Yey! We received our final quote on the weekend! $30k over and above the base price of the house, which considering we have hardly changed anything, that's a bummer! This includes all the excavating and the fact that our soil test came back as "P" class, so we're pretty happy. The contracts are being drawn up as we speak and we will be getting together with Peta on the weekend to go through it! Hopefully it won't take long for the plans to get to and go through Council and we'll be on our way! Fingers and toes crossed to an early start in January some time!
Ciao for now,
Madmel
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Still waiting....
I wish I could say, "Woo hoo, plans are looking great and things are moving along", but sadly I cannot! The original plans we received in the mail didn't show the split-levelling that will be needed and then there was a change of draftsman, yaddah, yaddah. The crazy thing is though, is that we aren't actually making ANY changes to what they sent us originally! We're extremely happy with the design, so it's just the split level issue that needs doing.Anyway!! In the meantime, we have found out what our site costs will be for excavating (a lot), so at least we're getting more of an idea of just how much in debt we will be!
So I'm afraid it's another disappointing post but hopefully things will get moving shortly. Anyway, with Christmas around the corner, we're pretty busy anyway - here's a pic of our boys, one of many taken to try and capture the perfect Christmas Card photo! Needless to say, I'm going to try again with hopefully better results!
Bye for now,
Madmel
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
We have House Plans!!!!!
Our first lot of house plans arrived in the mail this morning, which is all a bit exciting!! It's been pretty quiet on the home front for the past few weeks while they were being drawn up, so it's nice to see something finally happening! We've also been finalising costs etc., so stuff has been going on, but not much to write about!
Short and sweet,
Madmel
Short and sweet,
Madmel
Monday, September 17, 2007
We've Found Another Builder!
Yey!!!!!! Whilst lurking around the HomeOne forums, Rawdon Hill was brought to my attention. We checked out their webpage and to cut a long story short, we signed up with them on Sunday!
We have chosen their Malvern Classic design. We've added a study, but other than that, it's perfect. Peta has been our Sales Consultant and she has been brilliant and very professional. She has endured us time and time again asking, "Now are you sure you build in Wandin?" and "Are you sure you understand that our block's not flat?"!!!! We didn't want to make the same mistakes we made with Henley.
Peta walked us through an identical house that is being built at the moment on the weekend, which we were very impressed with.
So, the ball has started rolling! To fill in time while we found a builder, we got our fences put up. I will attempt my first photo on here - hopefully it works!
Well that's about it! I will update as things start to happen!
Bye for now,
Madmel
Friday, July 27, 2007
Very disappointed...
Well we went and chose all our colours and fittings at Cosham Interiors two Sundays ago. We had a ball and loved everything! So easy and such good quality! We came away very excited!
The following day, Dave received a phone call from a Henley building supervisor, who was at our block getting the soil test done. In a nut shell, he said the fall of land was too great, none of the Henley houses were suitable to build on it and that they would not proceed. Mass hysteria ensued at home!! Not to mention that fact that Dave was a bit shellshocked during the call, so we couldn't quite understand what it all meant.
After waiting for the past two weeks for an official phone call or letter stating that they definitely weren't going to be our builder, I emailed our Sales Consultant yesterday to see if he had any idea what was going on. Our finance group (who work with Henley) were still proceeding with the pre-approval, so we were a bit confused.
Our main thought was that Henley hadn't realised just how far out Wandin was and were trying to make a quick getaway, but I just received an email back explaining everything and I guess it makes sense. To our naked eye, the fall of our land wasn't too bad (you should have seen our first house!!!!), so to receive their sums was an absolute shock. Here is a cut and paste of the email I received.
"I am sorry Henley cannot build on your block. It is not because of any problem with the area (Wandin North) or the size of the block, but due to the fall on your block. Henley has a policy of not building on sites where the fall over the building envelop is greater than two meters. This is set out in Henley’s Provisional Quotation Document under “Common Land Issues”. The investigation of your block (soil test & survey) has unfortunately revealed a significant fall on your block - six meters. This result translates into a fall of 3 meters over the building envelop of any of our house types, and means Henley cannot build on the above site.
I would suggest your next course of action would be to discuss options with builders who build on “strip footing foundations” (stumps). This type of building is more conducive to dealing with blocks with large falls. This is because strip footings avoid the need to cut a level platform (and resulting issues) on the building site.
Please let me know if you would like any further clarification of Henley policy."
So there you have it! Back to square one. Back to all the research. I must say I can hardly bear the thought of going through all this again. In the meantime, we are going to put up our fences and get the excavating done ourselves so we then know what we are dealing with. If anyone has any comments or advice, please feel free to contact me!
Anyway, a big thankyou to Clive Hearn from Henley who has been our Sales Consultant from the start. He was great to work with and we are very disappointed that we won't be proceeding.
Over and out,
Madmel
The following day, Dave received a phone call from a Henley building supervisor, who was at our block getting the soil test done. In a nut shell, he said the fall of land was too great, none of the Henley houses were suitable to build on it and that they would not proceed. Mass hysteria ensued at home!! Not to mention that fact that Dave was a bit shellshocked during the call, so we couldn't quite understand what it all meant.
After waiting for the past two weeks for an official phone call or letter stating that they definitely weren't going to be our builder, I emailed our Sales Consultant yesterday to see if he had any idea what was going on. Our finance group (who work with Henley) were still proceeding with the pre-approval, so we were a bit confused.
Our main thought was that Henley hadn't realised just how far out Wandin was and were trying to make a quick getaway, but I just received an email back explaining everything and I guess it makes sense. To our naked eye, the fall of our land wasn't too bad (you should have seen our first house!!!!), so to receive their sums was an absolute shock. Here is a cut and paste of the email I received.
"I am sorry Henley cannot build on your block. It is not because of any problem with the area (Wandin North) or the size of the block, but due to the fall on your block. Henley has a policy of not building on sites where the fall over the building envelop is greater than two meters. This is set out in Henley’s Provisional Quotation Document under “Common Land Issues”. The investigation of your block (soil test & survey) has unfortunately revealed a significant fall on your block - six meters. This result translates into a fall of 3 meters over the building envelop of any of our house types, and means Henley cannot build on the above site.
I would suggest your next course of action would be to discuss options with builders who build on “strip footing foundations” (stumps). This type of building is more conducive to dealing with blocks with large falls. This is because strip footings avoid the need to cut a level platform (and resulting issues) on the building site.
Please let me know if you would like any further clarification of Henley policy."
So there you have it! Back to square one. Back to all the research. I must say I can hardly bear the thought of going through all this again. In the meantime, we are going to put up our fences and get the excavating done ourselves so we then know what we are dealing with. If anyone has any comments or advice, please feel free to contact me!
Anyway, a big thankyou to Clive Hearn from Henley who has been our Sales Consultant from the start. He was great to work with and we are very disappointed that we won't be proceeding.
Over and out,
Madmel
Friday, July 13, 2007
Have a Manual why don't you?!
We had our appointment with Henley last Sunday to discuss the house, the siting on our block, variations etc., and also had a chat with their finance mob and everything went fabulously! We were given a huge manual called "Everything you need for building your new home". It is just chock-a-block full of anything and everything you need to know about the building process and how to look after your house once you move in. There are plastic pockets at the back for you to put in all your info, eg., house plans, tender documents, contracts, permit letters etc. I was totally blown away with it! So professional! Clive Hearn was our consultant and he was terrific.
We are booked in for a tour of Cosham Interiors this Sunday. An hour and a half of learning and choosing everything that will go in the house! An hour and a half of bliss for hubby and me to walk around in peace and quiet without the kids, more's the point!!! I am so excited, I just can't hide it. I think I'm actually about to lose control and I think I like it!
I am so rapt with how everything is going so far. Touch wood, the whole experience is like this! Anyway, I'll update on Sunday and let you know how we went with our colours!
We are booked in for a tour of Cosham Interiors this Sunday. An hour and a half of learning and choosing everything that will go in the house! An hour and a half of bliss for hubby and me to walk around in peace and quiet without the kids, more's the point!!! I am so excited, I just can't hide it. I think I'm actually about to lose control and I think I like it!
I am so rapt with how everything is going so far. Touch wood, the whole experience is like this! Anyway, I'll update on Sunday and let you know how we went with our colours!
Friday, July 6, 2007
July 2007
Welcome to our first ever blog! Hopefully it will get better with time as I learn the ropes!
We have recently purchased a block of land in Wandin North, Victoria. Since then, we have spent oodles of time researching houses to build!
We had narrowed down our search to the Henley Carinya and the Porter Davis Kensington or Paddington. Unfortunately for us, Porter Davis don't build their 'Access' Range any further out than Glen Waverley, so that put a stop to that! I have always loved Porter Davis homes, so to find out that they actually had a range that we could afford absolutely delighted me. We went to look at their display and specifically asked them if they built in Wandin. The answer was yes, so copious hours of research then followed. It was only two weeks later when we had finally decided that yes, we were going to go with Porter Davis, we rang to book them in and were told the conflicting advice seen above. To say we were disappointed was an understatement. With their reputation, we felt really comfortable building with them.
Anyway, that took us back to the Henley Carinya. Certainly a bigger and more appropriate house for us, but after reading loads of information about Henley on this website, it's made us a touch wary of how our building experience will be. We have decided to take the leap though!
This will be our second time building. The first was a fairly painful experience, due to our lack of knowledge and the fact we employed a builder from Gippsland, so it took a while. We also cut corners, deciding to do our own painting and moving in with no flooring other than particle board! A big and valuable lesson was learnt there! If you don't have those skills yourselves, don't do it!
The house we built was a double storey loft house made of Western Red cedar on a pretty hefty slope. The Henley Carinya is single storey brick and our block is pretty much flat! We know what we want now!
We paid Henley our deposit last Sunday and have our first 'real' appointment with them this coming Sunday to discuss all the plans etc. We are really looking forward to it!
Fingers crossed that this is the start of a beautiful relationship! And here's to me learning some patience for once!
We have recently purchased a block of land in Wandin North, Victoria. Since then, we have spent oodles of time researching houses to build!
We had narrowed down our search to the Henley Carinya and the Porter Davis Kensington or Paddington. Unfortunately for us, Porter Davis don't build their 'Access' Range any further out than Glen Waverley, so that put a stop to that! I have always loved Porter Davis homes, so to find out that they actually had a range that we could afford absolutely delighted me. We went to look at their display and specifically asked them if they built in Wandin. The answer was yes, so copious hours of research then followed. It was only two weeks later when we had finally decided that yes, we were going to go with Porter Davis, we rang to book them in and were told the conflicting advice seen above. To say we were disappointed was an understatement. With their reputation, we felt really comfortable building with them.
Anyway, that took us back to the Henley Carinya. Certainly a bigger and more appropriate house for us, but after reading loads of information about Henley on this website, it's made us a touch wary of how our building experience will be. We have decided to take the leap though!
This will be our second time building. The first was a fairly painful experience, due to our lack of knowledge and the fact we employed a builder from Gippsland, so it took a while. We also cut corners, deciding to do our own painting and moving in with no flooring other than particle board! A big and valuable lesson was learnt there! If you don't have those skills yourselves, don't do it!
The house we built was a double storey loft house made of Western Red cedar on a pretty hefty slope. The Henley Carinya is single storey brick and our block is pretty much flat! We know what we want now!
We paid Henley our deposit last Sunday and have our first 'real' appointment with them this coming Sunday to discuss all the plans etc. We are really looking forward to it!
Fingers crossed that this is the start of a beautiful relationship! And here's to me learning some patience for once!
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