We have a slab....the non-alcoholic one!

Haven't updated for a few days but a lot has happened since.

On Wednesday (24th September 2008) the builders had put down the pods and metal ready for the slab to go down. I was hoping the slab would be laid later this week and what happened - I came home today and saw that the slab has been laid. Very exciting! Lots of photos below :)

Pods down ready for slab (24 September 2008)

Extra slab for our 4,000 litre slimline water tank

Plumbing for the main bathroom

ipod.....well just pods

Arrived at the land before work yesterday and saw that the pods and wires for the slab have arrived. It rained overnight so no work was done today. Fingers cross slab gets laid this week :)

Just a note for the first home buyers. FHOG - you can get this once you have made your first progress payment ie. when slab is laid down if your loan provider is an approved agent (most banks and financial institutions). I just found this out and called my mortgage broker, but he has not put in my FHOG form yet, quite annoyed! Hopefully we can still get this once the slab is laid otherwise we will have to wait until the house is completed.

Pipes In

We visited the land on Friday (19 September 2008) and the builders had put in the plumbing pipes, they also flattened the surface - ready for the slab, which i think might be done next week.

A re-cap of what has happended in the last few months...

Been so busy but good news-we have started building...

Here is a list of what has happened since my last blog.

26 June 2008 - DA was approved by Council. Had to get an engineer to have to look at the ground storm water run-off before council was to give us a Construction Certificate (CC). Thought this was done by Allworth Homes, but no it is not part of the building price. BTW for those who are not aware you will also need to pay a storm water bond and S49A Levey Development Contributions to the council. To me these were hidden costs that the builder did not tell us about :(
NOTE: this is a couple of grand

4 August 2008 - Received the drawings from engineer regarding the storm water. Thankfully the natural storm water is fine and we do no need to install extra plumbing.

12 August 2008 - CC issued by council.

We were hit with an increase in price because we have passed the tender date of 120 days without signing contract. Allworth homes waived part of this increase as we were very close to signing.
A day before signing contracts Allworth homes contacted me and advised that there would be an increase of $3K for extra provisions. They said that the engineers got the estimates wrong at the start and it was better to tell us now than later when we signed. Got it wrong? Anyway

26 August 2008 - Contract signing day. The bricks we chose had to be changed as the manufacturers do not make them in exposure grade any more. We also changed a few of the colours for our house and added another TV point. There was more provisions in the contracts than i expected - this still kinda worries me as the price is not fixed. We were in and out in 2 hours. Just in time for the wife to make it to work. I however spent the afternoon photocopying as Allworth only gave me a copy of the contract when i specifically asked for three copies, one for me and two for my lenders. On the day they said it was a procedure thing that they cannot make any more copies for me. Not happy!

15 September 2008 - Action! I went to the land on Monday and in just one day they have finished the cut and fill. It was great to see that they have started.


17 September 2008 - Went to the land today to meet the guys drilling the piers, we measured each of the piers and some good news, it was under the allocated provision amount.

To council at last

Since my last blog, we have approved the plans to go council. We have visited Boral Bricks, Westside Ceramics and PGH bricks and tiles.

The plans went to council last week with only a few changes from the original. The island in the kitchen is still shorter than i have asked for - i have spoken the the consultant about this and they will fix it. Other than that we are happy with the house plans.

Today was a busy day, we visited Westside Ceramics which luckily was just down the road from our house plus ran a few other errands. Tiles was chosen for the main bathroom, en suite and laundry. The colour scheme chosen was charcoal floor tiles and white glossy wall tiles. This will go well with the light gray wall paint. One thing i found out was that the wall tiles does not go as high as i expected in the wet areas - this will have to be done after handover.

Tomorrow we have an appointment with the colour consultant at Kellyville - this will also include choosing our electrical - extra power points or light points etc.

To Kellyville again...

For the last week we have been back and forth with our Allworth consultant regarding prices and changes. On Friday we paid our second deposit to secure $8,000 worth of bonuses including alarm systems, dishwasher and remote control garage.

We went to Kellyville again this weekend to finalised all the changes with our consultant. One thing we didn't like was the design of the kitchen. So instead of a U shape kitchen with a breakfast bar, we have changed it so it is L shaped with an island. I have updated the house design with the new kitchen. This will create a more open feel to the home, plus i can now have a place to make my cocktail mixes...

We also received our colour folder on Saturday - this contains numerous choices of suppliers and colours. I am sure we will be having loads of fun picking the colours for the house. During the next month we will need to visit these suppliers to choose our bricks, roof, tiles and paint colours.

Tender Recieved!

We received our tender today from Allworth Homes - 1 week longer than expected. The quote was more than what i wanted it to be, but it was the price i expected because of all our added options including bay windows to bed2, building under eves not to mention 9ft ceilings - $6k extra.

Compared to my previous tenders some items cost more and some was less. We will be going back to the Allworth consultant in a few days to see if we can get them to match my previous tender... hopefully we can get a bit off. Some things we also need to clarify next week/changes we have made with the builders is:

• steps from the back door to backyard included or extra,
• toilet/bathroom frosted glass included or extra,
• bay window - they move the whole left side of the house forward 1m but it looks like the bay window was not added to bed2 but rather just cut out of the original size (we will have to look at the actual size of bed2 before and after bay window was added to know exactly),
• they've charged us for adding walls to make the cinema room but did not consider that we actually removed some other walls, dining and toilet - i questioned them on this and they will get back to me,
• separate toilet to be included with the bathroom as one,
• we moved the front entry of the house to the middle,
• double doors instead of sliding doors to the cinema room,
• we wanted to increase the width of the kitchen under the eaves but this could not be done, the builder will get back to us.

The original design with Cinema room added and wider kitchen.


The red arrows show changes that we have made to the design.