Site Supervisor Introduction

So today while nothing has been done on the lot for about a week we have had a further development, we have a Site Supervisor. Joe called me today to introduce himself and to go through what is going to happen, we are still waiting for the site cut to happen which should be tomorrow before we start to get any indication on when the build will actually start. I am excited and happy, Why?, Because doing a search on the web with the words "Joe", "Site Supervisor" and "Wisdom Homes" brings up some very happy Wisdom customers talking about there site supervisor Joe who did a fantastic job and his old school approach.

If this is the same Joe then i am comforted with the fact that we have the best supervisor to look after our build which hopefully will make this whole build process easy. So hopefully site cut tomorrow or Thursday, would be good to see it happening, question is do i got to work tomorrow or do i go watch them break soil!

Small Changes, Big Things

So we have now had the sediment barrier and also the building company sign added to the lot over the last few days. We have been in contact and apparently our land will be cut sometime next week and then we will be assigned a site supervisor.

Exciting times ahead me thinks....

We have a Fence

They say small movements are better then none, I remember people telling me how it was exciting to have a porta loo and fence and I generally thought they were weird but it looks like over the weekend the fence was delivered and we now have a porta loo AND a fence and I'm excited so I am officially a weirdo.

Hopefully sometime this week we will start cutting the ground and moving some dirt.

Week 1 - Blocking and Waiting

It's been over a week since our file moved into estimating, we were advised that works should commence within the next 15 working days. Only thing onsite at the moment is the porta loo, we go past the lot twice a day so everyday is a lucky dip to see if anything has changed. Once they are up to the slab we will get a call from our site supervisor allocated to our build so looking forward to who we get, hopefully we get someone that will make our build enjoyable.

On another note i was browsing the homeone.com.au forum and notice some people talking about blocking in the media alcoves. Wisdom confimed online that blocking was standard on the home theatre alcove but not for the remaining alcove's in there houses. I asked our admin person if we could add blocking to the leisure room and master bedroom alcove which they have put in as a variation without charging us the $1000 adjustment fee so very happy there.

If you want to hang TV's on any of the media alcoves you really need to think about this and get it in. In the meantime we sit back and wait for any type of work on our site to start.

Dunny has arrived!

Good news today even though it is quite small but after 11 months of planning we finally have a porta loo onsite, That's right, We have our porta loo!

All we need now is the fence and site cut and we are really moving.....

And we are off...

Well it has been a excellent day in relation to our build, we have been informed that the folllowing has now been done:

1. Construction Certificate has been issued for our build.

2. Our file has now moved onto the Estimating department.

We should see the Fence, Porta loo and site cut in the next 15 days from today. And then we will be assigned a SS for our build and off we go.

Big thanks to Natasha in admin for helping us out BIG time and making this journey so far enjoyable.

Final Documentation...

Finally received the final documentation yesterday for our build, signed off on our colour selections, end panel, construction plans and final variation. At this stage there is nothing left to do but wait for the land to be cut and our site supervisor to be allocated for our build. The process has been long and hard and tiring in a way but i suppose being our first build we are learning all the time about what is involved.

Once the land has been broken i'm sure we will be energised with a new vigour as we watch our dream home get built. Looking forward to it all, Here is our baby.....

Front of house

Rear of house

Electrical...

Now for the electrical choices we made for our build, by default we have a standard inclusions amount of about $5900.00 for the build, as a IT guy and into technology there was no way this was going to cover our electrical needs. We did put provision into our tender for an additional $5300 for electical, this has proved to be a god send as we went over our including by about $6300. Below is what we asked for:

Additional lights at front of house
Downlights to Foyer and Kitchen
In wall lights for staircase area
Starserve system for multimedia and network connectivity to rooms.
Sensor lights to side and back of house
External power points to from and rear of house (Need these come Christmas time)
We put battons to the remainder of the house and brought our lights from Beacon Lighting to be installed by our electrician after handover.

Landscaping...

Below are the options we chose with Landscaping, this has been included in our tender and will be done by Wisdom Landscaping.

Excavation

Excavate front and rear yard ready for landscaping
Removal of additional clean fill

Driveway

Excavate driveway in preperation for formwork and concreting
Supply and install 100mm reinforced colour driveway
Remove additional clean fill

Front Steps

Supply and install 4 colour concrete front steps to the front porch

Retaining Walls

Supply and install Heron block retaining walls, walls to include aggregate and agriculture pipe for drainage.

This has cost us a good sum of money but takes the hassle away from doing it ourselves, i just want to enjoy moving in and laying some turf myself which i think is cheaper to do.

Color Selections.....

So we decided on the following colour selections for our house:

External

Facade - Grand Portico (No Render brick face only)
Bricks - Austral Symmetry Asphalt with off white motar (Ironed)
Windows - Aluminium White Pearl
Roof - Bristile Coal (Classic Shingle)
Fascia - Colorbond Jasper
Gutter - Colorbond Jasper
Garage Door - Panel Lift Profile - Caprice in Paperbark
Driveway - Bluestone - Large Tile Header Border
Cladding/Sheet infills - Bristol Moon River
Door - 2 x XS24 Hume doors (Translucent) with Trilock
Flyscreens to all windows and security doors
Step & Porch Tiles - DC9664 (450x450) Cream Grip

Internal

Paint to all internal areas is Taubmans Snowy White

Internal Ground floor tiles (Except Home Theatre and Study)
DC9660 (456x456) Cream Gloss / Square Laid to Entry, Foyer, Kitchen, Dining, Leisure and Family rooms
Gout - Off White

Flooring to 1st Floor rooms, Stairs and Study on ground floor

Timber Impressions Pacific Walnut Laminate Flooring (Installed by owner not builder)

Kitchen

Caesar Stone - Cashmere (pencil edge)
Cupboard Door/Kickboard - Laminex White Silk Finish
Handles - Stainless Steel - Horizontal
Detergent Caddy
Splashback - Latte

Bathrooms (Main, Ensuite and Powder room)

Caesar Stone - White Shimmer (pencil edge)
Cupboard Doors - Laminex Avignon Walnut
Glass shower screen, Chrome taps, Stainless steel handles horizontal

Main Tiles
Floor Tile - DC9660 - Cream Gloss (456x456)
Boarder - VM312 Glass/Stone (15x98)
Wall/Skirting - DCW1337 Gloss White (300x450) Horizontal

Toilet Tiles

Floor Tile - DC9660 - Cream Gloss (456x456)
Wall/Skirting - DC9660 - Cream Gloss (456x456) 1/2 tile


Ensuite Tiles

Floor Tile - DC9660 - Cream Gloss (456x456)
Boarder - VM309 Glass/Stone (23x48)
Wall/Skirting - DCW1337 Gloss White (300x450)


Power Room Tiles

Floor Tile - DC9660 - Cream Gloss (456x456)
Boarder - VM312 Glass/Stone (15x98)
Splash Tile - DCW1337 (300x450) Horizontal
Skirting - DCW1337 Gloss White (300x450) Horizontal


Laundry

Caesar Stone - White Shimmer (pencil edge)
Cupboard Doors - Laminex Avignon Walnut
Flickmixer tap
Door - JST1 Hume doors - Translucent

Laundry Tiles

Floor Tile - DC9660 - Cream Gloss (456x456)
Splash Tile - DCW1337  (300x450) Horizontal
Skirting - DCW1337 Gloss White (300x450) Horizontal 1/2 tile


Home Theatre

Carpet - Tuscan Sun (Desert Brown)

From the start till now!

Welcome,

This is a blog of our build of the Impressions 38 Mk III @ Middleton Grange with Wisdom Homes. We have been working on this now for about 11 months and in the final stages of the paperwork trail before actually moving to the build. Below is a brief summary of what has transpired:

28/6/11 - Contract signed for our lot at Middleton Rise

15/09/11 - Quotation sent
2/11/11 - Original Tender Acceptance
9/12/11 - First set of plans issued
12/1/12 - Final Tender Acceptance
17/2/12 - Advised that tender expiry was end of April, as land is not registered need to extend, please pay $3,000 to extend.
30/4/12 - Contract signedMay/Jun 12 - Colour selections etc done and signed.

4/7/12 - Land Registered and payment settled, we are now land owners.

9/7/12 - Plans lodge into council
12/7/12 - Waterboard Approval
13/8/12 - Advised we may have saline soil, please pay extra $3200 for slab and upgrade bricks (no need to as our selected brick is exposure grade - Thank God)
4/9/12 - Council Approval
13/9/12 - Advised that Di Lorenzo signed variation has not been received (Sent this back on 3/8/12) Even sent our documents to Wisdom BUT they must come from di lorenzo. Now we spend 2 weeks trying to get these documents so that we can pay for the variations, our file cannot proceed until this is sorted >:(
28/9/12 - Finally the paperwork arrives and we pay the money for Variations.

I'll do some quick posts around our colour selections shortly.