Final look at the block before we head off

I took an afternoon drive out to Woodlands today to take one final look at the block before we head off to the US on Sunday for 4 weeks. Things are continuing to progress nicely, with the topsoil being put on the blocks ready for grading and levelling next week, and the road base is down in preparation for a road next week as well. Although it will be a shame that we won't be here to be able to drive up to our block, it's also exciting knowing that a lot will be happening whilst we are away.

After yesterday's issues with Plantation, things at least appear to be back on track with timelines and information provided. Needless to say we will continue to keep on top of Plantation whilst we are away.

The great news is that our land has been topsoiled and will be graded and levelled off early next week, which means Plantation will be doing our soil test and site survey by the end of next week. Also by the end of next week, we should have a bitumen road out the front and a registered block of land. That also means that our plans should be well and truly into Council by the time we get back.

If we get any information as to how things are progressing whilst we are away, we will update :)

Looking at our block from across the road! The soil at the front is the leftover "topsoil" which they use to level and grade the block - it will disappear shortly

Looking down the road - the roadbase is down and ready for bitumen next week!

My first "rant"!!

Hopefully not a sign if things to come but we are now starting to hit our first "frustration" in building a home......COMMUNICATION!! Needless to say we are experiencing ongoing issues with Plantation around their lack of attention to detail and their follow up of tasks.

For example, I phoned the Developer directly this morning to chase up our Covenant approval, given we go overseas in 4 days.....only to be told they haven't received it. When I explained that I sent all the documents to Plantation and they told me they had lodged them 2-3 weeks ago, and that we were going overseas on Sunday, the Covenants Manager sprung into action, called Plantation and spoke to our Pre-Site Administrator's Manager and got the plans in 5 minutes. Usually they have a 2 week turn around but Lend Lease are going to assess it tomorrow for us!!

Needless to say Lend Lease have been bending over backwards for us and Plantation is proving to be quite difficult to deal with...........here's hoping things smooth out once we get to site and get a new Administrator!

Rant over!

The kerbing is down!

A quick drive by the land on Thursday revealed even more progress - we have kerbing! After speaking to the Sales Manager, they are hoping to have the road down by the end of next week - just in time for us to take some final pictures before we head off overseas for 4 weeks!! In that 4 weeks though, there will be plenty happening behind the scenes to get us closer to the build starting.

Looking down the road across the front of our block

Looking back across the road at our block

We also signed off our Post Contract Variation for our colour selections today. A few of the "variations" we made were:

Example of a "niche"

• A niche wall to the ensuite shower (ie. a cut-in wall where we can store our shampoo, conditioner, etc) with a Geo Top Shower Grate along the back wall instead of the standard chrome drain

• Slight upgrade to our entry door :)

• Off White Mortar (instead of the standard "natural" colour)

• Crystal Gloss (ie. very shiny) overhead kitchen cabinets



The style of drain for our ensuite

• Upgraded toilets to both Powder Room and Ensuite

Our Front Door!

Here's hoping for some more fine weather next week!

Finance approved!

Well after what has turned out to be a very stressful 2 weeks - OUR FINANCE IS APPROVED!

We did have some issues with the valuation but the developer came to the party and dropped their price enough to get us over the line! Now it's the nervous wait for the documents from the Bank in the hope that they arrive in time before we head off overseas in 10 days!! We also need to sign documents with the solicitor and Plantation before we go - needless to say time is starting to run a little on the thin side!!

We also got word today that the kerbing has gone down in our stage now and that the road (weather permitting) will be in by the early next week at the latest.

Based on all this (and everything going to plan....), the timeline looks something like this:

• Friday 7 June - Land Registration with Titles Office
• By Friday 14 June - Plantation lodge plans with Council
• Friday 21 June - Settlement on Land
• By Friday 9 August - Council approved plans
• By Friday 23 August - Plantation to start at site

There are ALOT of Ifs, Buts and Maybes in the above timeline, BUT we remain optimistic that things will continue to progress whilst we are away.

I will be heading out to the block tomorrow to see the progress so will look to post some more photos tomorrow evening.

Electrical Plans

Last Wednesday, we had our Electrical appointment with a company called Your Home Consulting. This is a company Plantation use to go through all the placement and number of light fittings, power points, light switches as well as any extras such as home security, smart home wiring and ducted vacuum systems (although we did not take up any of the extras).

When our Sales Consultant did our initial quote, he put in an allowance of $3,000 for our electrical appointment, and boy did this come in handy. Although Plantation are reasonably generous with their standard fit out, we have ended up going with LED down lights throughout all of our living areas, which carry not only the additional cost of light points, but also light fittings (though we are sourcing the actual fittings from another source). Overall though, we did not go massively over our allowance and are very happy with the final outcome.

Our kitchen feature light to hang over the island bench!

In a nutshell:

• LED down lights to the Entry, Halls, Kitchen, Dining, Living, Theatre and Alfresco
• Oyster lights to each of the bedrooms and the Laundry
• Fluros to the Garage, Pantry & Walk In Robe
• Down lights under the overhead cabinets in the Kitchen
• 3x Pendant lights over the island bench in the Kitchen (nice feature!)
• LED Oyster light to outside Laundry & Front Porch
• 2x External wall lights to brickwork either side of Porch
• Fan/Light/Heat combo to Bathroom & Ensuite
• Downlight over each vanity in the Ensuite

We also upgraded all our light switches to the "slimline" type as well as a couple of power points that are visible in the living area.

We should have our finance approval in the next couple of days so fingers crossed we will have everything ready to go before we head off overseas in less than 3 weeks as our land is now going to register whilst we are away!

We (nearly) have a road!

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!

The view from the front of our block looking down towards Stage 16

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.