Ground floor frame

Got a phone call today - Monday, saying that the frame had been delivered... and the ground floor erected. They certainly do not seem to be messing around!

Slab preparations

Today the site was prepared for pouring the slab, which is scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday). It was really exciting to see the house dimensions in situ finally and actually made us more relaxed about the surrounding space. We know what it should look like, having seen a similar layout. Until you actually have something on your own plot though... It doesn't seem quite real.

Despite the hole in the fence, we were good customers and did not venture onto site making do with photos from the ever popular hand above head position and hoping that the angle was good.

Behold the finished piece as of today (Tuesday):

In the words of Murray Walker: " GO GO GO!"

Behold - the fence is up, we have a loo, and men and machines have combined efforts to start scraping away at our land as work on the slab stage has begun!

Upcoming dates:
9th October - drains going in
Slab poured by (worst case) 15th October.

Land Ho!

Land

Land titling is happening right now and we popped down to have a look and see if the small changes they had to make to the driveway crossovers were finalised. The fences were down.

General update,tiles and finalising

It has been a long time since posts. Since last post, we have completed all of our contract signings and are now just awaiting land titling. First up we had the final contract signing with Metricon. At which, we still did not have a finalised and fully accurate set of plans put in front of us. These changes have been made but it was a tad alarming that given so much time this was not sorted out before contract date.

The next week saw us finalise our tiling choices and a bleed over from our contract issues was that the tiling people did not have the correct surface areas, or correct plans to work with. Our updated laundry, for instance, was completely wrong and we had to fight a little to get the new extended bench top put in, with full overhead cupboards. This was, as you can imagine, annoying, though we were very well tempered about it. After all, we have had much practice already with things not being as they should be.

We contemplated a glass splashback in the colour shown above. Then we were won over by the eggshell tiles also shown here. We opted for an expanded tiling area up either side of the rangehood too. As a result it is a good job we liked the tiles better, as the splashback option was going to be thousands! Instead, with the kitchen tiles, some standard inclusion tiles for the laundry and some nice big bathroom tiles previously shown in the blog we came in well under anticipated cost for the tiling section of the house. This was a pleasant surprise and change from usual.

Since then not much has happened. We have been told the land should title in April, though after looking at the groundworks as we have passed a few times that seems a long way off. The only other thing was a spectacular save by Kylie. Whilst looking at someone else's Breeze-Blog, she noted that their pantry door seemed tiny, and it also had a cavity sliding door. So we looked into things and it turns out that whilst the fridge would have made it into the pantry and its designated space without the door, the door offered to us would have prevented this from being so. A couple of phone calls later, in which the idea of selling a pantry with fridge space but too small a door was ridiculed in good nature, we have had a post contract variation made to allow us to increase the door size so that our standard size (small!) fridge can reach its future home.

Glazing options

One of the things that we (and by "we" we mean Adam) have been after since first looking at building a house, is double glazing. Double glazing serves 3 purposes. Firstly, it keeps the heat in in the cold, reducing energy usage for heating and thus saves baby animals and the planet in general. Second, it can reduce heat getting in reducing the need somewhat for cooling apparatus to be run. Lastly, it serves to reduce noise from outside. Whilst not an issue due to traffic where we are, there is the possibility of noise from neighbours.

The response to our requests for double glazing has been odd. Especially for someone who was born and raised in England. There, double glazing is the norm, and we can double glaze anything as far as I am aware. Here in Australia, people look at you a bit funny if you say you want it as standard through the house. Then after the accede to your wishes, they tell you that the glaziers can't do the stacker or sliding doors as this would make them too heavy... Either Australia is significantly behind the rest of the world in glazing technology or the average Australian is very weak... we will assume the first reason.

With our Metricon build progressing through planning we decided to address the issue once more and requested a quote to double glaze the whole house. This came to a cost of approximately $5000. However, again, the stacker doors cannot be done. What is most frustrating is that these doors are the largest expanse of glass in the build and are on the North and West aspects of the property. Cynthia, (our Metricon contact) is double checking to see if there are any alternative glazing options, and if not will try to make them feel suitably ashamed of the limited options...

Our Studio M appointment

In the journey from "ooh lets build a house", through "lets build this house" to hopefully "aha, that's our house", there are a number of appointments one must have with a builder like Metricon.
We have four. The Studio M appointment, Electrical appointment, Contract signing and Tiling appointment.

The first is, in many ways, the biggie; here you pick colours throughout the house (and external) bricks, fittings, carpet etc etc. Expect a Studio M appointment to talk about 3 and a half hours for the prepared and closer to 5 I would guess for those who are not. We knew what we wanted in almost all cases so we took a bit less than 4 hours.

The big alterations to our original plans were due to a few things. 1) The unfortunate realisation that the silk finish we wanted for our laminate in the kitchen and wet areas was not a standard (we obviously misunderstood something on our brief tour a month or so ago). 2) We upgraded the carpet, that had been a bit of an unknown before going into the appointment. 3) We made a change to the pantry, replacing on section of shelving with a bench. 4) We have asked for a quote on a replacement wooden front door. 5) Our final big change was the decision to upgrade our skirting and architraves somewhat as we felt the basic and "tall" basic layouts did not make sense next to our upgraded internal doors.

We also got a quote for blinds to the windows (excluding the main living room where we want to do something different). However, after doing some research we have decided to do the blinds ourselves and not go with the Metricon associated supplier.

Our choices list went something like this:
External colours: Category 2, Brown Terrain Bricks from Boral with natural rolled mortar. Charcoal grey rooftiles and a "labassa" exposed aggregate driveway. Guttering and downpipes were in Jasper, which matches the powdercoated aluminium window frames. The Fascia will be Evening Haze and the cladding in Barnfloor, with the render as Candlebark. The timber frames and door will be Rich Walnut. The wood finish sectional overhead garage door will be the Mediterranean style in the darker stain Caoba.

Our external colours

Interior colours and fittings survived the process mostly unchanged from what we thought we would choose:
We went with one of the many many colours of white (Whisper White) for the doors, skirting and Architraves. White Swan, another variant of white, will be the walls and ceilings. We only saw the main fittings for the taps etc online as the range had been changed since our last visit to StudioM. Seemed pretty similar and we were happy enough. We chose a rain head for the en suite shower, again from online, and are awaiting a price. The caesarstone stayed as Linen, and we went with the silk finish moleskin, despite the cost, for the kitchen, bathroom, powder room and en suite.
Our carpet upgrade came about as a result of education on the life expectancy of the basic Category 1 selection, and a good poke at it. We upgraded to a Category 3 for the hard wearing status Miniscule (colour34) in part as it was Australian made, and coupled this with an underlay upgrade.

Our carpet on the right, next to our tile choice

We upgraded the Skirting and Architraves to colonial, but the taller type than shown below we also went with a slightly different door to originally chosen, one with texture.

That was most of the upgrades, except for a coupe of locks here and a handle or two there. Our only other addition was the decision to add an additional reverse cycle system in bedroom 3.

We are just waiting for a final costing taking into consideration the pantry alteration, showerhead, and a change to the front door that we are waiting on. A couple of days later, we drove past the land and it looks like they are moving soil about and have marked out the lots!