End of Week 8

Our cabinetry went in this week, and brickwork mostly completed. May actually be complete, last I was out there was Thursday. I don't have pictures of the completed kitchen yet - will have to get some on Monday!

The vanity benchtops weren't delivered with the rest of the cabinetry, so there is a delay getting those installed.

Front brickwork

South side

Rear

North

Ensuite

Bathroom

Laundry

And the kitchen carcass which has since been installed:

Was also advised by the admin team that our caesarstone choice of "Mangrove" has been discontinued (why do we find these things out NOW?), so we had to choose from "Cashmere" or "Wild Rice". We've gone for Wild Rice so as to differentiate from the tiles, and hopefully hide a bit more grime!
Apparently the tiler will be onsite at the end of this week, and due to finish early/mid next week. From late next week, the fitoffs are due to get underway, including the fitting/installation of basins, tapware, toilets, light points, switches, powerpoints, door handles, shelving, etc. These run over approximately a fortnight and is then followed by the installation of the carpet.
Almost looking like a home now! So much so that I have started the arduous task of packing up our rental now.

Locked up & Fixed

Wow what a month it has been since I last updated the blog!
We've been crazy busy running around house-sitting and having a sick bubba on our hands, so apologies for not updating this sooner.

Our house is only 5 weeks from Practical Completion Inspection, and 7 weeks from handover!! We had the Lock Up on-site inspection with the Site Supervisor yesterday, and it was amazing to see the house start to look like our home. Cornices & architraves have been installed, and doors have been hung. Pictures below.

Timeline from here:
Kitchen & cabinetry installed 3/10
Brickwork to be completed 5/10
Internal painting & external site clean 8-12/10
Tiles laid 15-19/10
Carpet laid 22-26/10. Concurrently with tiles & carpet will be fit off of door handles, showers etc.
PCI inspection start of November.

Rumpus room

Kitchen/WIP

Meals area

End of Week 4

We have been invoiced for our frame stage!
The boys were good enough to help us out with some extra studs on the walls where we intend to wall-mount the TVs. Very useful!

We had a day delay on Wednesday on account of the gale-force winds, but they were still able to complete the frame on schedule so didn't 'claim' the delay. Otherwise a very straightforward week, so here are some pics:

When inspecting the site today we did find some minor issues with the framework, which we will ensure are rectified:

Admin have advised us that if the weather plays kind in Week 5, we should have a roof, fascia and gutters.
3 invoices down, 3 to go!

End of Week 3

Well I've been a bit slack updating this blog! A lot has happened over the last fortnight...
After the scrape in week 1, we got the all important tradies throne delivered:

Not much happened for a couple of days while they worked on the house a couple of doors down (same builder!). Then the trenching and plumbing was completed at the end of Week 2, and this was Week 3:

Our invoices for the deposit and Base stage were received the same afternoon the slab was poured... they don't waste time when it comes to claiming money!!

Here's a teaser for Week 4.....

End of week 1

Well it has officially started. The builders broke ground last week!
I went out to the block on Tuesday, and found some very exciting holes for the retaining walls:

Visited again on Thursday to find they'd completed the retaining walls:

And then a very handy local spy sent me a few pics on Friday to let us know we'd been scraped! As you can see, we had a rather wet end of the week. We went to visit the block ourselves on the Saturday, and found that the amount of water shown below was about half of what ended up in our 'pool'!

Looking forward to heading out there today and seeing what the start of Week 2 will bring... (did someone say slab this week? Fingers crossed!)

Celebrate good times

We met with family & friends on Sunday to celebrate dirt ownership. Little sprog was unhappy with the gale force winds, poor lad.

Hubby was pretty impressed with the site of his future study...

We got an email from the construction team today, advising that the site scrape will happen on the 14th. One week to go!

Plans and elevations

And so it begins....

My husband and I started wandering display villages when I was 8.5 months pregnant with our first child, in the interests of encouraging our baby into the world. At this point we had no real intention of building a house. Unfortunately for our budget, we quickly became a lot more interested in finding out costs of land around our area, and house plans that suited our lifestyle!

With two weeks to go until D-Day (birth), we fell in love with a plan by a new company, 8 Homes (by UrbanEdge). A quick chat to the sales rep and some indicative costs, and we were on our way to securing pre-approval. Our son was born on 16th April, and so house stuff was put on hold for a week while I recovered. While I was in hospital, the developer and builder were working on contracts and tenders, and we found out that our chosen block would not work with our house plan. So we made a mad dash to two other estates in Wallan and settled on a gorgeous 14x35m (495m2) block on top of a hill.

Formal finance approval came through on 13th July, which was a big relief. Being first home buyers, and not having saved a deposit (we would have, but didn't know we would be building a house!), meant that we were relying on a lender accepting the First Home Owners Grant as our deposit source and lending us 93% of the purchase price.

Settlement on our block was 27th July - we officially owe a lot of money to the bank who holds the title to our block of land!

Our plans are all finalised, our building permits have been issued, and they are scheduled to break ground on 10th August. Apparently we should be popping champagne in our kitchen before Christmas 2012, according to our 98 day contracted build time.

Sign on and enjoy the ride.