Thursday, March 15, 2012

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Earthworks, Set Out, Stormwater & Sewer

Earthworks 27/2/2012
Set Out 29/2/2012
Stormwater & Sewer 6/3/2012



Floorplan & Internal Colour Sceme


I love our floor plan. For the size of the house it ticks all the boxes for us. We made some changes from the builders standard.

We increased the size of the windows to the meals and the family so they are taller and wider to open up the space more. We added in-cavity sliding doors to hallways. Removed opening between living and meals.

This is a picture of the laundry door. It is double glazed with a blind in-between the glass panels, hence the name Interblind. It has an adjustable controller on the inside of the door so the blind can be up or down and tilted. Seems to be a great invention, Love it!


The reason this was changed from a glass slider was so we could have the bench top extended the whole way across.


All other cabinetry for the laundry will be my hubby's job to make after handover. On my wish list is a hanging rail to dry clothes or towels, built in laundry hamper draws and lots of cupboards.



Living areas and hallways will be  laminate floorboards.

Carpet for bedrooms only, this is CAT 1. I'm liking the colour, though if finances would allow we would of upgraded the quality or at least the underlay.

Blinds were an upgrade our builders provide. Its great knowing that this time when we move in we wont have to hang sheets!


                    

Floor tiles for the Bathroom Ensuite and Laundry are CAT 2 Augusta Beige Gloss 450mmx450mm floor tiles. 

The bath hob will have CAT 2 Ash Gloss 300mmx100mm feature tile. 

Cabinetry for these areas are CAT 2 Wilsonart Cool Teak. Bench tops CAT 2 Wilsonart Zircon Shimmer. 

Not convinced on either, lucky my husband said if I don't like it he will change it to anything I want. 

I really wanted gloss finish cabinetry, especially to my Kitchen which is just white. 

So the Kitchen bench tops are CAT 3 Quantum Quartz Luna White 20mm with the glass splash back extended 2.1m CAT 2 Antarctica. 


 We have an Everhard Milan double undermount sink. At some stage I want a fancy tap with a veggie sprayer.



Thursday, February 16, 2012

Façade



Our house has the standard Traditional façade


Roof Tiles -CSR Monier Homestead - Sambuca
Bricks - Austral Urban One - Nougat
Mortar - Rolled - Off White
Gutters/Fascia/Downpipes - Dune
Windows - Eco Classic Double Glazed - Matt Black
Garage Door - Slimline Panel Lift - Dune
Driveway - Merino (sandy colour)
Front door - Windsor 5G - Translucent (also sidelight)


The Infill over the garage door will be painted Dune with the intentions of adding 
timber cladding after handover.


The sample of Austral Urban One Nougat from our builder isn't very accurate at all. And that's even understating it! The weekend before our colour appointment we went into Better Bricks to choose a brick colour. We really liked the sample wall and they gave us a list of houses built in this colour to check out. Below is a better example of what it will look like, it also has the Dune downpipes. Since choosing this brick we have discovered other people have had bad experiences with it, mainly with builders using incorrect cleaning procedures causing the brick to chip. It is a painted brick so beneath is an orange colour. We have our fingers crossed ours will be okay. We paid extra to have this brick so it would be disappointing for it to look under par. In hind sight allowing more funds to upgrade further would of been better.






Introduction

Married four years to a wonderful husband. We have two daughters, 4yrs and 18mths who are the centre of our universe. 


Only 3 years ago we built our first home (3 bed, 1 living, 13sqs), but with a growing family we found we required extra living space. . . so we are enbarking on the journey once more!


I love the suburb and am lucky enough to work local. It has everything we need, great daycare, kinder, primary school, parks, sporting facilities and expanding shopping centre with further future regional growth earmarked for the area.


November 2011 we found the ideal street in the new Estuary Estate. 


Two builders were offering house and land packages so we first got pricing with a local builder to Geelong as we had built through their sister company last time and had an awesome exprience. 


Unfortunatley this time the sales rep wasn't the best, the floorplans were extremely limiting in size and value for money. The final straw was after the sales rep doing a complete U-turn on initial promises we chose to walk away. (Examples were no option to upgrade to double towel rail, would not do warobes in bed 4, smaller kitchen than our last house, lined alfreco area to cost $650pm2)


Lucky for us there was one block left, though it was also the smallest block in the street being only 400m2 12.5 x 32, the position of the block was at the front of the estate overlooking the Estuary Gardens, so we decided it was where we wanted to build our Maison De Reve.


The house we are building is called the Tierra and its 23.9sqs. Its single storey 4 bed 2 bath 2 living. These rooms were a must for us this time. The floorplan is ideal for the block being so norrow, yet I'm hoping it will feel spacious and open as this is what we were drawn to by the design.