Building a Home

[samh004]

Impressed again at how clean the site is!

A little bit more rubbish out the front today, but what a difference a weekend makes. I was at the house last Thursday and they were starting to move the bricks out, but not lay them at that stage. Today, barely 3 (working) days later and we've got all the bricking done and plaster on the walls inside. It's day 37.

 

[samh004]

Day 39 and I have received some new photos from the site supervisor. Quite a lot of work has taken place inside, and the remaining work to finish off outside will be done next week. The week after is when the kitchen will start to take shape, and the week after that we have the second onsite meeting to make sure the correct tiles are installed – that'll be the 24th November.

And now for some internal photos of the kitchen/living/dining from 3 different angles.

 

[travelislife]

Looking good, though that flapping orange piece of plastic in the last photos is your temporary downpipe from the gutter, am sure they don't want that inside! So hopefully no rain!

 

[jakeseven7]

Kitchens go in so quickly... will be up before you can blink

 

[moa999]

Looking good, though that flapping orange piece of plastic in the last photos is your temporary downpipe from the gutter, am sure they don't want that inside! So hopefully no rain!

Suspect it would straighten up in any decent downpour.

 

[samh004]

Looking good, though that flapping orange piece of plastic in the last photos is your temporary downpipe from the gutter, am sure they don't want that inside! So hopefully no rain!

I imagine the windows are open when plastering, but closed at the end of the day, so the 'down pipe' would be relocated back outside.

Kitchens go in so quickly... will be up before you can blink

Certainly moving quite quickly, but I can see the Christmas break is definitely going to hold us up. Perhaps, if we had started a few weeks earlier, we'd be moving over Christmas.

 

[get me outta here]

Go on, on ‘Grand Designs’, people move in as long as the toilet works.

Certainly moving quite quickly, but I can see the Christmas break is definitely going to hold us up. Perhaps, if we had started a few weeks earlier, we'd be moving over Christmas.

 

[samh004]

Go on, on ‘Grand Designs’, people move in as long as the toilet works.

Only difference there is that they usually project manage themselves so they have keys to the site. I do not... and besides, there's not a toilet plumbed yet

 

[cove]

Your home is getting built very quickly @samh004. Looking good so far!

 

[get me outta here]

The build is going quickly so I was thinking when you said you’d have been in by Christmas if you’d started earlier, that the loo may be serviceable in 6 weeks.

Only difference there is that they usually project manage themselves so they have keys to the site. I do not... and besides, there's not a toilet plumbed yet

 

[samh004]

The build is going quickly so I was thinking when you said you’d have been in by Christmas if you’d started earlier, that the loo may be serviceable in 6 weeks.

I'll let you know, but think I may stick to my current abode with power and A/C

In other news, we've started the application process for the Home Builder grant, and I think we need to wait until completion for the first home buyers grant. First council rate (unoccupied) was paid the other day and my gas connection was finalised today with AGL (that's who they connect with... can always look at swapping later). As I have seen them using power on site from my switchboard, I can only assume I'll be receiving a power bill soon too.

 

[TomVexille]

Check your contract. Our builder paid electricity until handover. We only had to pay gas connection (as they have no reason to use gas during building) and water.

 

[samh004]

Check your contract. Our builder paid electricity until handover. We only had to pay gas connection (as they have no reason to use gas during building) and water.

I don't want to have to read that huge thing...

I might just ask the question and let them point me to the relevant section instead.

 

[samh004]

Check your contract. Our builder paid electricity until handover.

The update to this is that we pay for the power they use, but they haven't finalised my account yet so that's why I haven't got a bill. They say they might have it setup by this Thursday, but it doesn't worry me in any case.

 

[samh004]

To complete a trifecta of posts, I had some photos sent to me yesterday, but ran out of time to post them. For those who like a clean site, eat your heart out!






In this photo, media room on left, study on right and kitchen/living/dining straight ahead.

 

[RooFlyer]

For those who like a clean site, eat your heart out!

Hopefully no surprises when you start digging to put in plants

Are there any caveats or rules on what you can do with your front yard/garden? For instance, could you or a future owner put a slab out to the left to park an extra car /boat/caravan, or could you put a greenhouse-type of structure there? Are there rules on what types of trees you can plant anywhere?

 

[Pushka]

For those who like a clean site, eat your heart out!

I’m just having a laundry Reno done and it is a current mess! Nice work to your mob.

 

[samh004]

Are there any caveats or rules on what you can do with your front yard/garden? For instance, could you or a future owner put a slab out to the left to park an extra car /boat/caravan, or could you put a greenhouse-type of structure there? Are there rules on what types of trees you can plant anywhere?

I'm sure there's always a rule about something lurking somewhere in the covenants. Our "buildable land" doesn't go right to the footpath, but does go a little further than the house is set out, that said, I'm not sure there would be space for a future car/boat/caravan.

When we bought (the land) we got lucky as there was a front landscaping bonus from the developer – after handover, we just have to choose the style from four provided. in Each planting option there's a total of 4 species listed, perhaps more offered, but I have typed a couple of each instead of the whole thing. There are repeats between each style too.

• Native garden – trees including broad-leaved paper bark, willow bottlebrush and ivory curl flower. Large screening species including brisbane golden wattle and gymea lily. Small shrubs including swamp banksia and scrub cherry. Groundcover including kangaroo paw and kangaroo grass.
• Contemporary garden – trees including native gardenia and alexandra palm. Screening including powder puff lilly pilly and lady finger palm. Shrubs including hibiscus and bromeliads. Groundcover including spider lily and palm grass.
• Exotic garden – trees featuring blueberry ash and tropical birch. Screening featuring coastal rosemary and port wine magnolia. Shrubs featuring whale's tongue and bird of paradise. Groundcover featuring blue flax lily and liriope evergreen giant.
• Low maintenance garden – trees featuring tuckeroo and water gum. Screening featuring grevillea honey gem and grevillea robyn gordon. Shrubs featuring melaleuca snow storm and honey myrtle. Groundcover featuring walking iris and lomandra shara.

 

[RooFlyer]

OK, thanks. I'm wondering if the developer has imposed 'good neighbour rules' - such that you couldn't plant a eucalypt species that would grow huge and shed leaves/limbs onto the neighbours (let alone root havoc) , or would stop someone from putting something 'ugly' in their front yard, which would detract from the streetscape.

 

[samh004]

OK, thanks. I'm wondering if the developer has imposed 'good neighbour rules' - such that you couldn't plant a eucalypt species that would grow huge and shed leaves/limbs onto the neighbours (let alone root havoc) , or would stop someone from putting something 'ugly' in their front yard, which would detract from the streetscape.

I imagine there is something, but of those trees I listed above that could be planted by the developer, wikipedia tells me a broad-leaved paper bark can be up to 25m tall and a water gum as tall as 39m in a native habitat, but are usually pruned much smaller on an urban street.

I've already noticed towards the end of our street there is presumably a homeowner who parks his semi-trailer (without load) outside his house on the street some weekends. As you can imagine, it's huge and if someone parked on the other side of the street, the road would be effectively blocked. Luckily it's not right outside our house or even on our street, but there are other plots of land yet to build.

Perhaps the ugliest thing about where we live is that the covenant requires a percentage of the front facade to be built of at least 2 materials and at least 2 colours... which has lead to some truly awful choices IMHO. I am sure had this not been a requirement, houses would be a bit more similar. I find this odd in some respects as they have tried their best to manage the look and feel of everything, yet the obvious requirement would have been to ban TV aerials and provide the signal through NBN as I posted about earlier and is technologically possible and available, but they didn't do that, so there's a ton of unsightly aerials on roofs (including mine).