Monday 31 August 2009

Elevation house pictures

Front Elevation


North West Elevation


North East Elevation

Saturday 29 August 2009

Colours finally decided ... no if's no buts

Well, finally decided on some colours , woohoo! In the end we went for the very first colours we thought about when we decided to build a house. The white was just to bright and things wern't coming together as we would have liked. I am happy with our final choice ... not sure what the guy at Coral with think of us but what the hell. We are happy and that's all that matters. The colours are very earthy so will go well with our tile selection and carpet selection. I will put pics of those on soon.

Caper Roof Tile


Woodland Grey Guttering, Fasia


Linseed 1/2 strength Render (this is full strength)


Internal wall colour 'Tuft' by Dulux - can't find a picture, sorry

Sunday 23 August 2009

Contract Changes

Spoke to Coral. Apparently you only get the extra window in the en suite if you keep the spa bath upgrade. Because we took it out they removed the window from the plans. So, we put a bigger window in at a cost of $160, worth it I say. Also mentioned the lack of a stacker door to the family room, they have also included it now.

Contracts now sent for convent approval which will take approx 2 weeks. Then they are sent to council which will take approx 4 weeks. I hate all this waiting.

Saturday 22 August 2009

Contract arrived

O.K. the final contract arrived on Friday. Had a quick look and so far notice that they have only given us one stacker door on the alfresco/games rooms area, there should be one on either side of alfreso. Also, only one window in the en-suite. I'm sure that the upgrade gave us an additional window.

We have been selecting colours for the external features/walls/roof which has been harder than we first thought. See what you think so far ...

Caper Roof Tile


Natural White Render


Shale Grey Garage Door




Woodland Grey Portico

Tuesday 18 August 2009

Call from Coral

Coral rang yesterday asking if we want them to do the tiling. We decided to take this out of the contract because they wanted silly money. They have to tile the wet areas (bathrooms etc) so we said that's fine but we will source our own tiles. Anyway a quote came back from the tile place and it is going to cost us almost half the cost of what Coral wanted to charge.

Also Ian visited a place that does Ceasar stone and they showed him how easy it is to mark. So now we are back to square one with the benchtops.

Pool quotes have come back and there was not surprises with the costs. We just have to see what the final price of the house contract comes back at before we make a decision.

Sunday 16 August 2009

Contract week!


Well, this is the week that we should get our contract for the house. It's all starting to feel a bit more real now and quite exciting. Alot seem to be going on up where our block is. In the last couple of weeks there now seems to be about 4 blocks being levelled, and one house has the actual frame up. Two pools have been dug, and this brings me on to the subject of pools.

Now, Ian and I made a promise to ourselves that we would have a house with a pool. We have been getting some quotes in and it is not beyond the realms of possibility. We just need to see what the contract price for the house will be before we make a final decision.

We have found out that a TAFE is going to be built over the other side of the motorway as well as a possible uni, which will be great news for our son, not far to travel.

Render? Choosing a render colour for the house isn't as easy at it sounds. Try having a little card sample and picturing your whole house in that colour, impossible! So, we have been driving all over the place looking at render colours and roof colours. When we thing we have made up our minds we see something else and ....... well you know the rest.

Coral has agreed that we can move the house forward to 5.2 from the boundary which means the back garden is now bigger, great news and just what we wanted. This would allow back access in the future and still plenty of room. Oh, and it also means we save $1000 because we don't have to go to council for relaxation to the boundary.

Today we took a day off from thinking about the house and took a picnic to the beach, its been a beautiful day. We saw a whale breach right out of the water. We needed the distraction and it was such a relaxing day. Just what we needed.

Wednesday 5 August 2009

Eventful day ..

Well today the bank agreed pre-approval for the loan on the house. We are so ready to get moving on the actual build now so this has come at a good time, ready for contracts by Coral on the 19th.

We also received a call from the Solicitor saying that final paperwork for the land will be in the post tonight. Along with it will be a cheque from the land sellers for $4000. That will go straight into the saving money pot for things like the retaining wall etc. Happy days!

Saturday 1 August 2009

Well went on the look out for tiles, carpets and also retaining wall ideas.

Just to refresh, last weekend we went to Beaumont tiles and gave them our house plans, chose tiles that we want all through the main living areas. Anyway, they was supposed to email us a quote ..... 1 wk later we are still waiting.

So today we visited the World of Tiles in Labrador and very helpful they were too. Said they had an account with Coral but when we spoke to Coral later in the day they said that the do not have a contract with them. Confusing. Also visited the carpet place next door and they were great too. They allowed us to take the carpet samples next door and put them with the tiles we have chosen. I will put pics up soon.

Next a visit to a place that does retaining bricks. Unfortunately we didn't spot anything that rocked our boat this time so back to the drawing board with that one.

Then we visited Coral. They have moved our house back on the plans and were going to charge us $1000 to go to council to do a boundary relaxation. When we spoke to Coral they agreed that this might not be necessary so it was well worth the visit. He said that we should receive our contracts 19th August so not long to wait now.

Took tile samples home and played about abit with the Laminex samples, Dulux colours and we are starting to get somewhere. So why can't we decide on a render finish and a colour for the roof? We need to make some decisions before the contracts arrive.