Merry Xmas - We have a second floor and trusses

Merry Xmas to everyone - We know we had a good one.
We had a few friends over for Xmas dinner - Wow 9 kid sin our rental esp when the kids played inside was sure interesting
Cannot wait to move to our place and have the kids play outdoor in the alfresco area
Even more exciting is the thought we would be in our place next time this year
The kids and we have already started planning what sort of external Xmas lights we want to use
We have been going for walks checking out Xmas lights to get ideas for next year
Nothing much has happened in the last week
The roof trusses went last week Since then Zilch absolutely nothing - Guess it is Xmas time
So nothing would happen
The brickies is supposed to start on Jan 5
We are waiting for that - We have chosen Labassa - Boral with orange sand which turns out to be light brown mortar
Hoping the bricks will not be too dark
The roof tiles is walnut flat roof tiles - also from Boral
The plan for Jan is that the builder gets the scaffolding done - Scaffolding is for 4 weeks
When scaffolding is there they plan to finish roof tiles, bricking and also paint the eaves in the first floor

Front Of the House



Left Side View



Left Side of House - Can see the left side front verandah



Right side of the house
Steel Beam is part of the garage to be built
The Master Bedroom is above the garage



Our Big.... Alfresco from Family -



View to Meals and Family
Can see the entry to the WIP



Walk in Pantry - Hard to imagine
But it feels bigger then we expected (Not that we r complaining)



Kitchen - Window is opening to alfresco




Home theatre Room



Upstairs Play Area



Master Bedroom looking to the street
Waiting to see how the cathedral windows turn out....




DS bedroom - HAs the same cathedral window as the Master
This is to keep the front facade symmetrical



DS daughter room
Has 2 windows but a bigger WIR
Guess being a girl u can never have too much of WIR space



Dining/Study Downstairs



French Doors when they come leading to alfresco from Meals



Lounge looking onto street
No frame yet for the arc window....(Wonder why only this was not done)
Hard to visualise it without the window frame



Entry to Guest Bedroom or study in plan



Red Area when removed would be part of the void -




Entry Verandah to the house

Frame Survey By Us

Armed with our trusted fiend - the measuring tape and calibrated eyes we set off to see if the frame and dimensions were right- They had it all spot on except for 1 issue - We realized that the doorways were framed for standard door sizes.
We had upgraded to higher doorways
Spoke to "L" this morning who sorted it out on the spot
"L" has been a pleasure to deal with
He understands that "building a home is an emotional event for a family not just bricks and tiles " - that were his words to us
So far it has been a pleasure dealing with the builder where we are a person and not a number
Direct access to the drafts person to make changes to drawings
Get answers straight away without having to wait weeks
We are meeting him tomorrow to discuss what happens next

Framed but happy about it

We drove to the block to have a picnic and take photos of the slab
And were dumbstruck by what greeted us
U could have knocked us over with a feather
There goes the plans of a slab picnic and remote car racing
"L" our supervisor and "Roseleigh" beat us in this race - He had other plans for the slab
Yes that had started framing the next day
But slab to frame was overnight Mmmmmmm
Wonder what the curing period for a slab is to be - Guess Roseleigh know what they are doing.

This is where all the great food is going to come from one day(???!!!)Kitchen and Meals Area



Entrance looking at the street



Family Room - A nice quiet place to sit back and relax(One can hope ....)


A place to keep the guests away from us (downstairs bedroom)


Looking at t he room "DH" is going to be living in (Home Theatre)


Looking at the lounge

Lets Party - We have a giant grey cake

Wednesday Plumbers did their bit and left the block as mounds of sands and pits
So when we visited on Thursday this is what greeted us - That sure was a surprise
Quick work on someones part - Level soil and the frame being put for the slab







On Friday - the land we saw the waffle pods all put
This gave us a true idea of the size of the house
"DS" thinks that's a good way of making a living playing with giant sized lego blocks
The waffle pods did look like LEGO pieces
After the week when there was no activity things have started to fly
Friday was waffle pods









Over the weekend we went so the kids could play on the sand
Monday Slab was poured
We had forgotten to take our camera
But we said we would go back on Tuesday to take some snaps
We are planning on having a slab picnic complete with remote controlled racing cars on Tuesday
Few friends kids and ours are all excited to do that as well....

"BD" has been here - Concrete blobs

Lots of holes and digging but no treasure found
What shame - Looks like we have to pay for the building costs ourselves.
"DH" missed a perfect opportunity of hiding the whole family in 6 feet of concrete


The line in this picture is the outline of the alfresco
This

Dust And Dirt Never Looked better

We got a call from our friendly neighborhood supervisor "L" to take a look at our land.
Guess we never thought that bare earth and dirt would look so good and excite us so much.

Cut and Fill has added extra height - something which we have not realized . This is going to make the house look higher above street level. That sure was a nice surprise.

Also another surprise is the slope all around the house - It is going to be interesting and challenging on getting a good garden going.

As for the brats - all trying to work out where each of their bedrooms would be based on the bare earth outline

View From Front


Left Rear Viewing the Front




Right Rear Viewing the Front

3-D Model

This is the 2-D model from builder courtesy "BC"


We hope "BC" does not shoot us for destroying his masterpiece to this......
This is the 3D "DH" has started to create to give us a rough idea of colours and feel of the house.
A note : - A lot of artistic liberties have been taken because of lack of knowledge and not to be confused with the real thing
Main idea is more to place our furniture and give us a feel of space inside the rooms.





"DH" got fed up with "DW" (Guess that's nothing new ) asking a million questions because "DW"'s imagination is atrocious.

It is all starting............

We met our supervisor "L" yesterday at the site.
He ran us through the preliminary process. It is proceeding faster than we thought
According to "L" excavation should be on site by end of next week (Thursday/Friday)
Slab is a definite before X Mas break and maybe frame. Guess that depends on a lot of things
For us after such a slow start it seems to be very hard to see such a rapid start.
Expecting Building permit Monday this week.
"L" realized an issue regarding existing temporary fence which needs to be sorted out.
Our back neighbor who is building -Their temporary fence is on our land. This has to be moved before the excavation has to begin.
People have been using our land for garbage disposal. So we have to clean this up as well.

Contract Signed - signed our way to STRESS

5 of November - Signed our contract (or should we say DH gets mortgage and DW gets the house )
We had already received the contract few weeks ago. So had enough time to review it.
Most of the things had already been sorted. So the actual contract signing was pretty much re-printing some minor issues and heaps of signing.

Thanks to "BC", "B2C" and "JB" - It was all done quickly and no dramas.

Now Roseleigh would be applying for building permit.

We were told "L" would be the supervisor for building process.

Hoping for a last week of November start if all things go OK

Went to the bank and gave them a copy of the contract on 8 November 2008

Now that we are finally here all selections done contracts signed and waiting to start -
Mmmm what it is all for all of us.......

Excitement for DH ( an optimist) thinking of all the good things to come
Nervous for DW (a pessimist) thinking up of all the things that could go wrong
Excitement for DD - wanting to choose all the pinks for her room (Shuddering at some of the things she likes.....)
Impatience for DS who wants to move in cos one of his best friends live a few houses away
Impatience for Amigo (doggie) - Current rented place he is not allowed inside because the whole house is carpeted and he sure is missing that.

Yippee - Planning Permit Obtained

Finally we got the planning permit in 6 weeks
We have been calling the planner every few days
Nagging Works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was subject to conditions that we plant at least 5 trees.
This was not a surprise. In our earlier discussions with the council they mentioned that the height restriction is due to the house being higher than the tree canopy. House was 8.1m and tree canopy is considered at approx 8m and the maximum height we can build as per restriction is 7.5m
So we felt if we compensated by adding trees we stood a better chance of getting the permit.
So when we applied for the permit we added 2 wattles that can grow upto 8 m and 3 Golden tip that are shorter.
Now they have issued the permit stating that we need to plant at least 5 trees and have not mentioned anything specific. They have agreed to what we proposed.
Whew that was a relief.

Colours

External Colour Selection

Neighbours and surrounding houses exceed 7.5m

We just spoke to our neighbor who is building with DFH.
Their house has exceeded the 7.5 height mark.
They were very helpful sharing the info of how they approached the council.
The only constraint is having to submit a landscape plan.
We were not ready to do landscape and was planning to do it after we move.
So that may change on the outcome of the planning permit.

Planning Permit and height saga

We went to the council for planning permit.
Our is double storey home and the height above natural ground level is 8 m.
Earlier discussions we were told a permit wont take more than 2-3 weeks.

But today when we went in person - we were told that the height would be an issue. They do not allow over 7.5 m
Also we have to justify why they have to issue a permit when height is above 7.5m
They want us to add trees that exceed our house height so that the house will be below the tree canopy.
And on top of all this the best way fwd recommended by them is to use a town planner to help us prepare all the required documentation for dispensation.
After it is submitted it may take 8 weeks and more or less

This is when we have the contract and we were going to sign it this week.

Plans

lanAfter looking at a few hundred plans offered by 40+ builders we visited we finally agreed to settle on this layout. We never said we are easy to please. The plan had to be practical and appealing and fit on our land and our budget - a combination that was very hard to satisfy.
So far the ride with Roseleigh has been very pleasant and wonderful. Keeping our fingers crossed that this continues......

"BW" - He is a pleasure to deal with and a mine of info - A man who kept his word and timing - something we have found hard to find in the building industry.
"BC" - He is switched on and so far has been great and easy to work with. Flexible to cater to our changes and has provided us with a lot of design options like changing the facade completely from a period to metro look home.

This is the plan of our new home
Ground Floor

First Floor

Where it all began

We picked this corner block next to the reserve because we liked the open feel around us. Little did we know the problems we would face because none of the patterns from the project builders because we had a wide frontage and not enough depth for most of the new homes.
The last few months have been stressful. We had to change builders after putting in 9 months of our time, effort and deposit. Things did quite work out in the time frames and cost as originally promised.
But as the saying goes "Better Late than Never", we went back to the drawing board when we found our current builder Roseleigh Homes.