Preparation Plans Completed

So it's taken a few weeks, well around 6 I think, but we went to Warwick Farm on Saturday and went through our plans at last with our CSC.  She was pretty well organised and there weren't many problems with the plans to be honest we were both pretty happy with how the morning went.

One small problem was with our Complying Development (CD), turns out that the house was 78mm too tall to be considered a CD and that unless we authorised a slight amendment in a small amount of additional cut to bring the house down that we would need to go through a council DA.  Well hmm we thought that one over for about 6 seconds, and then said make the changes, CA through a certifier that takes all of a week or so, or a minimum of 3 months in council, no decision needed really.

Anyway so the plans are back with the drafters to amend the few small issues, and a few questions, and then we'll be on our way to the next phase (dependant on the sale of another property that is) so its all moving pretty well, couldn't be happier with it all.  :)

So once we have the final plans I'll put them up for the world to see.

Colour Selection

Due to Basix (thats the buidling and sustainability index for those outside of NSW) requirements, and on direction from our CSC at Masterton, we have been running around while I have some time off trying to determine all of our external colours.  I know its funny that we only started to design the house last week and we already have to chose what colour the house will be, but o well we can only follow the directions given.

So after some late nights discussing things and some running around today to a couple of different paint places because one store cant stock all the different paint suppliers for some reason, we have decided on the following:

Roof - Monier Traditional profile tile in Barramundi

Gutters - Colorbond Iron Stone

Downpipes and Fascia - Colorbond Evening Haze

Window frames - Ultra Silver Gloss

Garage door - Panel Glide in Colorbond Shale Grey

External paint -
Two colours, one for the main body of the house and the other for the feature areas (as highlights in the Savoy Facade picture below somewhere (pillars, around door and garage)):

Main - Taupe Stone

Feature - Gravel

I would have posted sample, however none of the sites (Taubmans, Colorbond) would play nice and I couldn't get access to them.

So thats one thing off our list of many many things to do over the coming weeks, but it feels pretty good to make some level of progress!

The proposal, and the acceptance

So we went out and met with our CSC at the Warwick Farm office this afternoon and progressed some towards are new home goal.  The CSC was pretty good, we went over the site first and she explained the issues with our site, that being a drop from the front right corner of the agrage to the back left corner of the house of around 1.6m.  What this actually means to us, well and increase in the site costs (about double) and a step down between the laundry and kitchen of around 2-3 steps.

Apparently we're getting 12 drop edge beams out the back, which I understand means we build up the back of the slab to around 12 times the standard thickness, or something like that.  We also end up with a patio from the laundry and one from the back of the house, which we will probably remove and add our own timber deck to later.  The Alfresco out the side will look good I think measuring around 3500 x 7500 or there abouts.

The positives to this is that we'll have normal height ceilings in the front, and high ceilings out the back, which will look pretty good.  The house is going to be set back around 7.5 metres giving us enough room at the front for a turn in and a bigger backyard than we thought, at around 15.5m wide and 20m deep we're pretty happy with it.

So we paid our initial design fee and signed the authority to prepare plans and specifications today and now have around 1 month to determine the outside colours and confirm either timber or tiles for the downstair flooring.  We got a small break in the cost with a free upgrade to double power points throughout, carpets in the bedrooms, 2 TV points and 2 Phone points as well as a $6000 discount on the Ducted A/C, I know it doesn't sound much but every little bit helps in the end I guess.

The only thing that is unknown at the moment, do we need a full DA or have we made it through as a complying development, or please let it be a complying development....

The purchase.

So after some time looking at established homes we found that not only is the market completely over-priced around the shire, but that we couldn't find that one house that we could see ourselves living in for the next 20 years.

After some suggestions from my father-in-law we went and looked at an old property on 697sqm of land.  What did we find you may ask, well a very old fibro house that had been lovingly looked after for many years, but better than that, we found potential and for the first time in weeks we were excited about the possibilities.  As things go within the world of real estate we signed a contract of purchase within 24 hours of viewing the house, and bam we were off and racing.

This is the frontage from the road

Some shots of the backyard as it current stands...

The little man standing in the drive about where the new garage will start

So were off to Masterton tomorrow to meet with the consultant regarding the new home proposal they have put together for us, some extra site costs involved apparently as there is a fall of about 1.7m across the site where the house will be positioned.  But were happy, we chose the Masterton Villina design with the Savoy Facade (changed the front windows to look like the Contemporary windows though) and we wont be going with the fake rock on the pillars.  Aside from those and the addition of an alfresco out the back we wont be changing the outward appearance of the house all that much.

This is the house at the display village at Warwick Farm

We're both really looking forward to getting on with it so we can be in late next year, hopefully Christmas 2010 will be in the comfort of our new home, fingers crossed, and I'm pretty sure that Chris can't wait for all that open space to run around and get dirty in...

It begins....

Once upon a Mortgage.....

In a suburb very very far from many places, but not so far from Sydney CBD, there lived a family of Nathan, Vivien and the little prince Christopher.

Chapter 1

The family having outgrown their small two bedroom apartment ventured out into the world of real estate not knowing what dangers lay ahead.

On navigating the fiercely competitive Sutherland Shire real estate market for many weeks (well not that many weeks) they came to realise that no new home could meet their needs, and they were downtrodden.

To them came the old (not too old) and wise father of the Vivien who pointed them towards the horizon of Masterton homes.

Here you can find what you seek, look into the distance towards Warwick farm; there you shall discover what wonders await you.

And so they have begun on the road to home ownership, with land behind them and the perilous waters of contract negotiation, fixture selection and building ahead of them they have stepped into the twilight, and move ever forwards towards the brightness of completing the build.........

Couldn't resist the Space Balls parody to a degree.

Anyway this is our blog, a record of the ups and downs of building our first home with Masterton Homes.

Only time will tell how things go but we're hopeful that it will all fall into place, eventually...