Slabby Christmas everyone, we're slabbed!!!

I'll let the pictures do the talking...

21/12/2011 - Reinforcement delivered

22/12/2011 - Slab formwork and waffle pods

22/12/2011 - Slab formwork and waffle pods

22/12/2011 - Slab formwork and waffle pods

22/12/2011 - From our nice neighbours balcony

23/12/2011 - Slab from front left 

23/12/2011 - Slab - from front right of garage

Short update

Just a quick update.  After seeing no progress for the second half of last week, I was starting to think that they had stopped for the year, and the slab would come mid January.  So when we drove past last night I was happy to see that the piering had been done, and fill spread over the slab area, so with three days to go, there is still hope for a slab for christmas.
I didn't manage to get any good pictures, as the fencing was all locked now that they've moved the pile of fill from the driveway.

Baby steps

It's been just over 3 weeks since demolition was completed, so it's about time I posted an update.
We didn't hear anything from Simonds for the first week, and our chances of a slab for christmas was looking remote. Then all of a sudden there was a flurry of activity on the 1st December as final plans were signed and scanned and emailed back and forth so work could begin on the 2nd, and our file sent for ordering. 
I suspect this is the first time an overall review had been done since August, as they suddenly discovered there was an area of tiling that hadn't been selected (the non-mirrored bit of wall above our corner vanities).  So an early exit from work, and a quick trip to the Simonds Gallery was required.  Actually I don't think I really got any work done that day anyway, so I'm sure they didn't miss me.
A bonus from the post demolition resurvey was that the drop over the slab was reduced from 1.6m to 1.2m, and the new site cost quote dropped by $1700.

Finally, here's what you really want to see - progress pics!
The site was cut on the 2nd December.  The slightly raised section at the front left of the photo will be our front lounge room, and the slightly sunken bit directly in front will be the garage.

3/12/2011 - Site Cut

Not much progress this week, but we found a meter box sitting lonely in the middle of the block, and a few pegs.

9/12/2011 - Meter box

And finally, things start to move.  Yesterday I found the fencing had arrived, along with the all important chemical toilet and rubbish skip (which is inside the fencing - good move).  And pipes!  Our plumbing has been done.

14/12/2011 - A real building site

14/12/2011 - Pipes

Sweet, sweet dirt

Demolition is now finished, and we have a nice clear block of land.  We had a slight hiccup when they discovered more asbestos in the slab under the garage, and under the concrete verandah out the front.  I'm still waiting to find out how much extra that's going to cost. 
It's surprising how big the block looks without anything on it.  I'm taking regular photos from the same spot across the road throughout the process.

Before

After demolition

From the back

D-Day

Despite depressing delays, I was delighted to discover that our delapidated domicile has duly been demolished, driving me to declare today 'D-Day'.

Before

After

Ready to go?

Well, i can't fault Jemena.  Once Origin actually passed on the paperwork, the electricity was gone within a week.  So we're all ready to demolish. Andre (the demolisher) is all ready to go.  Now we're just waiting on the bank who are being a bit slow with the paperwork, and have asked for us to wait for them.  We're asking for less than they pre-approved, and they've had the contract for three weeks now, so it really shouldn't take much longer.  I'd really like to have the house gone, and Simonds' resurvey done by the end of October.

Surprise...

Well, it's been an interesting week.  Thursday was supposed to be time up on the electrical abolishment, but of course, it hadn't been done.  So I called up Origin only to discover that they hadn't forwarded the paperwork to Jemena, and it will now be another 2-4 weeks before it can be done.  Seriously, how long does it take to forward an email?  It only took him 2 minutes while I was on the phone.  Grrr.
So I was all prepared to sit around for the next couple of weeks with no progress, and we went around to the house Sunday morning to continue pulling down some of the external timber structure we want to keep.  We were rather surprised to find that the front door broken open and bits stripped off the house.  Looks like they've already sent the asbestos removalists around, without telling us, and without waiting for the electricity to be abolished. On further inspection, they also seem to be ladder removalists, as ours is now missing!  We had left it locked in the house, as we were expecting to do more work there this weekend.
So I'm sitting here today a little bit perplexed, as I'm not sure if I should be feeling happy about progress happening, or irritated that they have started without informing us, and stolen our ladder.

Anyway, here's some pics of the work done so far.

External asbestos stripped from the studio...

... and from under the eaves.

This was the back door.

Contract

Just a quick update.blogsters.  Last Sunday we signed our contract with Simonds, which means all our plans, inclusions and colour selections are complete. 
Our demolition team is also ready to go, with Demolition Permit approved, and we have paid the council's asset protection bond (fingers crossed we get it all back at the end of the demo). I've confirmed that we don't need planning permits, so there's absolutely nothing we can do right now. 
We're all waiting on the electricity company to abolish the connection to the old house so things can go forward - we requested this on the 31st August, so we're nearly at the end of their 20 business day time frame.  It's very hard to be patient...

Colours and Electrical

Last Friday we had our colours and electrical appointments with Simonds. It was a long and tiring day with far too many decisions, but we got it done, and the house is just that little bit closer now.

We chose a Sambucca roof tile and a Redgum brick - didn't get any samples of those, and forgot to take photos, but the Sambucca is a dark blue-black colour, and the Redgum is a red brick with blueish highlight patches.  We had a free upgrade on the roof tiles, so we've got Monier Traditional tiles (basically a flat profile instead of the standard wavy profile).  To match these colours we chose Monument colorbond gutters, Classic Cream colorbond fascia and garage door, and White Birch aluminium window frames. 

Monument, Classic Cream and White Birch

To finish off the externals, we went with a Caramel stain on the front door (upgrade from painted door - $197) and added translucent glazing to the front door glass from our promo pack.  Downpipes will be painted to match the Monument. Facade cladding, posts and back doors will match the Classic Cream.  The front gable will be Classic Cream with Monument trimming.

So far so good, now for internals.  For paint on walls and internal doors we chose Pale Mushroom, with white ceilings.

Pale mushroom

We have a hardwood handrail and first 2 stairs from our promo pack, and chose a Caramel stain for these.  Not sure about this one, as we are still yet to decide what timber flooring to go with.

I was a bit disappointed that they don't do a DiamondGloss laminex for the kitchen benches, so I had to choose something similar in a matt instead.  So we chose Imperial Topaz for the kitchen bench, Pearl Mist (fine stipple) for the cabinets, and Luxor for the kickplate. 

Imperial Topaz, Pearl Mist and Luxor

We accepted the standard 900mm Technika cooktop, but we're upgrading the rangehood from our promo pack to a slideout with cupboards, and the oven we will provide ourselves - we're getting a Neff 600mm wall oven.  We also accepted the standard taps, but upgraded the sink ($465) as the standard was quite shallow.

In the bathrooms and laundry, we chose a Stonehaven benchtop, and Pearl Silver cabinets.  The standard basins were either square or round above counter. I generally prefer semi recessed basins, but not enough to want to pay extra, so we went with the standard square basins.

Stonehaven and Pearl Silver

There were plenty of other decisions - door handles, taps architrave and skirting etc.  Generally we just accepted the standard where possible.

The electricals was a little different, as I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted.  Of course this was also the big $$$s.  We ended up spending about $4k even after the items included in the promo pack.
The big stumbling block though, is that they don't do patch panels.  I find this rather surprising, considering they will be doing all the data cabling, but what can I do?  Anyway, because of this, we didn't finalise on the day, as I wanted to run everything past some of my more knowledgable network friends.  After some of their feedback, I'm knocking a few items off (and hopefully about $1k).

Tiles

Today we had the first of three selection appointments in two days - tiling.  Finally we get to do some of the fun stuff, instead of sitting on hold to various utilities companies.  Arranging abolishment of the gas and electricity has been about as painful as I had feared it would be.  But the end is in sight - gas abolishment form has been sent in, and I'm nearly done with the electricity form.  We've met with the demolition guy (funnily enough, he's based about a block away from where I used to live), and received a final quote.

But back to the tiles.  It turned out to be fairly simple, as I've spent plenty of time scouring the internet for ideas and examples, and had a good idea of what I wanted.

For the floors in the bathroom, ensuite, powder room and laundry, we're having a 400 x 400 Portofino Basalt Matt tile with light grey grout.

Floor tile  sample - Basalt Matt 400 x 400

For the ensuite shower walls we'll have the same tile in a gloss, with a white pebble feature tile in the back of the shower niche.

Ensuite tile samples

In the central bathroom we'll have the same floor tile, with a row of the white pebble tiles on the floor along the bath.  The basalt gloss will be used on the bath hob/top/splashback, but I wanted a lighter tile in the shower, as it is walled in on three sides, so for the shower we're having a 400 x 400 Portifino Graphite Gloss on the walls, with a grey pebble feature tile in the back of the niche.

Central bathroom tile samples

The only other tile choice was the laundry splashback.  We went with a standard 300 x 100 cafe grind matt.

So that's it.  The Basalt Matt, Basalt Gloss and Graphite Gloss were all upgrade tiles at $5 per sqm, which cost us about $250.  The pebble feature tiles in the two niches and the row against the bath cost another $200.  So far so good budgetwise - let's hope tomorrow's colour and electrical appointments are as easy.

3D model

I've been working with Google Sketchup to model the new house - it's a bit addictive, but really helpful in visualising sizes of rooms and positioning windows.  In the pictures you can see the Google Maps background that shows the existing land with the old house.

Ground floor

Upstairs

Position on block

Front elevation

Settled!

Well, it's been a while since I updated.  A lot of things have stalled or been going very slowly over the last month.  I'm hoping that is just because we were yet to settle.
Anyway, we settled last week, and spent last weekend cutting off branches so we could actually see what the backyard was like.  It obviously hasn't had much attention for several years, with trees growing fairly thick branches through metal trellis that looks like it had just been left leaning against the tree.

Our land

Apart from that, we have received a couple of quotes for demolition, and we have reviewed the first draft of the tender from Simonds.  For some reason I don't really understand, we had to review it at the office, and couldn't take it with us.  Strange.  Anyway, it seems mostly correct, just a few windows not exactly where we expected.  Costs were less than we allowed for, which is always good.  I suspect we'll make up for that at the gallery.
On that side of things, I'm starting to get a clearer idea of what colours I want in the kitchen and externals.  Still unsure for the laundry and bathroom, but every decision made lifts a weight off my shoulders, and lets me move onto the next problem.
So what's next?
I'm not really sure.  I think my most critical tasks are sorting out the demolition.  Part of that is figuring out who I have to talk to to get gas and electricity abolished.  The bank is apparently working on our pre approval, although they're being a bit slow about it.

Bits and Pieces

Well, we're officially building a house with Simonds.  At least, we have paid over the deposit, so now we can try to organise a site survey before settlement. This also means we received the working drawings for the default plans, and have started marking up the changes we want.

In other news, the grapefruit that we picked from the tree in our soon-to-be new backyard on auction day has ripened. (We picked it from the 10% of the tree that we own.)

Mmm, tangy grapefruit

Also, in my 'other' construction project - building Terry Pratchett's Unseen University from a cutout book - I've finished my first building: the Library!

Which house?

The first step in finding the house we will build was to go through as many online plans as possible and decide which features we wanted.  Fortunately, we both ended up liking much the same thing.
House criteria:

• Open plan kitchen/living area looking onto the backyard
• Master bedroom NOT at the front of the house (preferably at the back)
• Internal entrance from garage to house
• Walk in pantry
• Kitchen with lots of storage and bench space
• Walk in robe in master bedroom (not really a requirement, but every plan seemed to have this anyway, and it would be nice)
• 3 bedroom plus study, with the study not too far away from the living areas
• A second separate lounge/living area, preferably at the front of the house, with potential for a good surround sound setup that is difficult in an open plan living areas
• Minimum house length to give us as big a backyard as possible.

We have a preference to build with Simonds, as we have a friend who works for them, and having that extra point of contact would give me a great deal of peace of mind.  However, unless the house design (and price) was right, we would keep our options open.  As it happens, Simonds ended up having the two designs we really liked.
Initially we were only looking for single storey houses due to pricing, and because we didn't know how much we would have to spend on purchasing land.  Early on in the search we found the Como and went to look at the display home.  I loved the space and the flow of the house design, and the kitchen was great (this was when we added the walk in pantry to our list of must-haves).  The only concern was how open the master bedroom was to the main living space.

Como display home (they built their office in the garage on the left)

Como kitchen...

... and pantry

Once we had found our land, and had some confidence that we might be successful at the auction, we started looking into two storey possibilities and found the Elwood.  We visited the Elwood display home at Point Cook last weekend, and are quite happy with the house layout, but found the kitchen a bit ... disappointing.  It's a little bit small, and the pantry wasn't really a walk in.  However there is another layout option they have available (not online, but it is in their house guide booklet).  This layout potentially solves our problem, but without a display home we'll need to try to imagine how the space will be.

Elwood display home

Anyway that's where we are at at the moment.  Como has a better kitchen, and is 50k cheaper, but the master bedroom is an issue.  The Elwood is probably our favourite if we can solve the kitchen problem, but will be pushing close to the limits of our budget.  It also has the advantage of being about 2 metres shorter and narrower, giving us more garden space.

Week 2: Money, money, money

Two weeks in already!  Going by how busy we've been, I can definitely see this project competely consuming my life for the next 12 months or so. 
Part of the reason I started this blog was to keep track of all the different decisions and ideas as we go, and keep myself focussed on what needs to be done next, and not spending all my time thinking about things that I don't need to worry about for months.  The problem is that the one big decision that is facing us at the moment - which house to build - all comes down to one great big question: how much?  And that means trying to figure out all the extra costs that will come into play when we eventually make those decisions 6 months down the track.  Which just has me going around in circles!

What We've Done:
Found a conveyancer to sort out settlement of the property
Paid deposit on property purchase
Finalised home loan from bank - signed mortgage and home loan documents
Met with P from Simonds to discuss first steps, and what deals they have

What We Need To Do Next:
Sign documents for conveyancer
Figure out ballpark figures of 'additional' costs
Find out if the bank will lend us the figure we have in mind
Visit display home for kitchen ideas
Get quotes for demolition/removal of existing house

And So It Begins...

Ideas are funny things.  How do ideas begin?  Is it like a bolt of inspirational lightning in the brain, or is it more like a mixture of various fairly untasty ingredients that, cooked for exactly the right time at exactly the right temperature, becomes a delicious chocolate mud cake (mmm, mud cake...)? 

You can often point to a particular moment in time and say 'that's when I had the idea', but if you really think about it, there's almost always some irritating problem that's been stewing away in the back of the brain for some time.  At least that's how it was for us.  There was definitely a moment when we decided to build a new house.  And before that there was a decision to move from our unit to a bigger block with a good sized backyard.  But before that there were four years of failed attempts at growing vegetables due to insufficient sunlight and an overabundance of starving possums. This prompted more and more 'creative' solutions, from semi successful aquaponics on the paving outside the backdoor, to discussions of a spiral staircase in the garage leading to rooftop raised vegie patches.

And so you could say that Operation Sweetcorn has been a long time coming.  But for the sake of this blog, it began last Saturday, May 14th, when we bought a house...