Fence is up!

We've never been so excited to see a patch of dirt, and some temporary fencing!

Hopefully this means we'll start our build next week!


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House-Building: Our patch of dirt

Yay- the titled, ready-to-be-built on land! Hurray hurray!



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House-Building: New Blog Alert!

I know I've been blogging about our house-building process on this blog, but now I have decided to create another blog with the specifics of our house-building.

Because no one who isn't building a house with volume builders would be interested to know that Category 4 Mocha bricks cost an additional ~$4000, off-white mortar costs ~$1400.

So.....

I now have TWO (2) blogs, one solely to track progress about our house-building. I may cross-post related-entries, so there will still be house-building updates here, but for the full (sometimes ugly) detail, visit From Paper to Brick !

House-building: build a house at your own peril!

House-Building is no easy feat - understatement of the year!

I've been on such highs and lows about the house that one would think I'm manic-depressive.

Porter Davis (and I suppose other builders) haven't been really clear and transparent with us, that now, post-contract signing, there's another $6000 we need to fork out that we don't know exactly what for. The general heading of "site costs" just will not suffice! Especially when you signed up for a promotion that specified, "complete site costs included-just add land!"

Did someone say false advertising?

Prove that "someone" wrong, Porter Davis!

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House-building: Interior plans

We didn't have to upgrade much inside, and made some minor variations. Our only variations were the addition of our alfresco, external window kitchen splashback, closing off our formal lounge area with plaster so it can be a home office, and enlarging some bedroom windows. Oh yeah, we also added a door to the walk-in robe, and sliding door to our master bedroom ensuite, 'cos no one wants to be (and should ever be!) seen doing a Number Two.

 Interior plans - ground floor

 Interior plans - first floor

Our promotion package included Caesarstone benchtops in the kitchen, which is great, but we did have to pay to have Caesarstone tops in the bathrooms. Upgrades include (from what I can remember at the top of my head):

• upgrading toilet bowls! (hehh!)
• Caesarstone benchtops in the bathroom
• carpet and underlay
• downlights downstairs

Choosing colours again wasn't too difficult. We're both into lots of neutrals and earthy tones, and anything that we didn't cared much for remained as the standard option provided (like skirting and architraves!).

Kitchen colour sample

Below my external window splashback we decided to go with the dark brown tile, instead of the glass splashback offered in the promotion. Latte Caesarstone benchtop atop white cabinetry. I would have loved to upgrade the kitchen cabinets to gloss vinyl wrap, and have thicker Caesarstone benchtops with waterfall edges but it would've blown the budget. oh well!

Bathroom colour sample

Again - lots of browns and whites. Floor and wall tiles a light brown; pebblestone feature tiles; Caesarstone Ice Snow benchtop atop white cabinetry.

Urghhh! Blogging about the house now makes me so excited about seeing it in 3D!

House-Building: "look out for the orange door..."

It wasn't too difficult to choose a house design. We quite quickly settled on building the Moreland 27 with Porter Davis (Access Range); it fitted on our small block, and met our needs and requirements. I realised that within a year Porter Davis had decided to remove the house design from their range. Hmm... maybe this will mean our house will be rare-ish and less of a mass-produced, cookie-cutter house then!

Exterior - Cardiff Facade

This is how the exterior will be, ground floor would be exposed brick; upstairs will be weatherboard. I have a tendency to like a mix of textures and materials, so really like how there's a variety of materials used in the exterior. Plus it turned out that it was cheaper than having both storeys brick; so yay - on an extremely rare event, my first preference wasn't the most expensive.

Exterior - colours

The Husband and I almost never disagreed on the design, look or colours when we had to select our materials and colours; for which I am incredibly thankful! Possibly because we either (i) have the same style vision for our home, or (ii) he has not much style, but I'm just ridiculously convincing and can sell ice to an eskimo.

The biggest decision we had to make for our exterior was the brick. We had driven around across town like idiots looking at different houses that were being built with different bricks etc. But on a walk, we had seen a gorgeous riverfront house which expressed what we had in mind, and luckily we brought a photo of it into our Colour Selection appointment. Our Interior Designer who helped us with our colour selection took a look at it, and reckoned we could achieve a similar look by upgrading our brick to a Category 4 brick, i.e. Mocha, and upgrading our mortar to off-white.  This was fantastic, as prior to the appointment, we were thinking that we had little choice but to upgrade to a Category 6 brick (i.e. Espresso) to get what we want.

Ooh, and I was adamant that I wanted to have that orange door.....

House-Building: From paper to brick

Guess I should finally start blogging about our house-building!

I don't know what possessed us to embark on this adventure of having our first home built. I am pretty certain neither of us knew what we signed on for, so for now, we can only sit there, hold on tight, and hope for the best! (with a helluva lots of aggression assertiveness developed along the way).

It will continue to be a challenge to have a house built whilst balancing being assertive (so you have a good quality build), with being able to live a life that represents love, hope and faith (so you don't simply see everyone else as a means to an end, i.e. the house).

We had decided months and months and months ago how our house will look like; we've had the plans and designs for almost a year now, but since we are looking to start our actual build soon, I decided that I should finally start blogging about it, and hopefully can make regular-ish updates on it!

If you are building or thinking about building, and have questions about specifics, e.g. upgrading selections at Porter Davis; feel free to place a comment or send me a message and I'll do my best to respond.

Hope it won't be too difficult to get our house from on paper to brick!