Not long now until the building begins

I finally got a call from Plantation on Thursday afternoon, confirming that our file had been handed over to the Construction Team and that our Site Supervisor had been allocated. Although we have not been given a definitive start date yet, I was told that our Site Supervisor would call me by Tuesday afternoon - and that he would be able to give me a confirmed start date for the earthworks. So another few "impatient" days to wait until we get a start date.

Unfortunately we were held up by our discontinued feature tile to the Bathroom & Powder Room, and combined with the Brisbane Ekka Public Holiday last Wednesday, we were unable to confirm our replacement tile and sign off on the appropriate Post Contract Variation until Monday. This meant our file couldn't be handed over until Wednesday at the earliest. But hopefully the weather stays fine and they can make up some time on the build.

We have been "quoted" 4 months (ie. 16 weeks) and if the build starts in the first week of September (as I expect it won't be this coming week), then it cuts us very fine to a pre-Christmas completion. But we do have an excellent Site Supervisor (or so I have been told) - Travis is the Site Supervisor Plantation use for their display homes......given their display homes look very nice, I am hoping this is a good thing!

Hopefully I will have another update later in the week with a start date.

Slightly amended colour selections

I received an email from our Colour Consultant at Plantation on Tuesday afternoon, informing us that our feature tile we had chosen for the Main Bathroom & Powder Room had been discontinued and we would have to select a replacement. I jumped in the car and drove down to Plantation to have another look through their tile selections, however the selection was pretty dismal so I then headed over to Beaumont Tiles (Plantation's Tile Supplier) to see a wider range.

I managed to find a tile that used the same stone but in a different pattern so had the sales person at Beaumont call up their Head Office to see if they could do it at the same price (even though it was considerably more expensive). Since I was there right on 5pm, they couldn't get through so told me he would call on Thursday.

On Thursday I called back to the Beaumont store as I hadn't heard anything, to be informed that the replacement tile I had chosen had also been discontinued - it hadn't updated on their computer system!

So today, once again, I headed over to Beaumont and selected another feature tile, which has similar colours and also introduces a darker colour into the feature tile, which should complement our cabinetry quite well.

To refresh everyone's memory, I have put up our most recent colour selections below - changes are:

• New feature tile to the Main Bathroom
• Different Entrance Door

No word from Plantation yet as to a start date - hopefully it will be very soon!

 

Let there be lights!!

Over the weekend, we paid a visit to Lighting Illusions at Macgregor to finalise our lighting selections. We had previously obtained a quote in May, however needed to refresh memories and put down our deposit. Not much has changed since our original quote - the only exceptions were the ceiling fans which, although they look identical, now have LED lights in them as well :)

In a nutshell, we have gone with:

• LED Downlights throughout the main living areas
• 3 Pendant lights over the kitchen island bench
• Ceiling fans with LED lights in the bedrooms
• Exhaust/Fan/Heat combos in each bathroom
• Oyster lights in TV Area, Laundry & Ensuite toilet
• Oyster light outside the Laundry & under the Porch
• 2 Up/Down Charcoal LED lights either side of our front porch
• Slimline Fluro in the Walk-in-Robe and Pantry
• Basic Fluro in the Garage

I have posted photos below of each of our selections (with the exception of the Up/Down lights at the front as they are a special order item):

Main Bathroom

Ensuite

To each of the 5 bedrooms

Downlights to be used throughout the main living areas

Outside the Laundry and under the Porch

Garage

Pantry & Walk-in-Robe

Kitchen pendant over the island bench

Close up of kitchen pendant

Oyster light to TV Area

Council Approvals, Final Plans & next steps

We are soooooo close now!!!!

On Wednesday, I received word from Plantation that our plans had been approved by Council (including our Build Over Sewer application) and that they would start organising the final plans. Then on Thursday, we received the Final Plans (which were subsequently returned very promptly!!). And today, the Bank signed off on the "Authority to Commence Construction"!!

Everything has happened extremely quickly (including the Council approval which only took 4 weeks, compared to the 7-9 we were quoted) and our file has now progressed on to the Labour & Material Allocation stage before being handed over to our Site Supervisor (we don't know who this is yet....). Needless to say, a lot of this is down to our excellent Pre-Site Administrator and her Manager, who have been pushing our file through as quickly as humanly possible, given the delays and frustrations we experienced at the start.

But what is even more exciting is that we now have an estimated site start date of Monday 19 August!! This is only 2 weeks away, and if the weather stays relatively dry (like it has lately), then there is now a very good chance that we will have handover before Christmas!! This would be ideal since we have already "tentatively" set our flooring date for 20 December and would also give us the opportunity to get other things done before the usual Christmas shut-down period (like appliances installed and driveway done). It also means we could go over and paint our feature walls and put up our window coverings over the Christmas break :)

In terms of what we haven't done yet - the only things left are the light fittings and window coverings.......we went out and got quotes for the light fittings around 2 months ago but never progressed any further than that so this is something we will be finalising in the next couple of weeks to ensure we have everything we need in time for the electrician. As for the window coverings, this is something that we will be doing ourselves so we have a little bit more time to think about this.

On the land side of things, not much has changed there really, except we now have 2 trees planted on our footpath. Whilst they do look nice, obviously the developer couldn't be bothered taking the time to read our plans before planting them to realise that our driveway is going right where the trees are!! So we will have to move them and replant them further down our footpath prior to construction starting - not too much of a hassle, but a small annoyance nonetheless. I have put a couple of photos below for interests sake.

Obviously once the building starts, there will be plenty more photos and posts to keep everyone updated :)

Flooring colours finalised

Today we visited Carpet Call to finalise our colour selection for our carpets and timber laminate floors. Although we had a feint idea when we first started the process some 4 months ago, it was nice to be able to tick another thing off the "to do" list before construction even begins.

The final colours we landed on were:

• Carpets (to 4 bedrooms) - Cashew

• Timber Flooring (everywhere else, except bathrooms & laundry) - Walnut Wideplank

These colours should complement and contrast nicely against each other, and also provide a neutral starting point for kids bedrooms down the track.

And on another note.....I got an unexpected phone call from Plantation on Monday afternoon advising that our plumbing & sewage plans had been approved by Council and we were now just waiting approval for the slab design and "Build Near Sewer" application. This is expected to take around the 4 week mark, which (surprisingly) keeps us on track for a late August site start.

Final Drawings

So at long last we have our final drawings. And not that they really look any different to our first drawings, but it's another step in the process that is now complete. We have also paid the balance of our deposit to Plantation and signed off on our final Post Contract Variation for the slab and earthworks.

Whilst on the topic of slab and earthworks, Plantation were able to (eventually) "justify" their costs. Although they still seem extravagant, there are additional works to do on site due to the type of substrate soil along with some recompaction, which wasn't allowed for initially as it was not evident from the disclosure plan. At the end of the day though, if we want to build our home, we need to pay the costs. So the dotted line was signed (albeit, with a degree of reluctance!).

I am also in the process of talking to neighbours regarding fencing. So far, it appears to have gone ok, with one side already obtaining quotes for the same style fence that we want. The other "neighbours" are actually developers who won't start building until someone buys one of their house & land packages so that will be a wait & see, but I am also discussing retaining walls with them (given Plantation has advised us of that requirement on one boundary). I am hopeful that, because of the slope of their block, they will need to cut in on our boundary line, which means we won't have to retain......fingers crossed on that one!

The only thing we are now waiting on is council approval and that is expected to take approximately another 6-8 weeks. After that, it takes Plantation approximately 2 weeks to get to allocate labour & supplies and start on-site. That puts us still at around late August, although if they actually start by this time, overjoyed would be an understatement!

In the meantime we are just waiting for the fence to be taken down by the civil contractors so that we can drive up to our block - hopefully that will be in the next week (though it was meant to be done this week....). In the meantime, here are a few photos of our block, complete with footpath and grass - which will no doubt get ruined once construction starts - but in the meantime it looks good :)

And the costs keep coming......

Today we finally received our Post Contract Variation which outlined adjustments as a result of the Soil Report and Site Survey completed back in mid-June.

We have decided to go with the M Class Slab as this was actually $500 cheaper than the S Class Piering option, however, our site costs have increased 500% from a quoted $729 to an incredible $3,827, which has well and truly eroded any credit we hoped to get back given we were quoted an H1 slab initially. I am now in the process of seeking a detailed breakdown of the site costs from the Estimator because I feel we have now been taken for a ride due to the fact we were due to receive a credit.

Our final drawings also now show a retaining wall required down the LHS of our property, running approximately half the length from front towards the rear. Although only 400-600mm in height, it is again another cost that we were not expecting given the first lot of drawings we received.

To top it all off, Plantation have also input an allowance into our latest Post Contract Variation of $10,000 for "potential rock excavation during cut/fill". Our cut is 550mm and according to the soil test, there is "weak rock" (ie. shale) from 500mm. So without a doubt now, I will be spending a day or two at the site when they cut/fill to ensure they either do/don't hit rock because for some odd reason, I'm not going to trust what Plantation tell me without seeing it for myself.

On some positive notes though:

• The construction fencing from the civil contractors is due to come down next week sometime which means we will finally be able to drive up to our block
• We have also been assigned a street number - no longer are we a generic "lot 344", but we are officially #15 :)
• And our kitchen appliances have been paid for in full and we will be picking them up and putting them in storage sometime in the next couple of weeks. The only change we made was the dishwasher - initially we were going to bring our dishwasher from the unit over, but we have decided to leave that there and purchase a shiny new Stainless Steel ASKO dishwasher :)

I haven't put any photos up as it looks essentially unchanged at this stage - all the fun will begin in about 6-8 weeks when the construction vehicles roll up :)