Okay, so it's officially happening - we are building!!
We're both very excited (S more so than D) and are looking forward to creating our new home together. We are only a few weeks into this whole process but have already noticed that there isn't a whole lot of real life advice out there for new home builders and thought we would track our progress in the hopes that it might help someone else who decides to embark on this journey. So here is what has gone down so far:
19th April: After 2+ years of attending open houses and being outbid and outoffered D finds a great H&L package for a 500m2 block in a good location that fits within our budget - the block of land is a little smaller than we'd like but we think that if we build upwards we might be able to still have enough yard space for our furbabies. We were looking for a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home, with a double garage and WIR to the main bedroom, but we also didn't want to go too big - our main reason for building up was to save as much backyard as possible, so we looked for a housetype that fit our requirements, while still giving us the most amount of yard space - the Benham 21 was the clear winner for us!
We're both very excited (S more so than D) and are looking forward to creating our new home together. We are only a few weeks into this whole process but have already noticed that there isn't a whole lot of real life advice out there for new home builders and thought we would track our progress in the hopes that it might help someone else who decides to embark on this journey. So here is what has gone down so far:
19th April: After 2+ years of attending open houses and being outbid and outoffered D finds a great H&L package for a 500m2 block in a good location that fits within our budget - the block of land is a little smaller than we'd like but we think that if we build upwards we might be able to still have enough yard space for our furbabies. We were looking for a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home, with a double garage and WIR to the main bedroom, but we also didn't want to go too big - our main reason for building up was to save as much backyard as possible, so we looked for a housetype that fit our requirements, while still giving us the most amount of yard space - the Benham 21 was the clear winner for us!
From here we spent a few weeks negotiating upgrades and making a few minor changes to the floor plans. We extended the meals area to finish flush with the alfresco, and made changes to the WIR/LIN/BIR upstairs to allow for a double bowl vanity to the ensuite. We also centred the sliding door to the family room to allow for future cabinetry to be installed to the alfresco.
To go with our new floor plans we were also given a free facade upgrade to the vogue facade - much nicer than the classic facade we were originally going with!!
After all the back and forth we were finally sent through our sales advice, and building contracts. We organised our conveyencer (Jackie Gardner Conveyencing) and paid our holding deposit.
Our preconstruction administrator from Rawson Homes sent us an email requesting we book an appointment with her to sign the contracts within 14 days, and also attached 5 different external colour schemes, advising we would need to select 1 within the 14 day period.
We are big fans of Rawson Homes, however this is where we have to admit we have been pretty disappointed in this process - the colour schemes were simply squares of colour, with no examples of what it would look like on a completed house. If you've never had to do this before, let me tell you, it is near impossible to even imagine how an entire house will look based off a few squares of colour. Here is an example of the colour schemes sent to us:
Our preconstruction administrator from Rawson Homes sent us an email requesting we book an appointment with her to sign the contracts within 14 days, and also attached 5 different external colour schemes, advising we would need to select 1 within the 14 day period.
We are big fans of Rawson Homes, however this is where we have to admit we have been pretty disappointed in this process - the colour schemes were simply squares of colour, with no examples of what it would look like on a completed house. If you've never had to do this before, let me tell you, it is near impossible to even imagine how an entire house will look based off a few squares of colour. Here is an example of the colour schemes sent to us:
That was literally all we were given, and when we asked if they had any design examples or computer generated examples of what it would look like altogether, we were told there was nothing like that, and we just had to pick one of these pages. Thank goodness we did some exploring and came across the AMAZING program colourtouch (http://www.colourtouch.com.au/) by CSR where you can select a single or double story house type and select your roof colours, gutter colours, brick colours etc to get an overall idea of what the house will look like. Using the Marigold scheme above and the colourtouch program we came up with this rough idea of what we would end up with:
We put all 5 colour schemes through this program and liked the marigold combination best - we were leaning towards this one anyway, but it was fantastic to get a visual of what it could look like with all the colours together - hopefully the finished product is similar, only time will tell!
The next step is that on Friday 27th we are meeting with our preconstruction administrator to sign the contracts and select our external colour scheme and then we will meet with our conveyencer to sign the land contracts.
We still have a long way to go, as our land doesn't register until February 2017, and our building doesn't commence until May 2017 (a whole 12 months away!!!) with handover/settlement expected by February 2018.
We will post again once we have signed the contracts and know what the next steps are for us.
We hope you are as excited about this journey as we are!
- D&S
The next step is that on Friday 27th we are meeting with our preconstruction administrator to sign the contracts and select our external colour scheme and then we will meet with our conveyencer to sign the land contracts.
We still have a long way to go, as our land doesn't register until February 2017, and our building doesn't commence until May 2017 (a whole 12 months away!!!) with handover/settlement expected by February 2018.
We will post again once we have signed the contracts and know what the next steps are for us.
We hope you are as excited about this journey as we are!
- D&S