Contract Signing...

We had our contract signing appointment at the Porter Davis Northern office in Bundoora on Friday afternoon. We met with our Customer Service Co-ordinator who went over all the important points in our contract as well as covering all of the other information that needed to be signed off on by us.

During the appointment we covered:

The Porter Davis contract

• Promotional items
• Upgrades and variations and plans to demonstrate these items
• Porter Davis terms and conditions
• Specifications
• 6 star energy report
• Soil report
• Insurance details

The HIA New Homes Contract:

• All the legal obligations of each of the parties to the contract (ie Porter Davis & the Client)
• The terms and conditions to allow construction of a house in an efficient and orderly fashion

Once everything had been covered we needed to clarify a few points as well as check a couple of things that we thought were included in our original sales quote that we hadn't covered. At the end of it all we included a couple more cost to our build which were:

• Fly screens to all opening windows and Doors - $4500
• 6 Extra Down lights to living area -$900

Once we were satisfied we signed all the documents and paid a 5% deposit. Our Customer Service Co-ordinator will now need to send a copy of our signed contract off to our broker to get our Constructions Loan approved and then we will finally be done with all the admin side of our home and we can get ready for the construction fun!

Colours and Electrical...

Today we had both our electrical and colour appointments at Hopetoun Interiors in Port Melbourne.


Electrical Appointment
Our first appointment was  our electrical appointment in which we picked we picked where all our lights, power points, internet connection, phone line etc.

We ended up adding more lights, down lights, double power points, outdoor power points and extra data point throughout the house. We also added Pre wiring for a 7.1 surround sound system as well as 2 outdoor speakers which will be linked in to our sound system. All up we ended up only going over our electrical budget by about $500 so we were very happy with the results.

Colour Selection
We have already been to have a look at all the colour options we had so when it came time to sit down with our colour consultant we were pretty much ready to choose everything we wanted. These are the selections we made:

Kitchen/Interior:
Walls: Flokati
Bench Top: Ceaser Stone - Osprey
Bottom Cabinets: Burnished Wood
Overhead Cabinets: Polar White
Internal Doors: Oriental White (Gloss)

Splash Back: Dulux Align

Carpet: Chester - Rainy winter (I Forgot to take a photo but it's a dark grey carpet)

Interior Door Handles: Velocity Glide - Chrome

Outdoor:

Brick: Homestead Red Gum

Morter Joint: Rolled Joints - Standard colour

Infill Above G/Door, Render: Colourbond Woodland Grey

Garage: Woodland Grey

Fascias, Gutters, Downpipes: Colourbond Monument

Windows: Black

Roof Tiles: Ebony

 

Front Door: Panelmasta Caprice

Colour Woodland Grey

Glass Infill in the Front Door: Rice Paper

Windows Either Side of Front Door: Rice Paper

 

Bathroom/Ensuite: 

Bench Top: Ceaser Stone Zulu

Cabinets: Natural White

Sink: Valentino

 

Laundry:
Bench Top: Laminex - WHite Valencia
Cabinet: Burnished Wood

So that's about all the photos I have, we also upgraded the toilets but didn't really think that I needed to take a photo!

Tiles...

Tile selection went as smoothly as I could of hoped for. It only took about 15 minutes to go through everything that we wanted to pick as we pretty much had already selected everything. I of course took way to many photos but at least it means I have something to show for the effort. We have been sent home with 3 full size tiles as samples to help us with our colour selection on Monday. We have decided to pick the same tiles / Colours for the Ensuite and bathroom as that way we know it will work with the selections we make for the rest of the house. These are the tiles we have selected:

Bathroom/Ensuite:

Shower walls, Vanity Splash, Hob, Niche: Gloss White 20x30
Ensuite, Bathroom, WC Floors: Victoria Black 40x40

 

Feature Tile: Glass Listello Nero Marble Mix (This will run from the floor to the roof of the shower in a strip 6 wide)

 Trims: Aluminium Bright Si 10mm x 3m

Entry, Foyer, Study, Dining, Living, Kitchen, Laundry:  Decona Grey 40x40

Now just the Colour and Electrical Appointment to go!

Settlement..

Just a quick post...

Settlement has gone through without any problems...


WOOHOO!!

Appointments and Settlement...

Appointments
Tile Selection
Unfortunately due to car issues we had to reschedule our tile appointment from last tuesday to tomorrow which means that Pete is unable to get the time off work. We went to the The Tile People (Yes that is the actual name of the company, their website is HERE ) on Saturday to pick everything together so that I can go tomorrow by myself and know exactly what we both are after.I just remember to take plenty of photos to show Peter just in case I have to pick something that we didn't think of on Saturday!

Colour Selection
Colour selection is going to take almost a whole day with the rest of he day given over to electrical selection.. or more like which light goes where and exactly how many power points do we need in the theater room? So I'm really looking forward to that...

Contract
Our last appointment will be our contract appointment where we find out the final cost to build our home, agree to it and sign our contract to start building. We will also be required to pay another 5% of the total cost of our build to get the ball rolling.

Settlement
Our land settles in two more sleeps. On 9/9/2011 we will officially be land owners. The is a small chance that it could be delayed until 13/9/2011 if something goes wrong at the bank but so far it looks like everything is on track for our Friday settlement. If everything does go to plan it will be drinks on us on Friday night!

Oh the stress, Oh the stress of it all...

A couple of weeks ago everything almost fell apart with our finances for our block of land. Our lender valued the block at $15,000 less then what we paid for it, a day out from when our contract was no longer subject to finance.. We were a bit stuck (replace the "st' with 'f' and add a 'ed' to the end to get a more accurate description to how I felt), with only a few hours to either come up with the difference or figure something else out.

Luckily for us our Broker is amazing and came up with a plan. Fast forward twelve days and we have our loan, we are eight days away from signing our settlement on our land and are on track to start building in September.

We have all our selection appointments in the next 2 weeks before our final contract appointment with Porter Davis on the 16th... Colours, tiles, electrics... It goes on and on but in the end we will have a house we are excited about and a place to call our own! 

Now just to try to work our if Pete and I can agree on the colour of the splash back...