Project Regent

…get set, GO!!!

Yes thats right we have a new site start date.  Its this coming Monday August 24th!  Its in the PD system so lets hope it stays there and we do start on Monday.

The PD 24/7 system shows us that the Administration part of the process is complete and we’re in the Construction phase.  Its full speed ahead from here.

PD 24/7 showing our progress

What about the window issue I hear you say?  Well I won’t go into it but its all sorted and we got what we wanted, or should I say back to the way it is on their stock-standard floor plan.

Now that we’re starting stay tuned for a stack of photos of our progress!

I thought I’d put up the plans and elevations of the house for you all to look at. (click image for a bigger version)

Thought I’d do a quick update as we’re getting closer to the final tick of approval from the bank.  On Monday we’re signing the construction contact with PD which will then goto the bank so they can do their valuation and give us formal approval!  That will aparently still take them 2 weeks but at least now we have some kind of timeframe.

Also, I went past the block today.  The fence is still up so we can’t actually step foot on our land, but it looks pretty much ready for building.  All the blocks in our release have now been flattened off.  They’ve also painted the markings on the road, put those little reflective things on the road and have started to build the little fence on the nature strip that divides Wylie Way from Sneydes Road.

I also popped into the land sales office to see how the sales of release 19b were going.  19b went on sale last weekend.  Strangely enough there are still about half the blocks available. When we put the deposit on our land it was a week after 19a went on sale and there were only about 4 blocks left.  I wonder if it is because the people who build in stage 19b will miss the deadline for getting the $26K from K Rudd (unless they extend it).

We have our first official appointment of the process on Tuesday.  We’re meeting with Porter Davis to formalise the quote and find out what we’re up for.  So far its all in budget.

The big decision left is which particular Facade to built.  Its a toss up between 2.  The Ormond and the Chalet.  In an ideal world we’d love to build the Chalet Facade as it is on display out at Point Cook, but that would be a $10K addition.  That’s not in the budget!  The compormise on the Chalet facade would be to have full brick and render the “feature” wall.  On the Display home they have rednered part of the front and have a stone feature wall.

Marty being a PhotoShop whizzzzzzz has played around with some brick colours using images from the Porter Davis website.  Once we’ve decided (has to be before Tuesday) we’ll post an “artists impression” of our house.

Oh my!! We’re building a house!  Well subject to the bank giving us the money.

We’re putting it out to the Universe that this IS going to happen so we’ve started the process before we actually have finance approval.  No use sitting back waiting for those bastards to get their act together!

So I gather you want to know where, what and all that good stuff?  Well Point Cook is the location and we’ve select Porter Davis as the builder (more of that in a bit).  The background of our blog is a photo of our actual block of land.  Pretty isn’t it.  As I’m sure you guessed it’s still quite some time from being ready to build.  We’re expecting titles to be released in June sometime, and that is when we’ll find out our house number.  Mikey’s calculations (based on no theory at all) put it as being either 12, 23 or 24 - depending on how they number the blocks.  We’re happy with anything really.

Last Monday we spent our public holiday out at Point Cook getting the quote for the house and selecting our block of land.  There is a bit of a land shortage in the west of Melbourne at the moment so we had a choice of 2 blocks, both exactly the same, both in the same street and both the same price.  We picked this particular one based on our neighbours surnames - nothing scientific there.

Click me to see a bigger version

The first time we went through the display home we both just loved the layout and the way it flows.  Here is an image of the floorplan.  We did make some changes from the standard, but nothing major.  Bedroom 4 on the plan is by standard an open study, we added doors to the ensuite and robe in the master bedroom (they get you for everything), and door between the garage and the house and added the two small windows next to the sliding door off the family/meals area.  We’ve added lots more but you’ll hear about those along the way.

So it’s all very exciting, but also a little scary.  Its a lot of money, but also make a lot of sense.  We’ll be sure to keep you up dated along the way so come back and follow our journey to Point Cook.

Mikey & Marty.