Funding The Dream

Some New Pictures......FINALLY!!!!

2008-06-01T23:53:00.019+10:00

WE'RE IN!!!!

2008-04-15T08:43:00.004+10:00

Actually, we have been for a little more than 2 weeks, so first let me apologize to all our Blog followers for not keeping you updated on the exciting news! We moved in on Saturday the 29th of March, but were only re-connected to the Net just last night! Just prior to moving in we had some fun and interesting times which are continuing to some degree, but let's give you the background story first.

Two days prior to the move (Thursday, March 27th), we had the installation of the carpeting and all of our appliances (Hot water system, oven/stove and the dishwasher). We LOVE the carpeting and the guys did a great job getting it completed by Friday morning. The oven/stove, hot water system and dishwasher are all terrific as well, however upon installation on Thursday the 'crew' noticed that there was a gas leak coming from one of the lines and this sent things into a bit of chaos. The guys were all over the place, on the phone and up and down between our walk-in robe and the room directly below it, trying to ascertain exactly where this 'leak' was coming from. They returned on Friday with a 5 meter long replacement pipe and promptly cut 3 one foot rectangles in the wall in our walk-in robe and two large squares in the wall on the room below in preparation of removing the pipe and to ensure that the 'leak' they were hearing was coming from the right area. After much discussion and analyzing it was determined that the 5 meter pipe they were going to replace and originally thought the leak was coming from, was not the source of the problem but was actually a pipe that connected to this pipe. The pipe was not 'leaking' per Se, but had excessive noise due to the fact that at the connection point, the pipe had not been properly 'crimped' during original installation. Therefore, probably only on square needed to be cut into the wall, rather than 5 in two different locations, but at least the problem was sorted out allowing us heating, cooling, hot water, gas and, most importantly, the ability to move in! We then had the installation of the ducted vacuum system, as well as the commissioning of the heating and cooling systems and the Alarm. We also had the wiring guys in to finish off their work. Sadly there have been a number of issues with getting this work not only completed, but complete properly (some things are their fault and some are not) however the worst of it seems over and we are soon to have the Speaker configuration, TVs, Theater Rooms, Door monitor systems, etc.

Currently, we have moved all the goodies into the house have a very exciting and functional Theater Room (photo's to come soon) and have various items strewn about that require some organization. This will occur rapidly over the next couple of weeks as the 'Mystery Baby' is due to be 'extracted' two weeks from THIS FRIDAY!!! AAAAAGGGHHHHH! Can't wait, but on the other hand...yes I can! This past weekend we purchased a Tall Boy, bedside table and bed and bed frame for Mr. C-Monster and T the T will inherit his old stuff. The baby will take over T the T's crib and accessories and we are all set in the furniture department. We have selected but still need to purchase a desk for the office as well as a storage unit from Ikea for the Playroom/Guest Room. We went to Bunnings last night and picked up some rack shelving which I will assemble tonight and put into the garage to store the mess that has accumulated there from moving! FUN!

Next Steps: Organize garage, schedule the cabinet guy to fit a final cabinet over the fridge space and the plasterers to fix all the squares and rectangles cut out of our wall. Both of those items look to be done early next week! Finish fielding quotes for our driveway, select one and get the darn thing installed. Purchase and deliver the new desk and storage shelving for the playroom/guest room and we'll be ready for the baby! Still a lot to do, but I'm determined to do it, so watch this space!

Pictures of it all very, VERY SOON! PROMISE!

CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE! (Nearly)

2008-03-02T23:00:00.004+11:00

I say 'nearly' because technically the construction phase is complete with only a few minor touch ups left to occur, but it should only take a day or two to finish those up before the 'Handover Group' takes over! This past week saw the construction group conduct final inspections and do some of the final fit-offs. There are only a couple of paint and plaster touch ups, soil around the house and installation of the heating thermostat left to do. The Handover Group is due to come in this week and conduct their own inspection and then contact us for our 'New Home Presentation!' At this time, we will go through the house with a fine tooth comb wit the Handover Group and if there are any things that we see need to be fixed, they will then fix them before handing over the keys. Depending on what we see/find this normally takes another week or two. So, depending on when we get the call from the Handover Group (hopefully by the middle of this week) and when they decide to schedule our New Home Presentation (hopefully sometime the following week), we could have the keys anywhere from 2 - 4 weeks! We're guessing about 2.5 to 3.0 weeks away, which is very, very exciting. Stay tuned! Pictures to show how close we are now, below!

Front of the house, essentially complete! The render color change around the front door and upstairs window was finished on Saturday!

Back of the house completed!

Back & side shot of the house!

Side of the house and back of the Garage completed!

Other side of the house, nearly complete. They will need to bring in more dirt to cover the termite protection (pink pipe along the ground)!

Entry way nearly complete! Just a couple of touch ups and a clean up and she's ready to go!

Looking in from the Alfresco!

View from the dining area toward the living area!

View of the kitchen and dining areas with our new glass Splashback added!

View of the kitchen, dining and Alfresco sliding doors!

Fencing Removed, Tiles Downstairs Begin...

2008-02-17T22:53:00.003+11:00

Well, we must be getting pretty close to having construction completed as Henley have removed the temporary fencing at the front, done another site clean and have brought in some more dirt in an attempt to level the areas surrounding the house. The tiler has been back to complete the tiling with the downstairs entry, kitchen, dining and family areas to be tiled. Once they are in its a then on to the 'fit off stage' with fit offs being completed along with a lot of painting corrections etc. Tiler should be done by the end of the week at the very latest and I can't imagine the touch ups and other stuff taking more than two weeks. Hopefully less than a month and we'll be getting our shiny new keys!!!! Progress below as usual...

Fence and Port-O-Potty gone and site cleaned. Nearly ready except for a few finishing touches yet to come.

Tiles in the entry & kitchen area have begun to be put down. Me in my baseball gear in the reflection...nice.

Tiles down in the dining and family area. Shouldn't be too long before that is complete!

Moving Right Along..

2008-02-07T23:33:00.000+11:00

Work continues with more bits and pieces coming together this week. The tiler has completed (for the most part), the work on the upstairs bathrooms and should begin work downstairs on Friday the 8th, despite Henley's claims that he would be completed by the end of this week. Nevertheless, we are once again extremely pleased with the workmanship of the tiling and are hopeful that the downstairs tiling will continue in the same manner and move quickly. Check out the latest!

Kitchen counter tops installed! Caesar Stone, Ice Snow.

Another shot of the counter tops.

Counter top to the downstairs powder room. Also 'Ice Snow'

Bathtub's been delivered!

Tiles to the upstairs toilet. No toilet yet, but I'm sure it will be there soon!

Upstairs bathroom tiles, waiting for it's new tub!

Upstairs shower nice and tiled!

Shower to the ensuite all tiled up!

Dual vanity in the ensuite (Caesar Stone 'Linen') and tiles completed!

Walk in robe completed in the master bedroom!

Other half of the robe!

Painted TV area upstairs, with the heating and cooling vents installed.

Painted master bedroom!

T-Minus One Month???

2008-02-04T00:38:00.000+11:00

Henley have 'said' that they would like construction to be completed by the end of this month! So would we! It would still be a couple weeks after that before we would get the keys, but with a baby due in late April or early May it will be just enough time to get in and get settled! Hard to update with Pic's when we are locked out most of the time, but here are a few from the outside looking in...the downstairs anyway.

Electrical fit out completed. Note the power points in the walls of the kitchen too! Yes, we will be getting new light fixtures. Those are EXTREMELY temporary!

Tiles have been laid upstairs, and prepped to be laid downstairs...can't wait!

Roller door at the back of the garage!

Garage door, installed!

Last but not least, our front door!

We're Back Up.....And Running!

2008-01-23T23:57:00.000+11:00

After a month of not posting and nearly a month of 'down time' due to the holiday period, the work has come back in full force on the house and it's time to take a look. See if you can spot the differences from previous posts...with some help of course! Painting is currently taking place inside and is due to be completed in 4 working days! Go Henley Go!

Outside render color completed. Garage roof nearly completed. Notice the downpipes have been installed as well!

Close up look at the outdoor render color's. There is a slight mistake which will be rectified shortly and we'll update with a picture!

Roof over Alfresco & Theater Room completed.

Alfresco ceiling primed to be painted.

Painted Master Bedroom!

Painted TV area upstairs and entry to one of the 3 bedrooms.

Painted Theater Room.

Painted front play room/guest bedroom.

Installation of the downpipes connected to the storm water drains. The rear roller door of the garage has been installed too!

Garage door installed!

The Christmas Rush Is On....

2007-12-19T22:57:00.000+11:00

Despite being locked out every time I come home from work, the wife managed to sweet talk her way into the place to get a few snaps! Here's the latest....

Picture of he Laundry cabinets.

Kitchen 1!

Kitchen 2!

Kitchen 3!

Shot looking from the Theater Room down the hall...notice the trim work and the Cornice (aka Crown Molding) have been completed!

Vanity in the downstairs bathroom!

Double vanity in the ensuite!

Vanity in the upstairs bathroom!

And yes...WE HAVE STAIRS!!!

We Got TOTALLY PLASTERED!!!

2007-12-09T10:41:00.000+11:00

Not only did the plaster guys show up, but they plastered (hung the drywall for the Tony & Pat's of the world), in one day! Walls and ceilings were done for both upstairs and downstairs in one day! The group of guys were on site from about 6:00 AM until about 7:00 PM and then came back the following day to patch up most of the screws and nails. Additionally, we had the fascia and gutter installed to the garage and the return of the render crew (on Saturday!), to render the band around the top of the house. Check out the new pic's!!!

Plastered kitchen!

Plastered Theater Room!

Plastered Family Room and Laundry (just to the left)!

Plastered Hallway looking toward the front door!

Plastered Spare Bedroom/Playroom for the kids!

Looking down the plastered hall toward the Alfresco. The study and playroom are on the left, with the eventual staircase where the ladder is!

Plastered Bedroom 1!

Plastered Bedroom 2 - The 'new addition' will be here!

Plastered Bedroom 3!

Plastered upstairs area, looking down the hall toward the bathroom & the entry from the stairs!

Plastered upstairs Bathroom!

Plastered Master Bedroom!

Plastered Ensuite to Master Bedroom!

Plastered retreat in the Master Bedroom!

Plastered TV/General Sitting Area upstairs!

This is a shot of the rendered band job done on a Saturday!

Fascia & Gutter to garage, with a bit of rendered band to the front!

Shot of the Architectural Cladding and the fascia/gutter to backside of the garage.

Another shot of the cladding & the rendered band around the top.

Plastered ceiling to the Alfresco dining area with a new location for the Coax Cable and power point. This will allow us to install a bracket and mount a flat screen outside for sports, shows or movies in the beautiful summer evenings!

Back on Track...

2007-12-02T23:27:00.000+11:00

Shortly after our site visit and disappointment in the lack of progress during the early part of last week, things began to pick up again on Thursday and even more action happened on Friday and would you believe me if I told you even a bit more today (Sunday)?!! Thursday the roof tile guys were there and essentially prepped the Theater Room and Alfresco to be tiled by stacking tiles on the frame. Friday saw the carpenters back to plane and straighten the frame in preparation for the plaster to be installed and another tradesman on site to install the architectural cladding above the Theater Room where there is no brick work. Today, the tiler was back this morning and he essentially laid the tiles on those back two rooms, leaving only the garage to be cleaned. I spent a few hours at the house this weekend, cleaning up saw dust that had collected on all the horizontal braces of the frame from the rough in work the and the carpenters recent work to straighten the frame. Coming along again and we are hopeful there will be plenty more action this week. Will post some updated photos later this week!

Ghost Town!

2007-11-28T21:16:00.000+11:00

Yep, that's a picture of a ghost town, posted to honor how desolate, quiet and vacant the work site has become this week!

Why are we a ghost town? Great question! I'll provide some insight, but certainly not an answer.
Last week finished off with the trusses to the garage being installed. As we understood it the next parts of the house to be completed needed to happen in a certain order to get to lock up stage, and they were the following...fascia and gutters installed to the garage, roof tiles installed to the garage, theater room and alfresco area, architectural cladding installed to part of the back of the house and the start of plastering (drywall) to the interior, pretty much in that order. Additionally the bricks were to have been cleaned somewhere in the middle with the majority of this work beginning, if not being completed, this week. I was off work Friday and this past Monday for Thanksgiving and on Monday took a stroll with the family down to see what work was going on at the house. Nothing, nada, zilch, zippo! We were bummed, but figured we wouldn't worry too much about it as we had a site meeting scheduled with our Site Supervisor the next day (Tuesday) at 2:00 PM. The better half went to the site meeting, but had stopped by the house to see what was being done in the morning. Again, nothing. At the site meeting, the supervisor seemed perplexed, stating that the fascia and gutters were supposed be put on that day, with the roof tiles to follow shortly after and the insulation which had been delivered Monday morning was supposed be installed with the plaster starting that day as well! That's a lot of trades people either not showing up or dropping the ball. I'm not a builder, but I'm guessing the responsibility falls to our site supervisor to ensure that the necessary trades people are ACTUALLY showing up to do their work and if they aren't, he would find out why. We had written a number of specific questions for the visit mainly asking when the aforementioned items of work were scheduled to be done. Despite most of them originally being scheduled for this week and despite our site supervisor giving this information to our administrator and that information not being passed on, there was a LOT of "ball dropping" going on this week, which started at about marble size and has quickly become a bowling ball!

The big shocker came when the better half asked the site supervisor when he thought we'd be in by. The answer? "Ahh, well hopefully, maybe by the end of April!" Bzzzzzt. Wrong Answer! Originally it was going to be around February. This was the guess at our first site meeting shortly after frame stage was completed. Now it's um, maybe by the end of April. Our baby is due May 8th and we will absolutely need to be in at least a month before then. That prediction would mean that it would take five months from lock up (we are nearly there now) to hand over! Seems a bit long to me.

At the end of the business day, we finally got an email with an update to our questions as to when the work will be started and/or completed to get to lock up. All of it is due to start with some of it to be finished by next week, so we are hopeful (given a good experience so far) that a LOT of work will happen next week to get us back on track, otherwise the ball may start to get too big and too heavy to drop!

Getting Close To Lock-Up Stage

2007-11-25T01:48:00.000+11:00

Greetings followers of Funding The Dream!

I know it's been a while, but I decided to hold off taking pictures of the outside by about a week because we were so close to completing the brick work and having the scaffold come down, which you can now see is complete. They just put the trusses' for the garage up and we suspect that the roof cover for the garage, theater room and alfresco will happen Monday of the coming week. We are hopeful the bricks will be cleaned shortly after that as well as work inside commencing this week too. We have a site walk-through on Tuesday at 2:00 with our site supervisor to point out a few odds and ends that may need some attention, but beyond that we're pretty pleased with both the progress and the quality of work. We'll have a better read on the scheduling of trades and perhaps a date or month that handover might occur, once we have this meeting, so stay tuned!

All Wired Up

2007-11-13T23:18:00.000+11:00

By the end of last weekend, the bricking had begun again and electrical rough-in had been completed as well. Dan from Dr. Audio (or as he's more affectionately known, Dr. Dan) and his crew came in and wired up the house for audio and video throughout (including all the 'goodies' for the Theater Room) and the eventual intercom system. Work is happening at a pretty furious pace this week which is great to see, so check back this coming weekend for more pictures and updates. You will be AMAZED! For now, check out the wiring work!

Crazy Busy Again!

2007-11-07T23:14:00.000+11:00

Well, since the previous post the work has been happening every single day (including Cup Day) and there is a lot scheduled over the next couple of weeks too! To quickly recap, the roof cover (tiles) were put on last week, as well as the evaporative cooling and heating system and the solar panel was installed and connected for solar hot water. Brick work has begun in earnest again and is due to be completed by the end of next week on the house with the garage to follow that. Yesterday the wiring for the alarm system was completed and the ducted vacuum system! Today the electrical fit-out was done, the remaining fascia and gutters are due to be put up tomorrow. Tomorrow also sees the company who is installing our home automation products doing their pre-wire work and the brick work will continue as well. Very exciting with more updates this weekend. Here are some midweek photo's on the action that was done up to yesterday.

The House Goes On...

2007-10-29T00:01:00.000+11:00

So after two weeks, it's time to post some new pictures of the progress being made. Over the past two weeks, the first 40 courses of brickwork were completed, the fascia (white part at the top of the house) and gutters (black part, above the white part), were installed and the brickwork on the garage has begun, with the final window being installed. Also notice, the roof tiles have been delivered and are due to be installed in the first 1/2 of this week! Enjoy the new pictures with more to come after this weeks work!

In Loving Memory...

2007-10-16T23:47:00.000+10:00

Sometimes an event happens that causes you to pause, reflect and realize that there is much more out there in life than your personal pursuits, gains and triumphs. Due to such an event, I've decided to put a special post up that has nothing to do with our house, our dream and the work that we either stress about or enjoy with this project, day in and day out. I will update the house again on the weekend, rather than the recent pictures and posts I had planned during this week.

This post is dedicated to the loving memory of Jeff Doty, who left us early Sunday morning, the 14th of October. Jeff was the spouse of my cousin Karen Doty (nee Anderson), whom we are very close to. Jeff was a 'great guy' in the true sense of that phrase. We grieve for the loss and wish we could be there to help comfort the family we love so much. When the rest of our relatives gather to remember Jeff at Karen's 'Big Ass Party' we'll have a beer for him down here, because that's exactly how he'd like to be remembered! He was a loving and caring father and husband to Karen, Andrew and Natalie and a warm and welcoming friend to everyone else and he will be truly missed by all that were lucky enough to have the pleasure to know him.

Sorry for the Neglect, but Weeeeee're Baaaaaaack!

2007-10-14T10:23:00.000+10:00

Greetings loyal followers,

Apologies in advance for not posting anything over the past 1.5 - 2 weeks, but we have been busy w/life in general as I'm sure all of you are and bricking is a slower and more methodical process, so to really see a difference it was good to not post any pic's for a little while. Things should pick up over the next couple of weeks as initial brickwork is nearly completed and once it is done the Fascia and Gutters will go on next and then the roof tiles, so very exciting week to two weeks forthcoming. The bricklayer should finish the first 2/3 of his work by Monday, Tuesday at the latest. Next weeks pic's and the week after will be even more interesting so stay tuned!

Updated Post, but no pictures...

2007-10-01T14:05:00.000+10:00

Hello again esteemed audience,

This week is a 'verbal' update of sorts as the weather over the weekend wasn't really conducive to go out and take pictures of the progress and much of the progress would probably be hard to discern from the previous post. We had some showers on Friday, so all of the work that was completed was done Monday through Thursday and there was a pretty good amount accomplished on the shortened week. Essentially, the 'other' side of the house was completed to about the height of the windows, all the way down. If you look at the last post from the previous week, the first picture there shows the brickwork just beginning to round the corner of that side of the house. From that shot, you can visualize bricks running all the way down to the height of the window and that was the majority of the work that was done. He also managed to brick up above the outdoor Alfresco, about 1/2 way up the second floor. This week, I would imagine (weather permitting of course) he will brick up the front to the height of the windows, then begin bricking the rest of the areas up to the top of the green wrap, which will probably take about 1.5 weeks in total. Once that is done, the scaffolding will be delivered and erected, the roof guys will show up to put on the roof tiles and the bricklayer will begin to brick up the walls to the garage. Rain or shine, there will be pic's this coming weekend as there should a a good amount of bricks to show by then!

Keep on brickin'...

2007-09-23T14:14:00.000+10:00

It's been a week since our last post and the brick work continues methodically along and after next week the lower level will nearly be complete. We were originally told the 1st 40 courses of bricking would take 3 weeks and it looks like after 1.5 weeks we are pretty much on schedule for that. It's really looking great and our 'brickie' is doing a fantastic job. I'll have another update next week to compare to the current stage, but hopefully the rain will stay away and we'll continue to stay on track!

Slowly, But Beautifully....

2007-09-13T23:35:00.000+10:00

Bit by bit, day by day the brick work (or at least the first 40 courses of it), will continue over the next 3 weeks. The 'Brickie' is methodical but very, very good and we are really happy with how the bricks are looking and will end up looking when they are done! We were reassured from both posting forums and our bricklayers that the mortar will turn out much, much lighter once it has dried fully in about two weeks, so eventually the mortar will be a very light off-white color and once the bricks are cleaned, they will look stunning! I won't write much over the next 2.5 weeks, just post pictures of the daily progress, so enjoy!

Brickwork Has Begun!

2007-09-12T23:40:00.000+10:00

More bricks have been delivered, another 1/3 of the foil wrap has been done and the brick work itself began in earnest today. I don't know much about mortar, but the mortar we 'ordered' was an off-white color (essentially the lightest color we could get) and this mortar looks a bit brown. I do realize however that the mortar is wet and takes a week or two to fully dry out and will (hopefully) lighten up considerably. The craftsmanship on the brickwork however is beautiful. Very happy with the work these guys are doing!

4 Bedrooms & We'll Need Them All!

2007-09-02T23:29:00.000+10:00

Well, today was Father's Day in Australia and my Father's Day present is this picture. Yep, that's a positive pregnancy test and our 'attempt' to add a little girl to our male dominated family is now officially underway! Best Father's Day present ever and bitter sweet as regardless as to what the baby ends up being, this will be our third and final. Baby is due May 8th, so we really want to be in as soon as possible now! Go Henley, Go!

Starting to get Wrapped

2007-09-01T00:36:00.000+10:00

We have been 1/2 wrapped in a nice Green Henley 5 star Energy Rated blanket! This thing material keeps moisture from reaching the wood and interior of the home and serves as protection and insulation from the brickwork as well. The house will be 2/3 wrapped in this blanket, then the brickwork will begin. As of now brickwork is scheduled to begin on September 10th however if he manages to make it on site before that date, we'll have an update for you. Bricklayer will go up 40 courses, or roughly the first level and then the Scaffold will be put up. Next the Fascia & Spouting (gutters) will be installed and the roof cover/tiles will be put on and then the bricklayer returns to complete the job. After that the detailed work inside begins, so we are looking for some busy times ahead. We'll update again when we've been fully wrapped and of course when the bricklayer starts, so watch this space!

No Pic's, but More Bricks!

2007-08-29T17:44:00.000+10:00

A very quick update without a photo (mainly because it's not exciting enough to take a picture), but another load of bricks were delivered today. Previously before the slab was even poured they delivered about 4 palates of bricks and today (early this morning) another 7-8 palates were delivered. Not terribly interesting, but it is progress and the bricks weren't there yesterday, so that's good to see. Could it mean that the house wrap and brick work is not far off??? We'll see!

Plumbing...DONE!

2007-08-28T22:16:00.000+10:00

Our site supervisor rocks.

The other half went by the house this afternoon on her daily walk. To her (and my) excitement, the plumbing guys were there doing the plumbing. She had a short chat with one of the guys and he said that our Site Supervisor (who shall be known on this blog as "Big K"), was very good and very on top of things and given our experience so far, we would have to agree. He also said that his brother in-law would be doing the brick work and that he's really good at his trade and that we're lucky to have him because some jobs can be pretty shabby. We were excited to hear that of course and now our brickie has a reputation to live up to! Plumber guy thought brick work would start (most likely) mid-next week, which would be great if the house will then be wrapped by the end of this week. Stay tuned for more updates, here's the (not very exciting) plumbing work!

Framing Done!

2007-08-26T01:32:00.000+10:00

Well, in an earlier post, we had been told by our building company (Henley) that framing would begin early in the week and be completed by the end of the week and sure enough, come Friday morning, the finishing touches were put on the frame and it's now done! Here are a couple of pic's of the finished frame. Now we'll wait to see if the house will sit for a week before the next scheduled work is due to begin, or if we will have something happen!

More Progress

2007-08-24T00:19:00.000+10:00

These guys are awesome. In 3 days we have gone from a slab to the pic's below. When this wraps up (supposedly by early next week), but at the rate these guys are going, it's likely the frame stage will be done tomorrow, we move to the house being wrapped up in preparation for being bricked and the rough-in for the plumbing will be done. After that it will be the roof, then bricking and then....well we'll just have to wait and see. Check out the progress. The date is off by one, so this is Thursday, August 23rd's work.

Ground Floor Yesterday, 2nd Floor Today!

2007-08-22T23:25:00.000+10:00

Woohoo, we keep on ticking along and these guys are doing a great job so far! They have framed all of the walls (walk-in robes, bathrooms, etc.) for both the 1st and 2nd floors and have installed the windows, door frames and the large sliding door to the Alfresco already! Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. I would think we'll start seeing the frame of the roof going up soon as well as the rest of the windows and door frames installed. Check out today's progress!

They've Framed Us...

2007-08-21T23:15:00.000+10:00

...well, the first floor anyway. Man, these guys work quickly! Had to go see the progress for myself tonight and couldn't help taking pictures for the blog.

Floor Plan & Wood, Wood, Wood!

2007-08-20T23:48:00.000+10:00

Day one of the 'Frame Stage' is in the books and what has happened you ask? Well, we saw a large amount of wood, beams and more wood delivered to the site, cut, shaped etc. and the ground floor has a framed 'floor plan' if you will. Check it out...

Cleaned Up & Ready for Framing

2007-08-20T23:32:00.000+10:00

Between the slab being poured and the beginning of the Frame Stage, the concrete guys came by and cleaned up the lot. Looks fantastic! The gravel has been delivered so dirt and mud is not dragged out into the street and we are ready to be framed!

Well, SLAB me silly!

2007-08-15T23:29:00.000+10:00

WE HAVE A SLAB! One day off of the originally scheduled date (not too shabby) and we also had our weekly update call today to inform us of what is going on with the site. Without exact dates, we have been told that the framing of the house will begin "early next week" and "will be completed by late next week." We were floored by that statement! I know building materials have been ordered and the frame is pre-cut, but wow! That's phenomenal. Next stages after that will be Brick and then roof, so the exterior and general build of the house will happen very fast, which is great. We look forward to snapping progress shots daily and updating you ALL on the changes. For now, check out the solid foundation!

Ready to pour it on!

2007-08-14T23:33:00.000+10:00

6 dudes onsite today doing a BUNCH of work to prep for the pouring of the slab, which was scheduled to be today, but looks like it will be tomorrow. The site looks terrific, has been professionally prepped (see pic's below) and really gets exciting from here on out. Hopefully tomorrow we'll have pictures of the slab for your viewing pleasure and will have a start date for the frame stage!

Getting closer...

2007-08-14T00:01:00.000+10:00

Well, a little bit more happened today, but it's hard to tell what by the pictures. Essentially, they carted away the tons of dirt they had excavated from the lot and was piled up in front of the lot. They smoothed out the front a bit more and delivered the ReBar that is due to be put in for the pour that is supposed to happend tomorrow! You can see the Rebar, but it will be interesting to see if they only get the land prepped to for the pour tomorrow or if they actually end up pouring the slab, so stay tuned!

Almost ready for the pour...

2007-08-13T00:48:00.000+10:00

The boys were at it all day on Saturday (they probably packed it up at around 5:00 PM), and have done a great job getting the foundation cuts ready for the pour of the stiffening beams and the slab. It will be interesting to see if we make the pour on the scheduled date (Tuesday August 14). They were off to day (as I thought they would be), and will probably return tomorrow to finish off the job (hopefully) and then the pour will hopefully happen Tuesday. We'll keep ya posted as always, but here's Saturday's work. Quite a big difference between Friday & Saturday!

Foundation Preparation

2007-08-11T13:16:00.000+10:00

On Friday (August 10th) the work began to prepare the foundation for the eventual pouring of the slab. Our site is due to have the foundation poured on Tuesday and given that there are several 'squares' yet to be cut (the 'squares are where the supporting foundation, or support beams are to be poured), I don't see how they are going to finish before Tuesday. Of course all of this is 'weather permitting' but I'd say there was maybe less than 1/3 of the work completed yesterday and the weather was fine. Unless they are on site today and tomorrow (weather has been fine from early this morning until about now), I just don't see the likelihood of the site being finished off on Monday and ready for pour on Tuesday. It's due to rain today (sprinkling now) and then showers tomorrow and Monday, so this will be interesting to see how it turns out. As always, we'll check the site this weekend and report back if there have been any changes. Otherwise, we'll wait and see! Pictures of the progress below, including the sand that was delivered presumably for the concrete.

Pipes are in...

2007-08-11T12:59:00.003+10:00

The underground pipes were finished on Thursday. Here's a look...

Chugging right along...

2007-08-08T21:51:00.000+10:00

The boys were in today to put in the underground pipes prior to the lot being prepped and ready for the slab to be poured. We are on track (weather permitting) for the site to be 'boxed up' on Friday (August 10th) and the foundation is due to be poured on Tuesday (August 14th). The boys will finish up the pipes tomorrow, so there will be daily activity at least until the 14th (taking out the weekend of course), so watch this space! Pic's of today's work included.

Retention is good...

2007-08-07T00:04:00.000+10:00

With the weekend over and a new work week starting, there was yet more action on the lot today. A few guys came and quickly installed the sleeper retaining wall along the Western Boundary line of the property. We suspect that either...
A: There will be no activity until Thursday or Friday and then a flurry of activity to prepare the lot for the slab to be poured (a week from today). Or...
B: There will be steady activity each day leading up to next Tuesday in preparation for the foundation to be poured.

My guess is probably B: as there is quite a bit to do before the 14th, but we'll just have to wait and see. Stay Tuned!!!

A little 'brick' of a surprise...

2007-08-05T00:46:00.000+10:00

Went by the lot on Friday night after work (out of pure curiosity of course) and found that their had been a bit of a brick delivery! Exciting to see day by day activity now and we will certainly see more of that this week as the slab, (foundation) is due to be poured a week from Tuesday! Obviously, this is not enough bricks for an entire two story house, and they usually don't deliver the bricks until the frame stage is underway. I have a feeling that this first set of bricks is for the side of the garage that will become part of our Eastern Boundary. That part of the wall will also be a partial retaining wall and both retaining walls are due to be put in next week before the foundation, (slab) is poured. So, here are some pic's of the bricks! I know, a bit boring, but hey it's something!

And We're Off!!!

2007-08-02T23:20:00.000+10:00

Today was the 'Official Start Date' and true to their word, Henley got started. The pictures may look very much like the previous ones, causing you to think "what work?" but if you look closely, you can see where the site was cut on the left side and where the extra fill was brought in to make the lot level on the right side. You may also notice that a square section at the front of the lot is slightly lower than the rest, which is due to the design. This is where the double garage will be built and will be 170mm (that's about 6.5 inches) lower than the rest of the house. The same is true of the Alfresco in the back right corner, but you probably can't tell from the pic's. Hopefully more to come tomorrow and over the next week, leading up to the pouring of the foundation!

Positive SIGNS of things to come!

2007-08-01T22:50:00.000+10:00

It's Wednesday night and thought tonight (on the eve of the site start) was a great night for an update. Can I say that our new administrator totally rocks (well, so far). She's very organized and on the ball, which is a refreshing change. She called today to re-confirm that the site start will happen tomorrow (Thursday, August 2nd). Additionally she had further dates of work to be completed as well. The site 'cut and fill' will occur tomorrow with drainage and pipes being laid after that. On August 10th, they will prep the site for the pouring of the slab (foundation) and the slab pour date is set for August 14th. The administrator explained that there are about 2-3 days of prep work prior to pouring the foundation, including boxing off the area to be poured, re-bar, etc. I was curious to know at what point during the building process the retaining wall would be installed. She said she would find out and get back to me. She called me back within the hour with an answer, stating that the retaining wall will go in at some point next week! Once we get started (tomorrow), we should have nearly weekly updates as things will happen quite quickly and we'll be checking on the lot at least every other day to see the progress.

To back track a bit, we went by the lot this past Saturday and notice some positive signs...actual Henley building signs had been posted on our Eastern fence, which was a visual confirmation we were going to have a house built there! Then yesterday, an even more positive sign, with the spraying out of an area where bricks are to be delivered, which usually happens AFTER the frame stage. Nice to see them thinking ahead! Check the signs out and then check back a LOT over the next couple of weeks to see ACTUAL progress on the lot!

ON TO CONSTRUCTION!!! Well, in about a week

2007-07-25T23:44:00.001+10:00

So, first let's catch you up on the latest happenings before we get to the good stuff. From our previous post, we had mentioned that our old administrator had said that despite our folder being handed over to the construction department, our site supervisor had noticed some inconsistencies that needed to be re-drawn and sent to us to sign. We received those, signed them, but also noticed that one of the things we had originally asked for hadn't been implemented in the drawings. We checked with our admin and indeed this was the case, though she was very reluctant to just have the change made, almost as if she thought we may have been trying to pull a fast one, by 'suddenly changing our minds' and then saying that it was something we had wanted a long time ago. The houses original plans have two openings in two of the walls, one on the Theater Room wall and one between the Study and the Living Room. We had asked for both of these to be closed up and in our drawings, the Theater Room wall had been done, but not the Study. We chased an answer (well, really the paperwork) for this with our admin for two or three days and were only told that "management is looking into it." The wife then decided to drive the paperwork we had already signed down to Henley and called our administrator on the way there. When she asked about the opening in the wall being re-drawn on the plan, she said, "yeah, well you can't have that...management has determined that it was supposed to be in your Tender and because it wasn't you will just have to have the opening in the wall because materials have already been ordered." My wife was NOT happy with that and said so and reiterated that despite the fact that it was Henley's fault for not putting it in at Tender even though we had requested it during our Tender appointment (and had proof of this), we were just going to have to live with it? To which she responded, "well pretty much, yes" The wife then reiterated that she wasn't happy with that and the response was "Yes, well I'll be sure to voice your concern with management and someone will get back to you."
Needless to say, my wife arrived at Henley's office about 15 minutes later with our other paperwork and asked for Melanie, who was conveniently unavailable. She had to take our son to the restroom and when she returned, in walked the Customer Service Team Leader (essentially our admin's boss), called her out by name and had the documents with the wall the way we wanted in his hand and ready to go. Problem suddenly solved! She has no idea what happened between her phone call and turning in the other papers, but he came out with the pages already re-printed and was quite nice about it, no questions asked and that was enough to satisfy us.

Got a call from the new administrator yesterday to introduce herself and to let me know that she'd be with us until the settlement stage. She informed me of who our site supervisor was, said she'd be sending out an introduction letter that day with her card in it. She also informed me that site supervisors are in the office on Wednesday's and part of the time on Friday's and they catch up with them on Wednesday's to find out about the sites they are looking after. She says that each week she will call me Wednesday afternoon (sometimes Thursday if she doesn't get to all her calls) to inform me what will be happening on site for the next week. She said she'd call tomorrow (which was today) to let me know when the start date would be etc. She called again this afternoon and informed us that the start date will be August 2nd (excavation of the site) and that they were hoping to have the foundation (slab) poured by August 14th! She said she'd be sending out an official site start letter either late this week or early next week and will speak with us again soon. All great and FINALLY we can get going with this project. I think we've abandoned any hope of getting in before Christmas, but should be in by February/March '08. Introduction letter from the Construction Administrator arrived today, so all very positive. Next post will have pictures from the newly excavated site on August 2nd, so watch this space!

Some updates.....well, kinda.....

2007-07-19T23:25:00.000+10:00

I was hoping to have more exciting updates than the ones I do have, but it is what it is. We did receive the final drawings for the house last week (Wednesday), after our administrator told us that we would receive them Friday of the previous week, or "early the following week." So, Wednesday wasn't too bad, we promptly signed them and drove them to the Henley office the following morning (Thursday, June 12th), so our file could be moved on to construction phase! We hand delivered the folder to our Admin. and were assured that we'd be hearing from the "New Admin." early next week, that the site supervisor had received the folder and was organizing tradespeople to start the job ("probably early next week") and all was well. So "early next week" came and went and I finally called the 'old admin' today to find out what stage we were at and when we should expect to hear from the new admin and for work to start. I was told that we would for sure hear from them tomorrow, Friday the 20th of June (I think in admin language that means Monday) and that work is being ordered and should start either tomorrow as well, or Monday (again in admin language that means "early next week"), so I'm not holding my breath, but I'm hopeful. I think 'old admin' is swamped right now and is probably happy to be handing us off as they just have too much on their plate right now!

To backtrack a bit, we also had a person from our local council call us yesterday to inform us that he'd been over to inspect our site as Henley were close to starting (sounded encouraging, but probably something that needs to be done before they CAN start) and that our demolition company had done some damage to the old crossover (driveway) and sidewalk (footpath) and said that he noted what the damage was and phoned Henley to inform them that they would be responsible for any new damage beyond what was already there. We are liable for the current damage, but it's nothing to really worry about because the size of our new garage will dictate that the footpath (sidewalk) and driveway (crossover) will have to be widened to accommodate it, so it's literaly a cost we'd be incurring anyway!

Also, we had spoken to 'old admin' on Tuesday and she said that the site manager who now has our file has built a couple hundred houses of the type we are building and there were a few changes from the 'final' drawings that needed further adjustment. She reassured us that these were very minor, quite standard and that it wouldn't be delaying the process at all (which doesn't seem to be the case as we haven't had any progress since then, but we'll see), and that he's busy ordering the tradespeople, etc. etc. The items in question are the rendered band on the garage. The original drawing calls for a band of render (or cement) at the top of the garage, which matches the rest of the house, but due to the fact that the garage wall will be the boundary line between the two properties, the render (even though it's not very thick at all), would encroach on the neighbors property, so it will be a solid brick wall all the way up. Second was an adjustment to the one of the beams on the outdoor alfresco, something about it not being drawn properly (thank goodness he caught it!) and finally was something engineering caught with the cut and fill, so that's being adjusted as well. We were originally told we'd have the papers by today, but when the didn't arrive, chased the 'old admin' and were told they'd be express posted and to us for sure by tomorrow (Friday the 20th).

So, there you have it. Some updates, but nothing really to show for it yet, but we're hoping soon. We're not holding our breath, but we're hopeful we should have the papers tomorrow, might hear from the 'new admin' tomorrow and if it's really our lucky day, someone will have started work on the site tomorrow, but probably thinking that will really take place next week.

As always....we'll keep ya posted!

Still Waiting on Final Drawings, But...

2007-07-08T23:46:00.000+10:00

We have been re-established! I went to the Lot today to see collect some last minute 'trash' items off the Lot before construction is set to begin (hopefully this week), and found that the re-establishment survey had taken place. The four corners of the Lot had been pegged with nail-like peg's and paint that was florescent pink! So, there is nothing left to do but to sign and return the final drawings, which we are still waiting for from Henley (I was told they would be express posted to us on Monday) and they can start! I suspect that they will start this week as our materials have been ordered and the final checking process has been completed. The signing of the final drawings is a mere formality and Henley has 31 days from the date of the issuance of the building permit to begin work. The 31st day is a week from tomorrow, so it seems they will have to begin next week. We'll let you know if it happens or not, so watch this space!

Getting Close to Construction Phase

2007-07-04T22:49:00.000+10:00

Hey all,

It's been a while since I have updated (about 2.5 weeks), but nothing physically has happened to the lot in that time. While we were enjoying the warmth of the California sun for a couple of weeks, the second soil test was conducted and it has been determined that we will remain an 'M' Class for soil and an 'M' class for our slab (foundation), meaning that we are listed as 'normal' which is good because that is inclusive in the Henley price cost. There were some site revisions however and our total site costs have gone up by about $3,400, which I will explain soon when the detailed paperwork arrives. We need to sign off on that paperwork and send it back to Henley so that we can get to the Construction phase and have things start to happen. We'll fill you in on the new site costs and revisions shortly, so stay tuned!

We're Done! - Over to Henley Now!!!

2007-06-09T04:02:00.000+10:00

Well, the demolition company has completed the work and the lot looks great! It's relatively flat and we're hoping that it will be level enough to not require a retaining wall, saving us some money that we'll no doubt put back into the project one way or another! Henley has been informed that we have completed this stage, along with everything that we have needed to do on our end. They will now order the second soil test & survey as well as a re-establishment survey and once that is all completed, they will go back to the drawing board in relation to the foundation to make any necessary changes to the plan based on the new tests and away we go! We're hoping the slab will get poured in the next 30-40 days. The site may be quiet for the next couple of weeks as we are off to the States, but I'll update you if there is any news from Henley. All updates will now depend on them, so we are looking forward to relaxing and watching the dream in action!

Ciao for now!

Almost there...

2007-06-07T00:41:00.000+10:00

Today the rest of anything growing, standing or remaining from the house, deck and shed were torn down and much of it removed! We are hoping what's left will be taken away tomorrow, with nothing much but dirt left and a flattened lot! We need it to be done by then because we are off for two weeks to California on Saturday, so come on guys, pull through! Here's the most recent progress.

What a difference a day makes...

2007-06-05T23:29:00.000+10:00

Well the demolition company got started today and rarely stopped, nearly completing most of the work in one day. According to the guy doing the work today, we should be cleared and pretty much ready to hand it over to Henley by the end of tomorrow! Fingers crossed! Check out the progress so far!

Almost there....

2007-06-04T22:42:00.000+10:00

Though no work was done today as we had hoped, a large piece of machinery WAS dropped off on our driveway, suggesting that perhaps tomorrow, much of what you have seen in the previous pictures will be gone soon! See for yourself!

And a bit more today...

2007-05-31T23:17:00.000+10:00

After the tiles of the roof were successfully removed and salvaged yesterday, the demolition company followed up today with the removal of the eaves of the house and any other concrete sheeting that was discovered inside, as this material contains asbestos. So with the asbestos now safely removed from the house (and a nice orange mesh fence in front of our property), the house is now ready for full demolition. The next time we snap some shots of the property, it should be a nice empty dirt lot! We're hoping that will happen before the weekend is over and then we can turn the process over to Henley!

Slowly, but surely...

2007-05-30T22:16:00.000+10:00

It wasn't Tuesday as we had hoped, but Wednesday is close enough! The 'tile guys' showed up today to remove and salvage the terracotta tiles from the roof! So, piece by piece the house is beginning to disappear. We are hoping that the demolition company will show up in the next day or two to remove the eaves of the house and any other concrete sheeting that contains asbestos and after that, it's a quick knock down and clean up job and over to Henley! Oh, and the underground power pit has been installed!

Weekly Update - Not much to see, but......

2007-05-27T12:23:00.000+10:00

...some stuff to report!

Progress wise, it would seem to be a bit of a slow week. However, much was accomplished despite nothing (physically) happening with the house.

First of all, it's time to take a moment to recognize some of the people who have helped significantly in helping to make our 'dream home' more of a reality. We would like to thank most of our neighbors; Tom & Faye, Ron, John & Lynn and most of all Murray & Jane for being supportive and helpful in signing letters allowing us to move the 'setback' of the house closer to the street. Additional thanks are necessary for Murray & Jane (our next door neighbors for our first 3 years and still the owners of the house next door). Thanks for signing a letter to allow us to put in more attractive and clearer windows on the second storey, so we will have a much better view of the world around us! Of course this subject to the approval form council, but with their letter, we're likely to get it through, so THANKS!

Murray and Jane's generosity is part of this update. To back track a little, due to some relatively recent council restrictions, when you build a two storey house that overlooks your neighbors on either side and into what are classified as 'habitable areas' (i.e. living spaces in the house), the windows you put in MUST BE frosted from the bottom to nearly the top, with only a clear strip at the top to see out of. This was instituted to protect the privacy of the neighbors so that people weren't able to look into private living spaces with ease. The problem with these windows (aside from being more expensive than the 'normal' windows included with your home), is that they cut down on light entering the room, and significantly lower (or in most cases) eliminate the ability to see out of them, ruining the 'view' most people expect to gain when building a two storey house. So, with Murray & Jane's help, we have asked the council for permission to install 'regular' windows on the Western side of the house for the upstairs TV area and one of the bedrooms. We're hoping to have council approval by the middle or end of this coming week.

Also this week, we spoke to our demolition company to find out when the work might get completed and we could notify Henley. They have said that they are waiting on the availability of their Tile & Roof person to come and remove the tiles and the roof trusses from the house. This is due to take place Tuesday or Wednesday (either the 29Th or 30Th of May) and then the Demo company will follow up (hopefully right away) and remove the eaves of the house and any other areas that contain asbestos. After that, all that is left is a 'knockdown & clean up job' where they knockdown the house and shed, remove any and all concrete, tree's, bushes etc. and pretty much leave you with a dirt lot! We are hoping this will be complete by the end of next week so that we'll stay pretty much on or slightly ahead of schedule and can get to the building phase!

We also checked on the installation of the Power Pit which should be taking place soon and were told that the installation work should be done in the next week or two. This should be a busy week of demolition, council (hopefully) approvals, potential power pits and other general updates. We'll keep ya posted!

DEMOLITION HAS BEGUN!!!

2007-05-20T02:42:00.000+10:00

So, we had been told by our 'Demo Guy' that he would be getting started on Saturday. As we are curious creatures, we packed the boys into the car, drove our 1/2 mile down the road and began celebrating in the car as we pulled into the driveway and could see significant work had been done already, and this was only day 1 of demolition! We're hoping this process will be completed in about 1 - 1/2 weeks! Apparently, they did as much of the 'salvage' work as they could today, taking floor boards, oven, cooling and heating systems, basins, etc. The next step is to remove the roof tiles (and/or roof itself) and the eave's of the house (which contain asbestos), before knocking down the house completely. This part takes the most care and time for obvious reasons, but the actual knockdown once the eave's are removed, should only take about 1/2 a day!

The only other bit of news to update is that we received our Council 'full' approval for the garage to be built over the easement. This is the final piece of paperwork on our end needed so Henley can now apply for the building permit. I will update the blog again when we know that the building permit has been obtained and throughout the demolition process as well.

Here's some pictures of Saturday's work, with hopefully more to come very soon!

Bye, Bye House...

2007-05-20T00:15:00.000+10:00

This is an 'in between' post signifying the transition from the Old House to the New House. We'll do a 'side by side' comparison once 'The Dream' has been completed, but for now, here are a few bitter sweet shots (inside & out) of the old place.

Picture's from Moving Day

2007-05-12T20:29:00.000+10:00

Here are some snaps from moving day. Many thanks to the great "Waz" for helping me get the big stuff over from point 'A' to point 'B'! Couldn't have done it without ya, Wazza! A couple of the pic's are the 'moving boys' showing how strong they were that day and flashing the raw muscle power for all you ladies out there. We were missing one 'moving boy' that day because he was busy with his "harem" of 1st grade classmates next door! Next couple of pic's are of the family (minus said 'harem' boy) and the mighty 2 year old and I taking the last load out of the old house!

Only Update is that we are now ready to be demolished. Called the 'demo guy' the other day to inform him we were 'ready to go' as this is what he had said to do all along, telling me "just let us know when you'll be ready and we'll pretty much be ready to go right away..." Then of course he says that he's got 3 other places in front of ours to go and we'll be 3 weeks away! So, I called in the heavy artillery and had the wife tell him what was up and how it was really going to be! She told him that it would cost us too much money on a daily basis not to get started right away, so he 'suddenly' had a mate that he works with that could get started on it as he's looking for work at the moment. Before he was 'motivated' to tell her that though, his initial response was "Oh, so...are you in a hurry, are ya?" Ummmm yeah, we're building a home and we'd rather not just take our time! So, he's got a couple of days to get his act together. Otherwise, we'll pull the plug and get someone in who can do it right away. Hopefully he'll come through. Probably GREAT at demolition, good at what he does, etc. just not the best communicator or 'people person' in the business, but we'll see how it goes.

Multiple Updates!

2007-05-08T10:55:00.000+10:00

This is a quick note to update you on how we have been doing with 'The Move' and latest news on the house.

We have officially moved! We are in to our 'cozy' little 3-bedroom unit/condo with a lot of things in various storage locations and boxes and chaos everywhere, but we're in! The next few weeks will be sorting and putting everything in it's place. I have moving day pic's to update once we get the Internet going again. Phone was switched off at the old place and due to be switched on at the new place last Friday (04/05), but in typical Monopolistic, take our time, Telstra fashion, there was a fault in the line (discovered early Friday) which was fixed at 7:30 AM on Monday morning, so no phone or Internet for the weekend. This exact same thing happened when we moved from our previous appartment to the house we are now demolishing and I expect will happen again when we move to the new house. Anyway, enough Telstra bashing.

As I write this, everything seems to be coming together today! The other half went by the place to grab the last of our 'stuff' and was pleasantly surprised to see the Gas & Electric company doing the abolishments that are necessary before we can start demolition! We had worried that this could take up to 20 days from when the order was placed (yesterday), but will be completed today! We also received in the mail our permission from the local council to build our garage over our easement on the eastern boundry of our property, which was the final piece of 'approval' we needed before moving forward. Also in the mailbox was the contract from the power company to install the power pit, which needs to be done prior to Henley coming in to pour the slab and build the house, and this was a welcomed surprise because the cost was about $300 less than we'd been anticipating, coming in at around $850 when we had been quoted around $1100!

That's all for now, but continue to watch this space as once we're back online (TELSTRA!!!!), there will be plenty of visual photo's to accompany all the soon to come updates!

Keys to the New Joint

2007-05-01T23:27:00.000+10:00

Picked up the keys to the 'new' rental property and began the laborious process of moving today. Actually, we had a pretty good head start by packing and storing several selected items at the in-laws place, but actually moved a couple of carloads of 'stuff' over there today.

Oh yes, one side not I forgot to mention in the previous post...
We had applied for and received permission to build our garage over the 6 ft. easement on the Eastern Boundary of our property from the local water authority, however we still needed to apply and receive permission from the local council as well. I was told (or recall being told that Henley would do this during the building permit stage and didn't think I needed to worry about it). Turns out it was something we needed to do, so I quickly downloaded the application form, provided all the paperwork for the application and dropped it off at the council. We should have an answer within two weeks and it's highly unlikely that they will deny us the permission, so it's not a worry, just an oversight that has been taken care of.

Anyway, on to the new place. After the wife had an 'interesting' issue with the garage door, we went back last night and solved the problem and I think the reality of our situation is beginning to sink in. This is really starting to happen! Extremely exciting and a bit daunting at the same time. I'll update the blog again this weekend to let you know how smoothly (fingers crossed), the transition with diconnections and connections actually goes!

Signed Our Lives Away!

2007-05-01T09:12:00.000+10:00

Well, we did it. We signed our lives away and the game is truly on! Our contract appointment was yesterday (April 30th) and we met with Melanie, who won some big points back and went from "Little Miss Uselss" to "Little Miss Helpful" which was nice to see. Becuase we had her express post the contract to us, we had time over the weekend to read and review it, which allowed us to go in prepared with a few (but not many) questions. We went over the details with Melanie and she answered our questions pretty satisfactorily, with one item she was going to check up on and get back to us. We have come to the conclusion that she is probably snowed under with several clients at the moment and if you want something to happen or you want to be in the 'front of the line,' you probably need to hound her a bit to get things done for you. She admitted this somewhat, so now we know how to play it and are hopeful everything from here on out will be done in a timely manner with as little 'surpirses' as possible.
The contract was pretty well laid out and the explanations for everything in it was pretty clear and concise. The questions/requests were:
1. Adjustment of the incorrectly stated deposit amount and subsequent deposit payments. This was done right away, no issues.
2. Deletion of the price of the riser pipe and retaining wall from the tender price as it had been deleted on our final drawings by the engineer's report. It was explained that this price deletion will come out later, when we pay the next deposit.
3. Recommendation of an "H Class" slab (foundation) despite the original tender suggestion of an "M Class" slab. Melanie did not realize the change had been made and was going to check on that one for us and get back to us. More on this one later!
4. The language in the contract states that we need to provide Henley with written documentation that the house has been demolished, trees and plants removed, old footings removed etc. Melanie said that if I can provide that when I get it, but that if I just inform her that the house is gone and the lot is clear, she'll order the second soil test that day, which will take about a week to have done and then (possibly) another week before any alterations from an engineering perspective that need to be made given the results of the 2nd test.
5. My final question was if the TV points & coax cable could be taken off of the plans and refunded if I had my personal 'smart wire' electrician wire the house? She answered that today stating that a certain clause in the contract specify exaclty what Henley require to happen there.

Melanie then informed us that an arborist report was recommended and would be ordered and carried out by Henley at no further cost to us, which was fine. Mainly it had to do with some large trees on an ajoining property, which (oddly enough) were recently removed! So, we are guessing that the concern of these trees and their roots will not be an issue nor affect our slab design.

She came back to us today regarding the slab classification change and her answer was: "The soil report has been revised since being first obtained, therefore the recommendations have changed, and we are now designing the slab as a class P."

My answer to this was:
The answer you provided below re: the soil revision does, (I’m sure you knew this was coming) pose a couple more questions.

1. Will the revised slab design affect the site costs that we signed at tender and what will those costs be (if known)?
2. Why is the design of the slab a ‘Class P’ when a ‘Class H’ was recommended on the Engineers report? (Realizing that on the report the soil was classed as ‘P’ due to trees, which of course will be removed entirely when we begin demolition).
3. Is there a potential for all of this (slab, soil and class design) to change again after the second soil test is completed and analyzed?

I didn't hear back today, but will update you as to the answer to these intriguing questions as soon as Melanie gets back to me, so watch this space!

Admin Adventures & The Contracts

2007-04-28T16:47:00.000+10:00

Well a lot has happened in the past week to catch you up on. After securing our place etc. it was time to start to plan the 'shift over' from our current house to the new unit. We pick the Key's up for the rental on Tuesday, May 1st and will slowly begin moving things over during the week, with the big move and full clear out Friday night and Saturday morning, so this time next weekend, we expect to be fully moved in and for this place to be vacant.

I organized for the phone and internet to be disconnected from the cuurent house and reconnected to the rental for Friday, May 4th. The other half organized for the power and gas to be shut off on the 7th of May (incase we needed power while moving over the weekend) and for the new place to have it's power turned on Friday the 4th. If all goes well, it should be a fairly smooth transition and we'll hardly miss a beat. Fingers crossed!!!

Before demolition of the current house can begin, we need to have the electricity (which is currently an overhead supply), and gas meters abolished. We faxed in a form to do this during the Public Holiday this past Wednesday (ANZAC Day) for both Gas & Electric to be abolished. The catch is that the house must be vacant for the G&E companies to provide this service and even then (because they outsource it to seperate companies), it can take up to 20 days for it to happen from when the job is raised. We had a very nice customer service person who called us to confirm that we needed this service done and she said that she'd try to have the abolishment happen the same day as our disconnect, which would be the 7th of May. That would be the IDEAL situation, as we could then have demolition begin right away. If however it takes up to 20 days for them to come out and do the abolishments, then demo has to wait until it's done to start. Again, fingers crossed it's done the same day as the disconnection of these services (or very soon after)!

We also need to have the Electric company come out and install an underground power supply (commonly referred to as a power pit) as new dwellings are now supplied this way as opposed to the old overhead supply that we currently have. I also faxed the paperwork for this on ANZAC Day and called the power company that owns the pole and will do the work (AGL) on Thursday to follow up. All the paperwork was filled out correctly and we should have the power pit installed in about 2 weeks (again fingers crossed). That is not as pressing as the other services previously mentioned, as the power pit needs to be ready prior to Henley pouring the foundation. We anticipate it will be another 4-6 weeks before we are at the stage where the foundation will be poured. We'll keep you posted on how this all goes, so watch this space.

Also on Wednesday (ANZAC Day), we moved about 3 carloads of boxed and packed belongings over to the Inlaws house for a long winters nap! Today the father in law and I will be moving a couple larger items for storage and reviewing the contract.

Ahhhh the contract. Well, I had mentioned in a previous post that our newly assigned Administrative person that will be our liaison until we reach the build stage (which thankfully, rapidly approaching). Our Admin. has been the only downside of our experience with Henley to date. As far as an Administrative assistant goes it is our belief that this person either needs some more training, the workload reduced, an assistant, or all three! We have had to chase our Admin. for any and everything that is supposed be looked after by them and the latest item we've had to push was our contract. Our contract appointment is for Monday, April 30th at 9:00 AM. Henley's general process is to sign your tender, have your contract signing scheduled for approximately 1 month later and a copy of your contract will be sent to you 1 week prior to your contract signing date. It dawned on me on ANZAC Day that we had not received our contract yet and it wasn't going to arrive on a public holiday, leaving us the weekend to review it, if and only if it had already been sent by our aforementioned Admin. (not likely), or I called, asked the Admin. where it was and have them express post it! So, Thursday morning before I knew the Admin. would be in, I left a message, asking where our contract was and if they had it, they needed to express post it to us so that we could review it before our meeting on Monday, otherwise, we weren't going to be signing a legally binding document without the chance to review it! The Admin. called me back later that morning with some excuse (no matter what we have had to chase this person for in the past, there is always some excuse), about Engineering having a query about our slab (foundation) and that it was nothing or a non-issue. The Admin. would have our contract later that day and express post it to us so that we would have it by Friday! I could tell they were covering their tracks and probably wouldn't have realized they needed to send it to us without my reminding them that we existed and had our signing on Monday morning! Contract arrived early Friday morning and I told the wife that she'd better review our payment schedule because our Admin. had filled it out by hand and I didn't trust them as far as I could throw them. Of course, (without surprise) the wife found calculation errors that she had to call and make them aware of it. Our Admin. had put down that we had only paid a 'normal' $550 initial deposit, but had 'fogotten' that we were a demolition site and because of that had actually paid a $1000 initial deposit. This of course, affected every single calculation on the payment schedule after that, because it's based off of percentages of what has been paid already in relation to the total (we're talking pretty simple math here folks).

So, we are picking through the contract with a fine tooth comb (already discovering that some of our site costs have been reduced due to the engineer's revised calculations) but were not taken out of the contract paperwork, nor off the overall price. This however could change again after demolition, as we will have a second soil test done to make sure nothing significant has changed. We will be going over our contract with our Admin. on Monday (pray for us) and then will have to 'rely' on this person to be timely in securing the building contract and ordering the second soil test. Either we'll get a replacement to finish off this process or will be forced to be the Admin's worst nightmare to 'motivate' them to get things done as quickly as possible. As much as we don't want it to, stay tuned, things could be VERY interesting over the next few days!

We got a place!!!

2007-04-22T10:38:00.000+10:00

With our contract signing date looming and after a couple of fairly stressful weeks scouring the Internet for apartments and units, we FINALLY found something that was big enough, didn't reek of smoke, was clean and best of all was in an ideal location. The rental market in general is pretty competitive, but in the Northern Suburbs seems to be extremely tight. Every 'open for inspection' that we attended had one of the aforementioned "issues" that were unacceptable to us and were also being visited by at least 4 or 5 interested parties. We were even 'saved' from renting what we thought was another 'ideal' unit by a good Samaritan who warned us that the lady living next door was more than one sandwich shy of a picnic, if you know what I mean. The unit was situated close to our son's school, shops and the train station and about 1k (or 3/4 of a mile for the U.S. folks following this) from our current house. She came and told us of the problems that previous tenants had with this person and that several people in other units either had restraining orders against her or had broken their leases and left due to her behavior. That was enough to deter us and now that we have found something just as ideal (if not more so), we'll be delivering her a bottle of wine! She felt she had to tell us because she saw us show up with our children and just couldn't bare it if we weren't warned. Thank goodness for kind hearted people with good intentions!

So here are a couple of shots of the new little unit that we'll be renting. It's (get this) across the street from our sons school, is 1 block from the shops, grocery market, etc. and only about a 10 minute walk to the train station and is about .80k (that would be about 1/2 a mile) from our current house. It's also a 3 bedroom (great for us as we have 2 'energetic' boys) with each room being quite large and a decent size living room. Rather than the 2 bedroom units we were considering, it's almost like moving to a smaller version of our current house which is great. Our house now is probably medium to small in size, so not too much consolidation needed. We'll only be bringing the basics and storing a lot of items, but it's only temporary and will make moving into the new, larger and fully equipped house that much more exciting! Our contract signing is on the 30th of April and we move in on the 1st of May, which makes the timing excellent. We have targeted our demolition to begin May 7th (pending us being out by then and all necessary utilities being disconnected, and will keep you posted as to how we run, but with securing this little place, we are now looking to be right on schedule (at least from our end)!

Bricks for "The Dream"

2007-04-21T16:52:00.000+10:00

Greetings loyal followers:

During tender signing, we were able to receive a list of houses using the same bricks that we had selected at our color appointment. These houses weren't necessarily built by Henley Properties, but they are houses that have the exact same bricks that we will use for the building of our house, so we got out and saw a couple of them to ensure it was a look that we were going to be happy with, (something I recommend doing if you are building a house through a volume builder, as it's hard to get an idea from a board with a couple of bricks on it).

These are a couple of snaps of a house built with our brick choice, which confirmed for us that it was a selection we like and believe will look great on our new home. They may not be something you would personally select for your house, but as I said before, a worthwhile exercise to affirm personal taste!

We also have been closing in on a couple of apartments/units to rent, so watch this space for more exciting and thrilling updates! With a week to go before signing our Contract and demolition around the corner, we need to get out of here…..quick!

Facade Choice For Our House

2007-04-15T01:07:00.000+10:00

We have selected the Millbank Facade for our new house. This picture is a drawing or 'artist's rendition' of what the Millbank will look like. We have seen enough Henley houses to have a very good idea of what the finished product will probably look like and we selected this facade partly due to budget and mostly due to taste and overall satisfaction. You can't tell from the picture, but the front 'portico' as it's called (the part where the front door is and the winow above the front door), will be what's known as a rendered finish or smooth cement-like finish, and the rest (around the other windows, garage, etc. will be brick.

1/2 Way Between Tender Signing & Contract Signing

2007-04-13T08:43:00.000+10:00

We are now at the half way point between having signed our Tender and signing our actual contract. The latest with us is that we are scouring the online ad's for apartments to rent in our area, hopefully fairly close to our current home so that we can not only keep tabs on the progress, but also because we are in an area that is close to our son's school, shops, train station, etc. So far we visited one place, but it only had a shower & no bath, so that was enough for us to rule it out. We are visiting at least two more properties this weekend and hopefully will be able to secure something in the next week or so.

We should receive our contract and final drawings specific to our house and lot late next week or early the following week. We will be going back to the Henley offices to sign the contract on Monday the 30th of April and hope to be into an apartment or unit right then or shortly after.

I phoned our Demolition guy today to see if our permit for demolition had been received yet and it has not. He said it could be a couple of weeks away as they take a while, so hopefully it won't be more than that and we are crossing our fingers we get it prior to the date we sign the contract. That way we can bring it with us to the signing and they will be able to secure the building permit fairly quickly as all work on our part will have been done. Demo guy said that he'll fax it over to me as soon as he has it.

Watch this space for continued updates on demo permits, disconnection of services (soon to be organized) and apartment/unit hunting!

Riviera Double Storey Floorplan

2007-04-08T01:23:00.000+10:00

Tender Signing!

2007-04-08T00:48:00.000+10:00

We are really on our way now! We had a 4 hour sit down with our Tender Presenter, who took us through all of the costs (Site Costs, Connection Costs, our Color Selection Costs and Variation Costs) and we now have an idea of what the complete project will not only look like, but how much we'll be owing the bank! Below is the breakdown of our site costs, without going into the color selections and variation costs...

New connection to stormwater drains: $1,268 (Our connection is either old or in poor condition and the new house and works will need sufficient drainage to the stormwater. This cost is high because of additional considerations, such as; breaking open the footpath, disturbance of the nature strip & reinstatement, additional council road opening permit fee & supply of crushed rock to protect drains & ensure public safety).

Additional single phase underground power connection: $72 (Up to 12 meters is included and based on our lot, the sitting of the new house an the positon of the power, they have estimated a couple extra meters being needed to reach the meter box).

Temporary fencing for duration of works: $332

Additional drainer allowance for sewer point trenches between 1500mm & 3100mm in depth as required by OH&S: $645

Concrete slab type "M" to suit foundation material class "P" as per Soil Report: Included (Note, 'M' Class slab to be confirmed on Engineer's slab design. We are obviously hoping/praying it remains an 'M' slab after demolition. We have been told it's highly likely it will).

Total cost of Earthworks for building platform: $1,322

Agricultural drains to base of cut greater than 300mm deep: $390

Riser pipe to front of garage: $35 (This is for necessary drainage)

Silt pit to be connected from agricultural drains to stormwater: $103

Timber sleeper walls retaining walls as required by council and per site plan: $2,654 (They admittedly charge an extensive amount for retaining walls. Our tender presenter kindly hinted that the flatter the land is at the time they are ready to do 2nd soil test and start work, the more likely it would be that we could avoid retaining wall costs, so we are going to try to level it as best as possible before they begin).

Brick retaining wall (opposite side of house), waterproofing & agricultural drains as required by council: $1,557

Garage located 1.0 meters away from inspection shaft to sewer line, cost for surveyor to site inspection shaft etc: $130

Reticulated termite treatment system: $825

Rock removal provisional allowance - services & foundations (charged @ $192 per cubic meter): $3,840 (This is provisional, as stated and will be refunded if they do not dig up any rock. We should be OK here because the initial soil test did not hit any rock and given some recen works in the area, we know neighbors etc. have not hit rock. If they do hit rock, they have to show us the rock they have discovered as well as a report detailing the size, amount, etc).

25% builders margin on provisional allowance for rock removal: $960 (Henley charges 25% on top of the removal charge and they are up front about it, also provisional, so again if we don't hit rock and we are not charged, this cost naturally drops away as well).

Material handling charge due to limited site access: $688 (This is a charge we and our tender presenter find a bit rediculous. Despite paying a $7,500 zone charge for Henley to build in our area, there is an additional charge for having to hand carry materials from the front to the back. They are trying to get this removed for us).

Re-establishment Survey: $905

Asset protection fee: $115

Second soil test, post demolition: $350

Guardrail to single storey section of house due to OH&S: $286 (We may get some of this back as well if they don't need to use a guardrail on one part of our house. They need to have 6 meters of clear ground below in order to forfeit the need for the guardrail).

Stormwater pollution prevention required to comply with council: $1,028 (These are a number of little provisions built into this cost so that we have a 'clean' site as required by most council's. Apparently ours aren't too bad as some can be rediculously strict).

So there you have our costs for Connections, Foundations & Footings. All of that should come to $16,680 if I have added it up correctly, which is much higher than we had originally anticipated. HOWEVER, if you take into the account that we hopefully should be reimbursed for the rock provision, can get our land level enough prior to start so as not to warrant the need for retaining walls (one or both), as well as the silly material handling cost, the total will then be $6,981! That would be about what we were told originally, so we'll keep you posted as we move closer to 2nd soil test and the construction moves through. Once we are done, we'll know what we ended up being in for!

About to take the plunge...

2007-03-29T22:48:00.000+10:00

Hello and welcome to our blog and thanks for sharing in the excitement, trials & tribulations of our attempt to fund and build our dream home.

A bit of background...

My wife and I have decided to build a new home with Henley Properties. Here is (very briefly) our experience until now (the setup and beginning of this blog).

I can tell you that we have mostly had a pretty decent experience. Our sales consultant from Craigieburn (Les) was terrific. He assisted us with all our queries (and we had a lot as we went through possibly building with 2 different 1 storey houses to finally settling on a 2 storey house), and helped us come to the best solutions given our land, costs, etc. Our Admin assistant who will see us through to the building stage has been OK. Only complaint is that she was a bit slow in responding to initial queries and requests (though to give the benefit of the doubt, this may not have been her fault as I'm sure she has a lot of customers, not just us). In the recent weeks leading up to our appointment on Monday, the 2nd of April, she's been quite good though.