I'm Coming Home

I'm coming home I'm coming home
Tell the world I'm coming home
Let the rain wash away...
All the pains of yesterday

I know my kingdom awaits
They've forgiven my mistakes
I'm coming home I'm coming home
Tell the world I'm coming home...

We're coming home people!! Roll out the red carpet! Get the fireworks! Bring on the trumpets and the parade!

Ok that's way over the top and all of them don't necessarily need to happen :) but nonetheless we still got our keys!

So after 9 months and 10 days or 286 days, on Wednesday 22 February 2012, there we are with the key to our home, our sky island.

Hand modeled by our son

We were supposed to get them last December but still judging from the quality of the build, I think I will accept the fact that it is late.  However this would only mean that it is the end of Metricon's construction part.  Before we can move in, we still need to organise the flooring to be installed and the game of waiting isn't over as yet.  I can only now wished that we went with the complete build package with Metricon as at least they include the floor coverings and we can move in right away after the handover...

Landscaping is still need to be done, blinds and hopefully if we have enough funds, shutters and also fencing.

All our sides of neighbor have given the go ahead to build the fence and to do the necessary as we see fit.  They really are wonderful neighbors.

Part of the landscape is in fact nearly done.  Like I promise I will write a separate post about this and the flooring as well.

But here is our dream home at handover.

Developer Design Conditions

We hoped for an easy approval when submitting our plan to the developer design panel.  However they came back with two conditions that we need to comply so as to maintain the standard of the covenant I guess.  

When Metricon rang me earlier today I thought that there was something wrong with the landscape plan.  This was not the case though.  The conditions states that we needed to comply with the privacy requirements and they are:

1. Provide clear comfort glazing to the kitchen feature window, that is the long horizontal window behind the cooker (see the image on the right), and the window of the dining room.  
2. Reduce the height of the window in the first floor leisure room.

We had the option to do some shading device or awning at the completion of the build but we went with the comfort glazing option as we were advised that we can hardly see it anyway.  On top of that, I don't think that I will want to do the awning as it may look weird with the design of the house.

I have no problem with reducing the height of the window as I quite like the look and effect at the Metricon display house at The Ponds anyway.

Fortunately there were the only two that we need to discuss and agree on and we didn't have to pay any extra charge, which is a good thing nowadays.  I guess we can consider ourselves approved!! yay!

On another positive note, we were advised today by our real estate agent that we got a prospective tenant wanting to lease our unit.  They are a couple with 14 months old baby with good reference and job, as advised by the real estate agent.  More importantly, they are willing to pay the rental price that we asked for.  So we agreed to accept their application to lease our place.

We are quite happy that everything is progressing along as planned but at the same time we are also sad to learn that we are going to move from a place that we have made and called home for the last 5-6 years.  This is the place where our two children first set their little foot and play their heart out.  But nevertheless our little family is also growing and we need to move on to a bigger place to raise them.

This is a very special place for us and we had lots of memories here.  We intend to keep our two storey with two bedroom unit as much as we can.  Obviously we need to be honest with ourselves and sell the place as soon as we see some indications that we will be in financial trouble by keeping it.

This Christmas will be the last Christmas that we will celebrate in our little place as our prospective tenant will be moving in on 12 January 2011.  As for ourselves, we are moving back to the parents' place until the house is ready.

External Color Selection

Concrete roof tiles:
Bristile Roofing - Classic - Luna Eclipse

Bricks:
Austral Bricks - Symmetry - Earth
Mortar - Flush - Natural

Gutter:

Colorbond - Monument

Fascia/Downpipe:
Colorbond - Dune

Aluminium/Windows/Lining:
Colorbond - Dune

Eaves:
Dulux - Limed White Quarter

Front Pillar (feature wall of the facade):
Render - Dulux - Rusted Crimson

Fibre cement sheeting / cladding (@ the back of the house):
Dulux - Log Cabin

Garage door:
Gliderol - Tuscan - Caoba Dawn

Entry door:
Corinthian Doors - Infinity - INF6G - Merbau stain with translucent glass
Imagine this door with the timber stained with the color to the next.

 

Driveway (paved):
Austral - Everyday Life - Grey

Contract Presentation and Acceptance

On this day we had our contract presentation.  Like the tender, this too went well.

We finally get to see more working drawing of our house plan including the elevations, external and internal.  Although it is not final but we are just glad to get to see them!

We also get to see the latest version of the building price.  This is much lower than the number we initially saw during the tender presentation by far!!

We accepted and signed the contract pretty much on the same day it was presented to us.  We've gone through the contract at least twice and our presenter was really good  in explaining the stuff that we didn't get the first time.  What I found interesting was there was a line in our contract that says how much they are making out of us.  I don't believe that there many contract or quotes that actually have that line.  Not sure about other builders but hopefully they do the same!  At least this way, we can decide if we are willing to pay the mark up price of the builder.

We also had the external color appointment on the same day.  Apparently, we needed this to submit to the design panel and council approval.  One thing we forgot to do is to get a landscape plan done for submission, well to be perfectly honest, I wasn't aware that I need it.

Although there is no community levy charged on us but there is a standard guideline with our building and landscape design.  I guess with having a standard in the area can bring the property value higher.

On to the next bit.... External Color Selection!

Final Tender Acceptance

After a few correspondence with our tender presenter, we finally accepted our tender today.  We made some minor changes to the original tender that was given to us.

We took out the Metricon complete package that includes:

• Site cost allowance 
• BASIX
• Floor covering for the entire house
• Concrete slab to outdoor room  
• Paved driveway and entry
• Roof sarking
• Security alarm

The list above is in fact very enticing to us.  For a price, the complete package would allow us to move in to our brand new home immediately upon building completion.  However we need to be completely happy with everything that we are getting as part of the package.

We went to Di Lorenzo to inspect the category 1 carpet and tiles that we will be getting, should we go with this package.  The tiles collection at Di Lorenzo was amazing, however being category 1, our selection is quite limited.  The lady that guide us when we get to the store, said that we are allowed to select anything from the store but there will be an additional charge, if we are to select anything that is over our allowance limit and depending on our selection there may also be an extra labour charge as well as under lay charge.

In a perfect world where we have lots of money to spend, this may be fine with us as their collection of the tiles were very good.  So we considered a number of scenario if we were to go with the complete package.

In the end, we decided to have solid timber for our ground floor and carpet for the stairs, initially, and the first floor.  As Di Lorenzo doesn't have that many selection with the timber, we decided to take the Metricon complete package out.

As a result, we will then need to pay separately for the site cost.  BASIX is not applicable to us as we are in the recycled water area, so in the tender this was actually a credit to us.  It was quite considerably a huge amount too!  How I will miss seeing this credit item in the tender :).

For the final changes of the tender we, here is what we decided to keep:

• Site cost
• Concrete slab to outdoor room
• Roof sarking
• Security alarm
• Paved driveway
• Increased aluminium stacker door height to match the height of timber bi-fold door

We were advised that we could have the security alarm from an external provider.  However as the nature of the product is electrical and anything that run inside the structure of the house, I'd rather to have this done by the builder.  I believe installing this at a later stage could end up costing us a lot more.  For example air conditioner, which I will post another entry on the subject.

So there it is, one more step to having our dream home.

Build Variations

I don't realize until today that the only time to do our thinking and work on our project home are at late nights after the kids are gone to bed.  This is really getting a lot more interesting and we are now clearer on what we are up against... some heavy late night sleep!!  I thought I am through with the late nights when I graduated.... I guess I was too early to even think that....  oh wait did I have enough sleep when we had our children... hmm... looks like sleeping isn't a requirement anymore when you reach parenthood. :)

As the time goes on and whilst also waiting anxiously for our tender presentation, we thought that it would be sensible for us to actually start thinking of what our dream home is going to look like.  We never knew that it would literally takes a lot of detailed thinking, readings as well as researching into every corner of the home!

Till today, Metricon hasn't contacted us for any appointments yet.  Our sales consultant advised us that he hasn't been able to order site surveyors to our land as there is no kerb and gutter in place.  The weather factor also comes into play as there has been a lot of rain for the last few weeks.

In the meantime, we have more time to think about some "home improvement" ideas and there are also some changes that are required by The Ponds design panel.

Compulsory changes to the house design:

• 600mm articulation to first floor family sitting room wall to avoid over 14 meters of straigt wall.  We thought it would be sensible to do it on this part of the house as we would love a bigger living space.
• Generally a minimum of 450mm to all part of the house.
• Render to front pillar of the house.

Upgrades/Changes:

• Shower to the powder room
• Microwave tower
• Closing off the study room with 2 cavity sliding door.  We thought it would be a good idea considering that we have two kids and we can't just leave cables lying around and the study room will have plenty of it
• Opening of the wall between the study room and the sitting room.
• Internal access from garage
• Storage room under the stairs
• An extra shower head in the ensuite
• Two sets of pot drawers next to the cooker in the kitchen
• Extra pot drawers in the ensuite
• Higher wardrobes ceiling to 190mm in the master bedroom only
• Daikin ducted air conditioner 15kw (6HP), 12 outlets, 2 zones.

This study room wall opening seems like a good idea and it's quite cheap to do but I wonder how much is the plantation shutter going to cost??

What we get from the Reflection package (worth up to $70,100 of upgrades for $4,888):

• 90mm white ant resistant structural T2 wall and roof framing
• Bi-fold timber door, stained (up to 2400mm)
• Caesar Stone benchtop to kitchen, laundry, ensuite, powder room and bathroom.
• Baumatic Designer Italian stainless steel upright cooker with 5 burner gas cooktop
• Pivot front entry door - WIN6G includes upgraded 'pivot' entry door frame
• Framed mirrored robe doors to wardrobes
• Downlight pack of 20 in addition to the standard no of light points provided
• Upgraded ceiling height to 2550mm first floor
• 2 solid timber doors with translucent glass
• 2340mm high internal passage doors
• Laundry fitout with inset tub, 800mm base and overhead cupboards pluss 400mm broom cupboard
• Upgraded tiling to 2100mm to ensuite only
• Baumatic stainless steel dishwasher
• Contemporary stainless steel balusters (internal staircase)
• Choice of Baumatic stainless steel rangehood 900mm
• Remote-controlled garage door
• Horizontal feature windon to kitchen with square set finish
• Baumatic stainless steel microwave with trim kit
• Stainless steel back to back door handle (Gainsborough Horizon style 750mm)
• Timber stained treads (2 at the bottom of staircase)

To have this horizontal window when cooking seems pretty cool to us! :)

Still to do:

• Floor coverings.  We are thinking of going timber for the wet area and carpet for the first floor
• Driveway
• Landscaping
• Fencing. Brick fencing to the front and mailbox, maybe colorbond fence for sides and the back of the house.
• Timber decking to porch and outdoor room.  A friend of mine has already offered his help to do the work, all I need to do is to get the materials and help him do the job. Oh and dinner for the family :) the last part is not hard at all :)
• Windows coverings
• Security alarm

Generally we are happy with the Tribeca floor plan itself.  So if the tender comes back with a higher price than we expected that we don't mind not having some of the upgrades that we thought about.  We still need some funds to get furnitures don't we?  Although getting the furniture part will probably happen over the period of time but we still need to hold our horses with upgrades!

This is what we have requested our sales consultant to include in the tender.  Once he is able to order the soil test done, we'll be contacted to make our tender presentation appointment.

Until then, it's a waiting game for us...  Rain please quickly go away...

This is my house!!!

On this day, we finally decided that we are going to put some deposit money as well as signing our lives away with Metricon to build our dream home.

It was the Tribeca 36 with Metro facade that we are going with.

The House

The Floor Plan

We made our appointment with one of Metricon's sales consultant at Kellyville Ridge display center but we were late getting there as my son had a stomach bug and was throwing up during the trip.

After nearly 1 hour late for our appointment, we finally arrived.  We verified all the standard inclusion list again; did a walkthrough of the house as we didn't do that the first time; and finally we also wanted to confirm that we are getting an extension to our tender expiry period as our land is not going to be registered until December 2010.

Our sales consultant made a call to his manager to confirm the availability of the manager sale and confirmed that we'll definitely secure our tender price for 240 days.  The default tender expiry period is 150 days and that will only get us until October of this year in which it will not work for us.  So having 240 days for the tender expiry days will help us quite a lot as Metricon charges 0.5% of the total value of contract price per month if we don't go into construction within 150 days.

Some may think, why did we sign the request for tender on this day and not wait until at least our land is registered?  Well the answer is, Metricon will have their prices increased by at least $10k on the Monday 24th May.  By putting in the deposit on this day, it will guarantee us today's price and not having to deal with the price increase.  Also one of their promotion package which is called the Reflection Package, and this package will get us most of the stuff that we wanted, was going to finish at the end of the month.  The promotion was the main factor that we decided to sign up on this day really.

Maybe they tricked us into it or it could probably be a sales pitch to put some pressure on us.  Having said that and knowing the facts, at the end of the day, we were quite happy with our decision. :)

One step closer to owning a brand new home!

House House House... - The Dream Home

So now that we know that we are going to get a double storey house, the question is which one?

After countless number of trips to The Ponds builder display village and Homeworld that seemed like to go on forever, we were finally able to shortlist a number of house design that we like.

1.  Metricon: Riva 34 - Metro Facade
The design gives a lot of private open space area and it covers only about 28% of the total area.  We didn't really like the facade of the house but, in general principle, it's really the floor plan that we really liked.  From what we can see from the geosite image, it would appear that the house won't go anywhere near the manholes as well.

We were a bit disappointed when we discovered that the rumpus room at the back of the house that is on display at their Kellyville Ridge center was actually an upgrade.  In order to "add" that room it will cost us around $25k.

Our sales consultant was very patient with us throughout the questioning session :).

2.  AV Jennings: Atrium 285 - Capri Facade
I must say that the house that is on display at The Ponds builder village is really nice and a very lovely home.  The consultant also advised us that the display home was full of upgrades in it.  The only concern I have about Atrium was that the house was originally design for a corner block.  So if we wanted this house, we'll need to make some modifications such as moving the entrance to the study room whilst also extending the study room so that we can actually have one.

Comparing to the Riva from Metricon, we like the facade of Atrium better.  It feels more homey.  However there will be extra costs depending on which facade that we choose.  The only problem in this is we will not choose the traditional facade.

The price for the standard range would also fit our budget perfectly and way under.



3.  Metricon: Tribeca 36 - Metro Facade
This comes in at the very last minute.  After spending most part of the day with one of Metricon's sales consultant, we thought that we have what we have come  for and all of the informations that we need to make our decision.  However we can't help but to have a last sneak peek at the Tribeca.

Maybe it's because we have spent most of the days going through all of the display house at Metricon in great details that we were finally able to spot that the Tribeca isn't very much different to the Riva.  I mean it has the same elements of floor plan but Tribeca have an extra study room and rumpus room.  All others are pretty much the same.

So we made an inquiry about the price for Tribeca 36 (the smaller version from the display center) with Metro facade and the difference was the cost of building the rumpus room for the Riva.

Tribeca 40 - Coastal Facade on display at Metricon display centre at The Ponds

Which house did we choose? Based on the above, it is not a secret that we will be going for the Tribeca 36 with Metro facade.  We did seriously consider of going with AV Jennings with their Atrium 285 design and also Metricon was a bit pricey and we will be stretching our budget.  However at the end of the day, after considering factors such as the standard inclusion list, promotion package and the quality of all the wares that we are going to get, it was Metricon's that we like the best.

And there it is, after a good 3 months of researching and looking at the display centers, we finally found our dream home...

Home and Builder Selection

Finding a house that can work on our block of land is not at all an easy task!!  We are quite restricted in the usage of the area and we also have to comply with The Ponds design guideline.  This is another challenging journey itself.  Here's how the story goes.

Upon purchasing the block of land, my wife and I were still quite puzzled as to what we are going to do next.  Although the answer is clearly "find a builder and get them to build a house on that land" but there are some constraints.  This would be things such as financials, the house, the plan and most importantly what do we prefer?  As this is our first time building experience, we have absolutely no idea what to expect and what kind of house we are looking for.

In the hype of my excitement in acquiring a block of land, we initially wanted a house that is big as possible for our two little kids to play around and we also thought it would be a good investment for us in the future.  So a double storey house would seem like a perfect design to suit our needs.

My excitement was quickly dismissed when I was told that we will most likely going for a single storey house design so that we may be able to save some funds if we wanted to improve the house later.  I was utterly devastated but that is the logical explanation and it is true.  From what we have heard, building a house can be quite costly and there is always something in the end that may catch us off guard so we may need the extra cash.  After all, this is our first building experience...

So the house hunting begins...

With that in mind, over the few weeks after acquiring the land, we made few trips to The Ponds and Homeworld in order to look for a house design that may suit our lifestyle and needs.  Some of the following are the main factor in our consideration (and it is very basic!! :)):

• Big enough for the children to play
• Not too big of a backyard
• Double Garage
• Minimum of 4 bedrooms
• Minimum of 2 bathrooms
• A study room

This is where the problem begin!  After talking to and a very lengthy discussions with a few builders at The Ponds and Homeworld, they all have nearly the same opinion as well as issue in fitting a house to our block of land.  This is due to the restrictions and easements on the back of our land, i.e. the manholes.  

A single storey house would be difficult to fit in without having to redesign the floor plan so that it avoids the manholes.  Conceptually, it could work and I've seen some builders that redesign their floor plan to work on our block of land.  However it's the end results is what we don't like.  We are quite fussy in that sense :P.

A double storey house design would work better for our block as majority avoids the restrictions and easements altogether.  It is also better as it will make better use of the space on that land.  

So it looks like, again, back to where we started.  What are we going to do with this piece of land?  

We thought about letting it go and lose our holding deposit money of $300 and wait for another land release that has minimum, if not, no restrictions on it.  The difficulties in that idea is getting to The Ponds sales office in time so that we can have some selections on the piece land itself.  Although the queue system at the sales office has changed dramatically, however both of us are working and considering the distance that we need to travel to get there, we won't make it on time.

We also thought about settling on the land and then sell it later after a couple of years.  However this idea would still incur some maintenance fee on our side.  In this case we would settle for an established house instead and at least we don't have to worry about building experience and the headache associated with it.

The answer to this may look very simple and easy enough but it was very difficult for us to make that leap forward.  Then after few family discussions and meetings, we are back to our original ideas, decided to trust everything that we had and courageously embracing our dreams (and hope that we are not being stupid in this).  So another hunting begins for a DOUBLE STOREY house :).  

Some of the builders that we looked at include:

Lili Homes

Eden Brae

Jandson Homes

AV Jennings

Metricon

AllCastle Homes

Masterton

There is some more builders that we saw that I haven't include here but it was these builders that we showed our contour diagram and discussed about their house design.