Bricks Delivered

We drove past today not expecting anything & to our surprise the bricks have been delivered. Looking forward to seeing them go up in the new year.

14/1/2015 Back from our holidays & nothing to update. Hopefully the bricks wills start going up soon.

Roof Trusses & Windows

I drove past late yesterday afternoon to find our roof trusses & windows had been done. 

I spoke to my ss on Monday & he said that the next thing would be bricks would be delivered for the brickies to start after Christmas. 

I'm glad I'll be on a cruise till the 11th January so I won't get frustrated with the Christmas close down. Wishing everyone a safe & Merry Christmas. 

Second Story Frames

I received a call requesting 2nd payment on Wednesday afternoon & I asked them if they completed that stage. I was told yes all the frames are up, the windows are in & the roof trusses are on. I didn't think it had been done as I had driven past 2 hours before. I was quite surprised to get that call & said that I would drive past to have a look. I drove past at 5pm & it wasn't completed. The frames hadn't been delivered & nothing had happened since Monday.

I rang yesterday they said they would speak to the ss, I got a call late yesterday afternoon & they said the 2nd story frames & roof trusses would go up today & windows next week weather pending. The frames were delivered yesterday.

I went past this afternoon & the second story frames were up.

Downstairs Frames

It's beginning to look like a house.
Went past to see if they had started work on the frames to find that the downstairs frames were up. I'm quite amazed how much they got done today.
I've worked out if I hold the camera through the fence I can get a decent picture without the site fence in the way.

Frames delivered

Not much to update other than the frames were delivered on Tuesday for the bottom level.

UPDATE 7/12/14 - We went past this morning & noticed the windows have been delivered & the slab has been marked up for the frames. Hopefully we will see the frames up in the next couple of days. 😃

We have a slab

A little update on the last few days. 

Tuesday we saw the rest of the form work completed. 

Wednesday the waffle pods were delivered.

Thursday they installed the waffle pods & steel. 

And then today we went for a visit & as promised we have a slab. 

Tuesday's progress 

Wednesday's the waffle pods delivered

Thursday we saw the waffle pods & steel installed 

And then today our slab poured.

Piers today

Rob received a phone call this morning from our site supervisor to let us know they were doing the piers today & said we could go & check the measurements.
We will get a nice credit back as it only came to 48.3lm & we had been quoted for 80lm 😃 the plumbers are there today as well & they have also started to form up. Our site supervisor said the slab will be poured on Friday.

Photo taken in the morning while they were digging the piers.

And this one in the afternoon. Looks like the plumbing is finished too.

Site cut & fill 12/11/14

After what seemed like forever & we'd never get to this stage we have finally started our site works.

 Excited to be starting I went to see if anything was happening after I dropped the kids off at school & found Allworth was hard at work already.

And when I went back in the afternoon it was all leveled & ready to go. Good to see there is no dirt to remove.

Kitchen Plans

We received our kitchen plans on Tuesday & after a stressful few days of thinking the plans could not be changed. We finally have plans that we are happy with.

This was the plan they sent to us after we signed the contracts. I was not happy that we had overhead cupboards of only 483mm high & a shelf above the fridge space of 133mm high ( I'm not sure what I could of used that space for). We have upgraded our ceilings to 2.7m high & we would of ended up having a 600mm bulkhead above the kitchen.

After being told on the phone that it had been sent to construction & I could not make any changes. I emailed our customer service officer & told her I was not happy with these heights & would not sign for the kitchen as is. I received an email this morning that they had changed the height of the overhead cupboards to 720mm high & that the fridge space would be 370mm high and we can have 2 doors on it. We will now only have a 300mm bulkhead.

I can't wait to see it!!

Commencement Letter

Just a quick update. CBA issued our commencement letter on Friday. We received our copy yesterday & I emailed Allworth to see if they received their copy. They replied they had so now to wait the 20 working days before construction starts. I hope this rain will go away we really don't need any more delays.

Contracts Signed

We were going to sign contracts on Tuesday 30/9/14.  I got the kids up early so we could be at Wickham office by 9:30am. Just as we were almost there I got a call from head office saying the courier had lost the contracts. I went into the Wickham office & waited there to see if they could find them (they were very apologetic) but they were not at the depot in Wickham either. So I had wasted over 3 hours driving there, waiting to see if they could find them & driving back home. I really think they forgot to send them with the courier.

I got a call at 9am the next morning saying the contracts had arrived so off I drove again to the Wickham office & arrived there just after 10am it took over 2 hours to go through the contracts & make sure all my variations were correct. I also managed to add a few changes before I signed the contracts. Change the freestyle laminate benchtops back to 20mm ceaserstone, added an external gas point & eco showerheads to the bathroom, ensuite & powder room.

Once I had the contracts I drove all the way to our business at West Gosford where my husband Rob was got him to go through them & sign them in front of a JP, then drove all the way back to Wickham to exchange the contracts. But thats not all once I was finished there I drove to Toukley to hand the contracts to our Loan broker so we could get them to the bank ASAP. I'm hoping the bank wont take too long with the commencement letter.  

All up I drove over 700km yesterday. Luckily the kids were really good.

Good News

We got some good news today our customer service officer called me to tell me that the plans have come back from the certifier. 

We have an appointment to sign contracts next Tuesday. Now we are finally getting closer to building.

Upgrades, upgrades & more upgrades

The Crescendo is a priceleader home so it only has basic inclusions. We chose this house because we liked the design not on its inclusions.

In the kitchen we upgraded the cabinet to polyurethane with no handles
an under mount sink,
freestyle benchtops,
soft close drawers & doors,
added 2 900mm pot drawers either side of the oven,
a microwave provision with a drawer under it,
the kitchen tap
and a Lin 1 door to the pantry.

A single 4.8m garage door instead of 2 & also upgraded it to the timbergrain.
We chose 2.7m ceilings to downstairs so we could have a 2.4m high garage door.


In the main bathroom, ensuite & powder room we increased the tile high to the ceilings.
Upgraded all the showers to grange shower screens baths were increased to 1675mm
Changed all the taps to alto mixer taps
Upgraded all the vanities to raised Mannooga Cove vanity basins & 30mm freestyle benchtops
Added niches to all showers
Polished edge mirrors to all bathrooms
Upgraded all the showerheads

Upgraded the stairs to stained maple treads & risers.

Increased all the robes in the kids bedrooms (2 bedrooms to 1.8m & the other 3 bedrooms to 2.1m)

Upgraded the paint to Wattyl ID & 3 coats

Upgraded the bricks 

Upgraded the front door & stained

Alarm, NBN, Airconditioner, 
Upgraded heaps in electrical appointment

Upgraded to termimesh,

Instantaneous gas hot water Rheem 27 with 4 deluxe controllers

Wall insulation increased to R2 batts

Skirting boards & architraves upgraded to 67mm x 18mm bevelled edge

We put an extra toilet in the laundry

Porch to the front 

Added an extra sliding door to the great room


Under eave extension to study & bedroom 5 on the first floor

Lever handles (signature series) to all internal doors

Better late than never

Ok so I probably should have started this blog a while ago but I suppose its better late than never.

When we saw our neighbours property go on the market. We decided our 4 bedroom home was just too small for us as we have 5 children. We then thought of buying their property but when that fell through we started looking for land to build our dream home. 

So heres a quick timeline of where we are up to.

13/7/13 - We put our deposit on our land in Woongarrah.

31/10/13 - Paid deposit to Allworth & locked price in for 12 months.

29/4/14 - Sold our house & settled on our land.

24/7/14 - Plans submitted to council.

11/9/14 - Plans finally approved by council.