Day 40 - 13/12/13

A major update while I was away this week, is that all the steel work got delivered and installed.

We have some huge beams running through the house.  The main beam is actually deeper than we had thought, and this means we will now have a bulkhead separating the kitchen and live/dining which is not what we wanted, but what do you do??

The builders also stopped today until January for the Xmas break.

Day 31 - 4/12/13

The frame is now coming along so quick.

Day 29 - 2/12/13

We have power and some frames!!

Our lovely neighbours allowed us to use their power for a few days so the builders could start the frame.  

AGL then connected everything today so we can stop using their power.  Now the fun begins.

Day 26 - 29/11/13

While we are waiting for AGL to connect power so they can start framing, a few things have been going on.

• Nuvo Homes picked up some issues with our plans and windows today which is great to fix it now.
• We finished door handles, tile selection, splashback colours etc (all under the Colours Menu above)
• Workplace Health and Safety forced us to fence all the way around the property this week
• We are now up to Working Drawings L, with some more detail added, change of colours for the buildings to see it better, fixing some flooring materials etc.
• We have applied for electricity and gas with AGL, and they are just waiting on Energex to put the metre in place supposedly.  

All going well, framing may start early next week if power works.  That would be great to see it happen.

I am also meeting Anthony Rigg, our architect, onsite Monday to look over potential issues with the extra slope our site has due to the waffle pad being higher than anticipated, and less land cut (more landfill) occurred.  This may play havoc with the front yard, so looking at options.

Thanks to Luke Bacon who has come onsite and given a lot of great advise with the building, and Lincoln Justins who has helped me understand all the issues with termites etc.

Timber arrived today, so its starting!!

Day 19 - 22/11/13 Part 2

Slab is done!  Now it is starting to feel a little more real.

Day 19 - 22/11/13

Concrete is being poured as we speak.  Should have a slab by this afternoon!

Day 18 - 21/11/13

The 'upside down fruit boxes' were put on site today, all plumbing done for the slab, and all boxing done for the concrete pour tomorrow, weather permitting!

Day 16 - 19/11/13

Today they dub the trenches for the power, water, gas and fibre optic lead in cables.

They also started all the plumbing work.

Day 11 - 14/11/13

We have a fence up and more importantly, a toilet!  haha

Drainage is being done on Wednesday as is the electrical lead-in weather permitting.

Day 1 - 04/11/13

We have FINALLY started!

They cut and filled the land yesterday, and expect to start the house layout tomorrow.  I can't really believe its happening.

This is the letter we have been waiting to see for months... Council Approval!!

All ready to go, and all going well they will break ground next week (while I am away overseas of course!)

Thankfully we did get our 6 STAR Energy rating as well, without Solar.  That can only be a good thing.

Also below are the updates on the neighbours fence that has been finished on our southern side.  They are also starting a planter box at the front it looks.

Over the last week, we had final covenant approval for the design of the house and landscaping!  Finally!

We have had to change driveways and a few other small things.

It is in council and we are expecting it to be out of council first week of November all going well.  Bank approvals in place, and everything is ready to pull the trigger.

The new Working Drawings J are attached below.

Current Working Drawings Version J

Out new neighbours have also started on the fence on one side of our house.

As you can see, I have also marked out our house with yellow pegs so we could get a feel for the size of the yard etc.

For covenant approval, we had to chose some external colours, landscaping and plants!  What a stress over the weekend.

Here they are, in a rough form.

Lexicon on the upper level, Vanilla Quake on the lower level except the garage which will be Antique Silver.

We met with our colour consultant, and its probably been the hardest thing yet!  Choosing colours for the exterior especially is difficult, and we are now second guessing out choices already!

We really wanted to go with a grey palette, but ended up with a more brown one... who knows!

On a happier note, months after we actually paid for it, Rochedale Estates finally have our block listed as SOLD!

Nuvo have also put their sign up which makes us feel like this is a bit more real.

Our new neighbours, Kevin and Claude from South Africa seem lovely, and have two younger boys who attend Citipoint College which is great.  Our split of the fence bordering their property is about $70 per linear metre for 'Good Neighbour', capped fencing for those who care.

A sad and happy day today.  We finally sign the contracts and get this thing moving, but it looks like it will take 231 days to build!!  Good grief!  Stupid Xmas holidays!

So that looks like a May house move at this stage.  Quite upset about that, but hey, what can you do.

I have also started the proper tabs across the top for the links to the final plans, renders, gadgets and suppliers.  This should make it easier to find them in all the updates.  I will also start a new list of blogs once building commences and move all these pre building ones into its own section to clean things up.

Wowser!  We think we are doing designing after 25+ version of the house!

Below is a list of lots of the small changes of the last couple of weeks, plus a little bit about our Architect who has been amazing and the latest plans.

We pick up the contract Friday, and then its into council to hopefully get going on this thing!  Yay!!!

• Changed the size of the wine cabinet (non-alcoholic of course!! haha) to fit different bottles, and added a shelf there for recipe books
• Added a solid core door to the powder room to make it a bit more quiet since it is beside the dining room.  It is now fully insulated, with that new door.
• We changed the door opening directions to the entry door and internal office doors
• Changed flooring heights and bench heights around the place
• Changed some windows like the main bathroom and main office (so the desk doesnt interfere with the opening)
• Added all the new $8000 worth of engineering to the plans
• Added a laundry shelf instead of a bulk head etc.
• Added lockable manholes to house

Lots of smaller things as well, just fixing up lots of niggling things before contract.

We have a few issues, such as Nuvo not doing the skirting after we put the floor downs, as they say they are liable for floor damage, so now negotiating as to a credit for all of this.

I had a meeting with Nuvo Homes yesterday with everyone involved there, including the owner of Nuvo homes.

Was good to get a lot sorted out, and it seems there is not much we can do with the surprise $8000 engineering bill, as the wind may be a factor due to the slope of the block we are on, and the fact there may only be a one storey house beside us.

We tidied up a lot of pricing, and have decided that we will look to source our own electricians for the whole job, as the quotes they had gotten for the CBUS wiring etc were absolute jokes.

We are also able to use Kent Kitchens to do the kitchen, which we are grateful for as we really wanted Jared to do our kitchen, bathrooms and laundry, so thats a win.

Hopefully they will get the new contracts to us quickly, we can get Anthony from Bleuscape to update the working drawings even quicker, and then into council within the week all going well.

Nothing much to report at the moment, as we are waiting on Nuvo to come back with final pricing after electrical and engineering reports have come back to them.

It seems engineering will add a lot of money due to wind ratings or something.  Who knows why???

We have been told once we have the new prices, and sign off on them, it will into council which should take a month, and then they can start.

As soon as we have something more on this VERY SLOW process, I will write again...

We have all 25 pages of working drawings that we are going through now to pick up any issues.

Things like benches saying 40mm when we have 20mm benches, and other things like that.  Its a huge task.

We still haven't decided on colours, and thought we had it at the white/grey colours, but we are now leaning towards browns again to fit in with all our new neighbours and not stand out too much.

I wont say I will never build again, but my word, what a journey of stress...

This week we have been informed that we now need a water tank even though its not required by law anymore, the Rochedale Estates require you to have one... there is another $5000 down the drain!

Plans are getting drawn by Anthony still at this stage, so nothing more to show just yet.

In other developments, we met with Boutique Kitchens at Virginia last week.  To be completely honest, we were not overly impressed by the showroom and the amount of work gone into prep for us arriving, with wrong information all over the place.

It seems 2Pak as an upgrade is going to be $6k or more, which is just stupid money for it, so we have requested Nuvo homes to take the kitchen/bathrooms out of the quote, and see what we will get back from it.

I then have a meeting with Kitchen Connections tomorrow (they have $4000 off this June), and they do a Thermal Wrap, which is cheaper than 2Pak but better than laminate which I dont like due to the dirt and lines on the cabinets.

Our preferred option is to go with Jared Kent from www.kentkitchens.com.au who is not only a great friend, but did our current bathrooms in our existing house.

I know working with friends can be dicey, and we have been burnt in the past, but I have full confidence in Jared!!

Lets see how his quote comes back, and how Kitchen Connections goes tomorrow!

On another note, Suncorp put a lot of the money into an account today for us to start using.  Cant say I like their Internet Banking compared with Comm Banks so far though.

UPDATE: Just heard from Nuvo homes that they dont normally allow Kitchens to be done separately, as they have issues with clients scheduling etc, and when the client cant pay for the kitchen separately, the whole house gets put back which causes them not to get paid.

This will be more fun than I anticipated.... will see how it goes.

We have officially signed up with Nuvo Homes to build our Anthony Rigg designed home in Rochedale Estates.

A weight off our shoulders having made the decision, which we hope is the right one, but now an even bigger weight on them moving forward!

We almost certainly have to be out of our current home before Xmas, so whether we get into the new one, or have to rent for a month or so, is a big question/headache.  Lets see how Nuvo does!

Off to visit Boutique Kitchens to design the kitchen on Friday, and then the real fun begins.

Will post some new photos shortly of the latest plans, electrical etc.

It has  been 9 revisions since I last posted, and at version 12 with Anthony Rigg from Bleuscape, we are so close to exactly what we want.

It looks likely we will go with Nuvo homes as our builders.  They are not the cheapest, but our account manager, Bill Andrews, has been just brilliant, and if we do sign with them this week, it is all down to him.  (He works out of their Durack display home, and I cant recommend him enough)

We still have to get final pricing before signing, as we are over budget, so we are doing all we can to cut down the costs around the house... how we cut $35k off I have no idea.

A new law came into affect on May 1, stating that all windows upstairs in a two story house can in essence not open more than 10-12cm unless you have security grills or Crimsafe (or similar).  It's to prevent children falling out, but how do you cool a home in an environmentally friendly way with 10cm of window openings?  I guess shares in Crimsafe or security grills are going to go up!

Click here to read more on the new rules

Our almost final plans (few small changes, window changes etc) are below.

Anthony Rigg from Bleuscape has come up with version 3 for us to consider. 

We had indicated to him that we had been concerned with noise from the internal void, not having the kitchen front and centre in the house and a few other things.

This design goes a long way to fixing some of those issues, but does introduce a few other issues.

We are so torn on what to do.  Go with something we know and love, or take the risk.  Are we putting too much into design, verse room size for example, and we keep asking the question of what did we not like about the original design?

I must say Anthony is very clever with his designs...