Council Approval

This afternoon our DA was marked as approved on the council tracking website! One step closer to the dream becoming a reality!

When moments seem endless...

Tomorrow marks three weeks since our DA was sent to council and they have been going very slow. Currently our application it sitting on someone's desk and local people are telling me horror stories about how long they waited to build their own homes.

Our bank manager waited 16 weeks earlier in the year. 

My hairdresser waited 9 months for approval on his salon because someone went on holidays.

It's freaking me out!

In the meantime we had our electrical appointment last week, which I really enjoyed! We spent quite a few evenings after work putting together a checklist of electrical upgrades and marking every single light, power point, TV point and switch. We also marked out the number of switches on each plate and which lights would connect to each switch on a plan of the house. The appointment took around 3 hours and we came in within a few hundred dollars of our budget. Our colour consultant did our electrical and said it was the most she had ever done on an electrical plan, which we thought was surprising. Our house will be completely wired by MDJ except for the fans and bathroom lights. We also couldn't get Clipsal Saturn switches for our fans from MDJ. It worked out better this way as I was able to get custom made Saturn switches from eBay which have LED light switches and fan controllers on the one plate. The complete upgrade list is in the electrical tab. 

We also visited the bank last week to provide our building contract, plans, electrical and carpet quotes for our home loan. The valuer will be looking at it all in the next week and the bank manager said he was confident our house and land would be valued at more than or equal to what we are paying. I have to say our bank manager Jeff has been so wonderful throughout the entire process of buying our land and preparing to build the house. So here's my plug:

The folks at Coastline Credit Union have always made us feel comfortable and secure with our loan decisions, they offer very competitive interest rates and it is so much better to be able to have face to face meetings to discuss loans rather than just being a file on the desk of an anonymous stranger who decides if you are loan-worthy. Coastline are based on the mid north coast of NSW but do loans for people all over Australia, so if you are having problems with the big banks or just want great interest rates give them a call! 

So now I shall continue to wait for council, whilst distracting myself by re-reading my entire book collection and watching the box set of friends from start to finish!

A big thanks to everyone who is reading the blog, I am astounded that there have been more than 1600 hits so far :D

On to Council

This week felt very long and tiring. Our plans were due on Tuesday afternoon but never arrived and there was a lot of backwards and forwards with our CLO due to mistakes. I can't say it was a pleasant week. Neither my partner or I like confrontation (we don't even argue with each other!) but we have had to be a bit pushy. I've felt a liitle bad for it, but finally yesterday we got a correct set of plans and a contract amendment for our stacker doors.

Yesterday was a good day all around. I've been completing my masters degree over the past two years and attended my graduation ceremony. After the ceremony I took out my phone to take a photo and saw a message from MDJ saying that our plans had been sent to council! So now we wait and hope that council are kind to us!

Signed, sealed and almost delivered....

IFinal contracts are now signed, huzzah!

The day leading up to our contact signing was eventful due to severe bush fires along the mid to north coast of NSW. The hot and windy weather made for dangerous conditions and we had an emergency alert issued at work mid afternoon to leave due to the risk of being cut off from our homes. Unfortunately the fire was uncontrollable and spread too quickly, resulting in us (and many others) being cut off for 8 hours. Fortunately they were able to contain the fire when the wind reduced and saved all of the homes that it surrounded. We got back through late on Thursday night with time to get some rest and then make the 2 hour drive to Newcastle yesterday morning. We will definately be drawing up a bush fire survival plan for our new home and would urge anyone who lives near bush land or in an area at risk to do the same. Below is a photo of the fire near our home, courtesy of the mid north coast emergency alerts Facebook page. 

After all of the drama, we were very happy to get to our contract signing appointment. We were a little surprised at the pace of the signing. Everything was a bit fast and sort of skimmed over, which creates opportunity to miss important details. The contract was ok we did however come across the following issues:

- Our most recent adjustment (increasing stacker door heights) had been completely excluded despite multiple emails, a quote and phone calls between myself and MDJ. This means they will need to raise a variation and edit the plans for us to correct the error. 

- The contract was drawn up as if our land was unregistered. We did provide verbal and written  notification of this 6 weeks ago and our proof of ownership *sigh*. Those who have read the blog will have seen me post on this back in August! Fortunately all our CLO has to do is ring and get the DP number. 

- Upon returning home I got my ruler out and checked the plans only to discover that none of the internal door heights had been increased (per the contract) and one of our external taps was MIA 

( I was getting a very big headache by this point).

I'm amazed that there are oversights on such common features of the home. Surely if they did it correctly the first time it would be much more time effective for the company, not to mention pleasing for customers. I feel like we have to go into every meeting feeling suspicious and looking for errors, which we really shouldn't have to do. I'm just relieved we picked up the issues at signing. 

So now we wait for the revised plan which has been promised by Tuesday. We are also waiting for the person who deals with council applications to let us know if we will need DA approval or if we can get a CDC (please oh please let it be a CDC). 

A little more progress...

In the last month I have been getting a lesson in patience. My patience isn't a strong point when I'm paying for a service and have a deadline (read: end of fixed price period) hanging over my head. I was very happy to hear from our CLO today who has arranged for us to sign our final contracts next week. A colleague at work started at the same time as us but is building with a master builder... They are nearly at lock up and I'm a bit jealous! It only took them a couple of weeks to clear council so we are praying we have the same good luck!

This week we have been playing around with landscaping software (Garden Designer available on the App Store) and trying to envision what our garden and landscaping might look like. We really have no idea about the layout but do know what sort of plants we would like. Last year we visited Kauai and had the privilege of staying at the Grand Hyatt Resort in Poipu. It had the most magnificent tropical gardens, full of colour and lush green palms. Here is a photo we took whilst there -

We are planning of using similar tropical plants which are suited to the Australian climate. Neither of us have done much gardening and I have been known to kill the sturdiest of plants, so I suppose we have some learning to do. Luckily my dad ran a nursery selling palms and tropical plants as a hobby while I was growing up and has lots of knowledge to share. Here are some of our favorites so far:

Hibiscus flowers are beautiful and come in so many lovely colours. I love the white hibiscus which are a Kauai native because they are one of the few varieties with a fragrance. I doubt it would grow well here in Australia though.

Bougainvillea is another pretty one that we could use a climber.

I've read that cannas are hardy and flower for long periods of time, not to mention all of the bright colours they come in.

This is shell ginger, I spent days snapping photos of it before I realized what it was. There are lots of great unusual flowers that come from ornamental gingers. 

Finally the bird of paradise, an old favorite. 

So it appears we have lots of flowers! I would love to try growing a lychee tree, they are my absolute favourite fruit. I'm sure the fruit bats would have similar feelings, and that's the last thing we need!

The Finer Details

This past week we have been patiently waiting for contact from our CLO regarding some minor final plan changes. We originally asked our sales consultant to quote on LIN 1 doors to the media room but he never included this in the DV and we totally missed it given the mass of other Lin 1 doors around the house. We are hoping we can add doors to the media room without being stung for a structural change to the preliminary plans (apparently the doorways need to be narrowed). Fingers crossed she will get back to us soon as we are very keen to get everything signed off and on to council.

In the mean time we have been musing upon the smaller details of our new home, particularly artwork. We have collected a small number of pieces and prints in our travels that are carefully stored in their bubble wrap, waiting for walls to live on. 

There are a few prints we picked up in Hawaii by an artist from Oahu named Heather Brown. We hope to one day purchase one of her originals, but she has become very popular and they are hard to come by, not to mention expensive! We have visited Hawaii these past few years and it has become a very special place to us. We are hoping to capture a small part of it in the design and the art of our new home. 

Here are some of the Heather Brown prints we have collected which will most likely live in our kitchen and open plan living area.

We also have a large canvas by Australian artist Deborah Broughton, who sometimes frequents The Rocks markets in Sydney. 

We definitely have a Hawaiian/coastal theme going on! There will be many picture recesses to fill in the house so there are some other pieces we picked up in a gallery in Melbourne. They are by Japanese graphic designer Heisuke Kitazawa and American Artist David Burke. 

The first might go into the entryway and is our favourite, it's called 'The Sound of Light'.

The others will most likely live in our media room where the color scheme will be a darker brown

The anime inspired artworks are a bit unusual with the Hawaiian pieces but they will be in separate rooms. There is also a significant Japanese influence in Hawaii which ties them together in a funny way. Having been an exchange student in Japan, I have a love of anime and the general quirkiness of all things Japanese. We have had some very mixed opinions in our art choices but honesty, we love them and couldn't care less about what anyone else thinks! 

And thus concludes today's exhibition ;)

Colour Selections and the Annoying Water Tank

Well today was an extremely long day! We spent 5 hours in the Colour Studio then another 2 hours on our preliminary plan presentation. Add that to the hour long drive to and from the studio and we were delirious by the time we got home.

Our colour selections went fairly well as we knew exactly what we wanted going into the appointment. We felt a bit panicked at the lack of feedback at times when asking for interior design help and at being rushed through signing off on the documents and costings. We had a few unpleasant surprises like our floor quote randomly going up by $600 and being told that we could not use bricks on the two front sides of our facade. We are still feeling happy with our choices overall though.

A full set of colour selections are in the 'colors' tab at the top of the page.

In addition to colours we had a few upgrades -

General

• Door handles, we upgraded all internal handles to levers
• Front Door - stained and Omni Tri Lock
• Increased all internal door heights to suit high ceiling
• Added Gerflor Senso Pro Lock to entry, kitchen and open plan living.

Kitchen

• 1x set of 3 pot drawers to kitchen
• Double joinery to cupboards for downlights
• Soft close drawers and doors
• Pantry doors - Lin 1 doors
• Pantry door handles
• Stone bench top to 40mm
• Underbench fitted bin 
• Water point for fridge
• L shaped island bench to replace standard

Laundry

• Overhead cupboards
• Under bench cupboards
• 20mm stone benchtop 
• Undermount sink
• Lin One doors to entry and linen cupboard.

Family Room

• Fire - Rinnai 752 with quartz pebbles
• Picture recess above fireplace
• Large picture window 2100x2100

Bedrooms

• Added extra melamine drawer banks to both WIR in the Master bedroom
• Lin One Door to Master Bedroom

Ensuite

• Upgraded to semi frameless shower
• Added shampoo recess
• Added 600mm channel grate to shower
• Upgraded twin basins to Caroma Basa Basins
• Added Gessi Riflessi mixers to both sinks (huzzah for amazing taps!)
• Added a Nikles Pure Twin Raindrop Showerhead
• Upgraded to a double towel rail with square style
• Upgraded to square toilet roll holder
• Added drawer bank to vanity
• Pop up chrome plugs

Bathroom 

• Upgraded to semi frameless shower
• Upgraded to double towel rail
• Pop up chrome plugs
• Added extra basin and mirror to separate toilet 

We also have increased ceiling heights, added a grand alfresco with concrete and have the Smeg appliance package which was a bonus. Yup we went a little crazy with selections! We will do our feature walls, carpet, blinds, flyscreens, driveway and decking after handover to save some money. 

The other big thing for today was the revealing of our preliminary plans. We met our CLO who was great. Nothing was too hard and she did a great job of explaining everything. We discovered that our soil classification has changed, adding an extra $4k to our costs which was a bit deflating. The other bothersome feature is the location of our water tank which is randomly sitting 2m away from the house! Apparently our sales consultant miscalculated the block dimensions before we purchased our land and now the tank won't fit because the side clearances are so tight. It isn't the end of the world but the tank is sitting right where we wanted to put a pool :( Not sure there's much we can do about that though! 

We are crossing our fingers we will get through council with the current plans but our local council has a strange preference for walls that are not straight! Apparently they like any wall over 15m to have a jut out and ours are dead straight. We managed to pop out to the eaves on the media room but are too limited on space to do the same on the other side of the house. Fingers crossed they aren't to fussy on that requirement! 

Now we wait for the final contract! Bring it on :D