monday afternoon, we need to get all the information together now so we can knock it all of in one sitting!
We also went for a drive out to the block to see the progress. Things seem to be moving along extremely quickly all of a sudden, with nearly all the soil gone from our block and the roads starting to be constructed (which means all the storm water has gone in since last weekend)! There are a couple of photos below of our block and one looking down our street where most of the action is happening at the moment as it is the stage before ours.
If things keep moving along at this rate, we should be able to get our soil test done very shortly and provided she weather continues to stay dry, we are looking at registration around late June (which will be good timing as we get back from overseas on 24 June!!!)
Monday is the next big milestone for us - contract signing in the morning, and colour selections in the afternoon - it will surely be a looooooooong day!! We will put up all our colour selections early next week.
In a nutshell, one of the Plantation staff took us around the studio and explained what has included in our price and what was an upgrade. It is a relatively simple system as everything has labels on it so you can easily identify the basic and upgrade items and for some things, it is a no-brainer to upgrade (like $20 for a double towel rail instead of a single).
Due to the nature of some of the items (eg. bricks, skirting, flooring etc) it is impossible to get a price from them immediately as they will send it up to their estimating team and get back to you in around 7 days but if the price is too high, you can simply change back to one of the standard inclusions.
Needless to say we will probably upgrade quite a few items (like the kitchen sink and benches) to get a price, but we have already chosen our 'backups' should it be too pricey.
After our information session, we spent another hour or two going through some of the colours in a lot more detail and then headed to Beaumont Tiles to get a better idea of the range available to us. Given our Colour Appointment is on Monday afternoon, we need to get all the information together now so we can knock it all of in one sitting!
We also went for a drive out to the block to see the progress. Things seem to be moving along extremely quickly all of a sudden, with nearly all the soil gone from our block and the roads starting to be constructed (which means all the storm water has gone in since last weekend)! There are a couple of photos below of our block and one looking down our street where most of the action is happening at the moment as it is the stage before ours.
If things keep moving along at this rate, we should be able to get our soil test done very shortly and provided she weather continues to stay dry, we are looking at registration around late June (which will be good timing as we get back from overseas on 24 June!!!)
Monday is the next big milestone for us - contract signing in the morning, and colour selections in the afternoon - it will surely be a looooooooong day!! We will put up all our colour selections early next week.
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| Panorama from the front right of our block - not much dirt left there now!! |
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| Looking down the "road" from our block |
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| Panorama from the rear left of our block - the green silt fence is where the dirt mound used to come to!! |
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
New Home Proposal meeting with Plantation
Yesterday, the "fun" officially began with our New Home Proposal meeting with Plantation. We set aside 3 hours of our afternoon to go to their office at Springwood and review the tender, siting, plans and some elevations. Basically this was our last chance to make any structural changes to the house. Luckily for us, we had already decided and advised Plantation of 95% of our structural changes, so it made the appointment very quick and simple.
There were a few quirks that came up during the tender presentation. Firstly, because we have an easement running along the back of our property, Council requires us to have a 2.5m clearance between the boundary and the house to allow for access should they need. Due to the width of our house, our Garage had to be slightly relocated to allow for this clearance. We then had to move a few other walls inside the house so that everything still 'lined up'.
The second issue was also to do with the easement - more specifically the sewer connection coming off the main sewer line in the easement. Due to the length of our house this time, it sits too close (within 1.5m of the connection). As such we need to put piering under our Master Bedroom and WIR which is an additional cost. To try and counter this issue, Plantation are looking into making a slight amendment to our chosen facade so that the house can move forward on the lot, thereby eliminating the need for additional foundation works at the back. It will also save us money as Bedroom 4 will actually be made slightly smaller, hence we will get a credit back for that as well.
And the third hurdle we have hit is around our floor coverings. We decided about a month ago to organise our own floor coverings to be installed after handover by Carpet Call, as it was considerably cheaper to arrange directly with them than through Plantation. We are getting floating timber laminate floors throughout the whole house (apart from the bedrooms and wet areas) and we want it to be installed without the additional "quadding" - this means that the skirting has to be installed after the timber floors have gone down. The problem here is that Plantation will either install the skirting prior to handover, or they will leave the uncut, unpainted skirting in the Garage for us to install and paint ourselves once the flooring has been done. Given the major inconvenience this would be, we have decided to go with Plantation for our timber flooring, but still get the carpet done ourselves after handover - this way we avoid having to do any fiddly work ourselves and we can just move in :)
Update: due to the massive cost difference between Carpet Call and Plantation, we are keeping with Carpet Call for our timber flooring and will be having the scotia installed - we couldn't justify the extra cost!
After going through the tender, we were let loose in Cosham Studios to have a look at some colours and fittings etc. whilst a couple of changes were made to our plans. This was our second visit to Cosham Studios, as we went for a visit on our own around a month ago just to start getting some ideas. We have now chosen our colours for almost everything - but we will put this up in a separate post after our Colour Appointment which is in 2 weeks, once everything is confirmed.
After reviewing the updated and plans and tender, we put pen to paper and paid our next deposit instalment of $1,500.
From here, it is really just a waiting game for another 2 weeks until our contract appointment. In the mean time we are sourcing quotes for our driveway, landscaping and fencing and we are looking to go for a drive out to the display centre for the brick company Plantation use to get a better idea of brick colours etc.
Overall, it hasn't been too painful so far - but time will tell and whilst we are sure there will be some minor frustrations ahead, as usual, we will deal with them and move on.
There were a few quirks that came up during the tender presentation. Firstly, because we have an easement running along the back of our property, Council requires us to have a 2.5m clearance between the boundary and the house to allow for access should they need. Due to the width of our house, our Garage had to be slightly relocated to allow for this clearance. We then had to move a few other walls inside the house so that everything still 'lined up'.
The second issue was also to do with the easement - more specifically the sewer connection coming off the main sewer line in the easement. Due to the length of our house this time, it sits too close (within 1.5m of the connection). As such we need to put piering under our Master Bedroom and WIR which is an additional cost. To try and counter this issue, Plantation are looking into making a slight amendment to our chosen facade so that the house can move forward on the lot, thereby eliminating the need for additional foundation works at the back. It will also save us money as Bedroom 4 will actually be made slightly smaller, hence we will get a credit back for that as well.
And the third hurdle we have hit is around our floor coverings. We decided about a month ago to organise our own floor coverings to be installed after handover by Carpet Call, as it was considerably cheaper to arrange directly with them than through Plantation. We are getting floating timber laminate floors throughout the whole house (apart from the bedrooms and wet areas) and we want it to be installed without the additional "quadding" - this means that the skirting has to be installed after the timber floors have gone down. The problem here is that Plantation will either install the skirting prior to handover, or they will leave the uncut, unpainted skirting in the Garage for us to install and paint ourselves once the flooring has been done. Given the major inconvenience this would be, we have decided to go with Plantation for our timber flooring, but still get the carpet done ourselves after handover - this way we avoid having to do any fiddly work ourselves and we can just move in :)
Update: due to the massive cost difference between Carpet Call and Plantation, we are keeping with Carpet Call for our timber flooring and will be having the scotia installed - we couldn't justify the extra cost!
After going through the tender, we were let loose in Cosham Studios to have a look at some colours and fittings etc. whilst a couple of changes were made to our plans. This was our second visit to Cosham Studios, as we went for a visit on our own around a month ago just to start getting some ideas. We have now chosen our colours for almost everything - but we will put this up in a separate post after our Colour Appointment which is in 2 weeks, once everything is confirmed.
After reviewing the updated and plans and tender, we put pen to paper and paid our next deposit instalment of $1,500.
From here, it is really just a waiting game for another 2 weeks until our contract appointment. In the mean time we are sourcing quotes for our driveway, landscaping and fencing and we are looking to go for a drive out to the display centre for the brick company Plantation use to get a better idea of brick colours etc.
Overall, it hasn't been too painful so far - but time will tell and whilst we are sure there will be some minor frustrations ahead, as usual, we will deal with them and move on.
Sunday, 7 April 2013
There is movement at Woodlands.......
It has been a while since we have gone out to see if the Developer had made any progress on construction of Stage 16 and 17, but we were pleasantly surprised yesterday when we went out for a drive to find the mound of dirt on our block had reduced in size somewhat and that the Developer had started works on Stage 16. Which means that the construction of our stage is getting closer. I have attached a couple of photos below from yesterday's visit.
Current word from the salesperson at Woodlands pegs our land registration at late June, so fingers crossed the weather stays good so they can get through to our stage ASAP.
A couple of weeks ago we also went to Bunnings and decided on our wall colours. We have gone with Dulux Sandy Day Half (light), Puppy (medium) & Braid (dark) as our three "shades" - colour chart below:
We have also put a deposit down on our appliances of our Kitchen, as we have taken a credit from Plantation for their appliance package. We have gone with a Westinghouse Dual Fuel 900mm Stainless Steel Upright Cooker and Westinghouse 900mm Glass & Stainless Steel Canopy Rangehood. We got them for a great price and are much better quality than the options available from Plantation. We have also purchased a new dishwasher, but the new one will be for the investment property and we will move the dishwasher from the townhouse to our new home as it is already a very expensive (and nice) dishwasher.
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| Looking down towards Stage 16 where construction is underway |
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| Panorama of our land from the front left hand corner of the block |
Current word from the salesperson at Woodlands pegs our land registration at late June, so fingers crossed the weather stays good so they can get through to our stage ASAP.
A couple of weeks ago we also went to Bunnings and decided on our wall colours. We have gone with Dulux Sandy Day Half (light), Puppy (medium) & Braid (dark) as our three "shades" - colour chart below:
We have also put a deposit down on our appliances of our Kitchen, as we have taken a credit from Plantation for their appliance package. We have gone with a Westinghouse Dual Fuel 900mm Stainless Steel Upright Cooker and Westinghouse 900mm Glass & Stainless Steel Canopy Rangehood. We got them for a great price and are much better quality than the options available from Plantation. We have also purchased a new dishwasher, but the new one will be for the investment property and we will move the dishwasher from the townhouse to our new home as it is already a very expensive (and nice) dishwasher.
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| Upright Cooker |
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| Rangehood |
We have our first meeting with Plantation tomorrow at 1pm. It seems to have come around very quickly - hopefully we will have some more things to share after our meeting with them.
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