The House Plans

With the help of my new Home 1 friend, Jo, I can finally upload these plans, as promised...:) thank you, Jo!!

Our facade called Grand Portico (modified slightly of course).

We added a garage, 2 windows, upgraded the cladding to all bricks (which cost so much..), that's why we couldn't afford to upgrade the bricks to the smooth face.

Luckily, we found a new range from Boral bricks that close to what we wanted. So, quite happy with our choice of Grays Point bricks.

Rainwater news

Well, great news that yesterday Waterboard has approved our new underground watertank within 1 day. And Wisdom delivered good news that there's no additional piering needed or architectural drawing.
But they'll still need 7 days turnaround to finalize the paperwork and they can't do this until they receive the additional fee of relocating tank ...
Not happy about this...:(
They shouldn't placed the tank in the zone of influence in the first place, where there was the rest of big yard there to choose...

The girl in admin. has been good since she came back from her sick leave, trying to organise everything for us in a quick way & polite emails.
She also told me that there'll be no charges for the fridge's depth changes from 650mm to 700mm.
A news that I've been waiting for almost 2 months! Happy now...:)

That lovely Pegs..:)

I drove by the land on Friday last week, not expecting that WH has done the pegs!!

Excellent, only small but at least a progress...:)

Only 1 peg was too close to my neighbour's boundary, G. So hopefully her builder doesn't knock out the peg.

Carpet

Got my carpet quotes as well on Friday, prices as expected. But we're kind of run out of budget, but we don't want the standard carpet inclusion, so we'll go tomorrow again to Dlorenzo to choose other carpet in medium range around $40-45/m2.

Meanwhile, I have sent my kitchen drawing today. That's another progress too...:P

Mowing..mowing....

After that great news about council approval, WH organised a peg out with 5 days turn around last week. So hopefully this week, we'll see something happening on the land..
Meanwhile, hubby finally decided to mow the grass himself.
So we went to the land on Saturday, met our new neighbour accros the street who happened just finishing mowing too.
had a quick chat and I think our new neighbour is very nice!
It's going to be a great community there....:)

Here's a few photo during and after the mowing...

Kitchen Design...

We have received our kitchen plan from Timpelle Kitchen.
Didn't realize just to choose the handles will be this hard...
Vertical or horizontal??

We like the look of slimline horizontal but Timpelle warned us that horizontal handles may damage adjacent cabinets and walls.
I still can't imagine how it will damage the other cabinets??

But well, I think I'll ask tomorrow.

Approved!!

25 Nov 2011 woken up by my future neighbour , G, she texted me that our plan has been approved by council!
I was shocked, excited, can't believe it!!
We are so lucky to get a good assessor, it's only approved in 15 working days only !

I emailed WH straightaway, they will advise me what to do next.

Today, Monday 28 Nov, WH sent me the final packs, contains the following documents :
Stamped plan, Home owners warranty, Builders license, Builders Insurance, DA Approval letter.

No call yet from WH. So will try to contact B tomorrow to check what's the next stage.

Updates....

Sorry for being lazy to update this blog...

Don't know how or when, but the rocks that was dumped has now gone...:)
that's because we contacted our solicitor and they instructed the land's owner to clean them up before settlement....

Things have been moving along pretty quick the last 2 months, so I thought I need to update this blog.
Well, I got my drawing in May 2011, then finally the land settled last week on the 8 November 2011 (yeah, 2.5 years after we paid deposit...:()e

We signed building contract and paid 5% deposit to Wisdom on the 6th October 2011.
Since then, things were moving quickly, got a phone call for color appointment (with Anita), kitchen appointment (Timpelle Kitchen), then electrical appointment (with Clipsal now).

Anyway, I'm not too impressed with electrical appointment with Clipsal, just realised that I have to upgrade so much. can you imagine Wisdom only give me 22 lights for 50sq home! Unbelieveable..
So we ended up upgrading lots & lots of bayonet for future downlight and also double power point.
Also you need to check and recheck again, Clipsal did mistake and almost cost me $500for adding a fan light heater in one of the bathroom that supposed to be Wisdom's cost. Lucky, I checked it again all the cost on the way home...

With Timpelle Kitchen, was not too bad. The girl who looked after us was in a hurry and not too patieint (or maybe I'm too fussy??).
Anyway, we're still waiting for our kitchen design.

OK, here's my color choices :
Bricks ; Boral Grays Point
Roof ; Bristile Coal
Gutter : Monument
Garage door & fascia : Paper bark
Window : Gloss white
Door : Timber stain finish

Kitchen :
Doors : Formica Snow drift (upgrade)
Caesarstone : White Shimmer
Glass splashback : Latte

Walls : Bristol Canvas cloth (one of the hardest thing to choose...)

Bathroom :
Cabinet ; Laminated Burnished Wood
Caesarstone ; White Shimmer


COUNCIL
There's a hiccup too when submitting our plan to council since at that time in October our land was not settled yet and there's a different between new land owner. so complicated...I ended up paying my own title search so that the Hills council will accept my DA.
Well, finally after being rejected twice, the council accepted our DA on the 7th November. Then we got a stop the clock letter from council due to :
- too many paving/concrete
- front setback that Wisdom drawn was only 5.2m, it should be 6m.

Wisdom will argue this set back thing with Council and let me know the result.
Hopefully they can resubmit the DA this Friday.

In the meantime, this Friday we are going to see Ultra Air, the company who supply Actron A/C for Wisdom and also to Di lorenzo , the tiles & carpet supplier this Saturday.