Project Regent

Well thats another major milestone completed.  This afternoon we spent just over 3 hours at Porter Davis going through, altering and signing the construction contract.  Now I need to goto the bank and get yet another large cheque!

The process was actually quite pain free, just a lot of reading and digesting of information.  The good news is that with all our upgrades, alterations and additions we’re still under budget (just).  There were some good things and bad things we discovered.

Good things:

• Render for the portico columns at the front are $250 less then budgeted
• We’re under budget generally
• Passed our 5 star energy rating with flying colours
• Thats it really!

Bad things:

• Slab for the alfresco came in at $1681 when we were told it’d be around $600
• The dumper shower head for the ensuite was quoted as $407 via email, came in at $593 (they originally quoted the wrong one).  This is actually $93 over what I was prepared to pay, but oh well, its a great shower head
• Still not happy about paying $350 for translucent glazing in the front door when its only $210 extra on the Corinthian Doors website
• The window for bedroom 4 was randomly moved to the wrong wall.  We left it as standard but someone decided it was to be moved.  Its going back.
• There was a charge of $1026 for 2 random brick columns to the portico.  “Um excuse me, but arn’t the pillars included with the Ormond Facade?”. Yes they are!  That cost has been removed.

So we should still be on target for a pre-christmas moving date.  We need to chase up a date for land titling - once that has happened we can have our start date allocated and off we go.  So long as we can start building no later then the middle of August we’re on track.

Oh!  one other thing we had to get altered.  The draftsman decided to sit out house on the land so that the minimum space possible was between the garage wall and fence, with a larger gap between the other side of the house that that fence.  Now all our outdoor living space is on the garage side of the house and the other side is just wasted space.  We got them push the house across the block a bit giving us an extra half meter of outdoor living.  Sometimes you have wonder what people are thinking!

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).

Oh my! What a busy, yet exciting day.  We had both our Electrical and Colour selection appointments.  It’s all happening pretty fast.  Within a week of having contact from Porter Davis we had two of our three selection appointments not only set, but done!  This is rare, and to have them both on the same day is not common!  We’ve been lucky.

The day started with a visit to National Tiles, and no we didn’t see Frank Walker (Melbournians would get that reference).  We thought it would be a good idea to at least have a look at what tiles we like before finalising our colour selection.  We found what we like and the only upgrade here will be a small amount for the funky glass feature tiles we talked about in an earlier post.  We also managed to set our tile selection appointment - April 21st!

Brown Terrain Bricks

Time Capsual Render

Windows, Gutters, Down Pipes & Garage Door

Roof Files (Barramundi)

Then it was off to Hopetoun Interiors for our electrical selection.  This was a fairly simple process untill I decided to ask about networking the house.  We had already got a quote from an electrician to do this independent of Porter Davis as we though this would be cheaper.  The quote was just over $2000.  Stragely enough Porter Davis could do it for $790!  We love saiving $1300, although we spent that on other bits and pieces and we still have 10 data points through the house.  All up we added about 10 double powerpoints, 1 outdoor double power point and a single outdoor powerpoint.  We also added 2 additional TV points and 2 phone points.  In both bathrooms we’re adding IXL Tastic light/fan/heat units - a must for those cold winter mornings.

Our next appointment was for all the internal selections (except tiles).  All up this only took just over an hour.  Seeing that we had been to Hopetoun Interiors 3 times before we pretty much knew what we wanted.

Kitchen Cupboards (Burnished Wood)

Stone Bench Top (Ice)

For the outside of the house we’ve selected Brown Terrain bricks, Woodland Grey for the windows, garage door, guttering and downpipes, and  Capsual for the render on the portico posts.  Roof Tiles will be Barramundi which is a dark grey.

Everytime you bink while at Hopetoun Interiors it seems to cost you money.  We had to pay more to have translucent glass in the front door and side windows.  Not sure how much that will cost yet.  We also upgraded our carpet underlay (about $300).

All up for the interior there are 15 pages of colour selections for everything, so I won’t list them all, you’ll just have to come visit when we move in!

Now we just have to wait to see how much it all came to.  Not too much we hope!

Our lamp post

Oooh this is getting exciting.

So today we had our final sales consultation out at Point Cook and got our written sales quote - still not too scary. And while we were there, let’s face it, we couldn’t help ourselves, we went for a drive by the block - and guess what? A lamp post has grown since we were last there, as well as leveled land, more markings and posts. So this lamp post is on Wiley way, and about halfway into our block - good things (lighting) and bad things (well, lighting too) go with that, but at least will make it easier to find, even if it ruins our aesthetic beauty. But at least it’s a funky looking lamp post. And if the lighting is anything like that of other estates, excess light won’t really be too much of a problem.

Our View

So, after taking that photo, I turned and looked to the otherside of the road, and that is our view. For the moment, at least. Featherbrook estate is going up on the left, and that will no doubt soon be houses too, but in the meantime we have some farmland to look at. And no, it’s not that far from the city.

We also found out today that if the title comes through as predicted (June 09), construction could start not long after that and we could potentially be in before Christmas - maybe 70% chance of that happening. So we’re putting it out there for our first Christmas in our new home. So… about those housewarming presents…

Exciting days!