CDC Approval In Record Timing!

We are super excited to say that our CDC approval has come through in record time! We lodged as a complying development on Friday 5^th August and first thing this morning we got a very pleasant call from our CLO letting us know the good news!

The builder has advised that our materials are currently being ordered and we are waiting on the ACC from the lender to come through.  Upon receipt MJH has told us that they will be on site within 20 days!!!! We can’t wait to see some action on our land!

Also this Thursday we are due into MDJ for our electrical appointment.  We have been lucky enough to get Craig as our consultant! Yippee

Hopefully our next update will be the ‘renowned portaloo and peg out’ post! J

Another approval down... one more to go!

We are quite excited about this update… The Ponds Design Review Panel approved our plans today… first go! As mentioned previously we did our own landscape plan, so we are pretty happy that it was approved first time round, it helps that we read the guidelines about 100 times!!

As a result of the ponds approval, we have now lodged our plans to a private certifier, so that should be approved within the next 2 weeks… J then we look at commencing construction!!!  We are sooo excited, it’s all starting to come together now, so we are counting down!!

That’s all we have to update you on at the moment, but hopefully there will be another exciting update very soon!

Update… one hurdle but already half way over

So it’s been a little while since we have blogged, things are definitely ticking along, but obviously there are some things which are out of anyone’s control…

Ok so in terms of lodgments and approvals… we have approved and signed the building contracts with MJH which was a very smooth process.  Then we lodged to the water board for approval which is where our first hurdle was located… our building may potentially impact Sydney Water’s underground asset… so what does that mean for us you ask?  We basically require the application to be assessed by an Accredited Water Service Coordinator which will require a current service protection report (peg out).  This will cost us an additional amount, but nothing we can do so we authorized straight away to get the ball rolling.  We really don’t want any delays which we can control.

Our builder has also informed us that we have lodged to the Ponds Design Review Panel. Fingers crossed that comes through ok!!

Otherwise, I am slowly starting to put together an inspiration board for the furniture in the house… going with a style that’s eclectic, functional and a little industrial!! J Very inspired by Josh and Jenna from the block… we are obsessed!!! Go team Josh and Jenna!!!

Until we blog again!

Colour Selections – DONE & DUSTED!

We had our final colours selections meeting last week and to be honest.... choosing colours for your future home is a very daunting prospect, especially when you are an indecisive person (like I am)… I took my sister and husband with me, to have another opinion, plus she owns a kitchen / wardrobe / bathroom company so was very well aware of the products for the household.  She was a blessing for us because she understood just about everything our colour consultant had to say and of course with both of them being in the industry – they got along like a house on fire J 

As per my previous post, MDJ provide their clients with the opportunity to have a meeting with a colour consultant to go through the inclusions and what is classified an upgrade.  Now I know that a lot of builders don’t provide this for their clients, and in my opinion it’s to their detriment.  We went into this meeting completely prepared, we knew exactly what we wanted and we were very well informed.  Personally, it made the day a whole lot easier and ran a lot smoother.  It’s hard enough having to choose colours over a period of 2-3 weeks so i cant really imagine having to do so in a couple of hours!  MDJ provide you with that opportunity, and I must say it was extremely useful.  We spent a lot of our weekends visiting their display homes to get ideas of colours and décor… and had the chance to research our themes prior, as opposed to just deciding on the spot.

Upon arrival at the studio, we were greeted by our colour consultant; Craig.  Ok first things first – HE IS BRILLIANT!!! He has an amazing flair when choosing colours. I can’t fault him in the least; in all honesty he is an asset when selecting colours for your home – I highly recommend him.  We got along so well and he made the day an enjoyable experience… even filled with coffee and some much needed sweets to keep us going. J  He completely understood where we wanted to go with our colour selections and made appropriate suggestions.  I didn’t even question his choices; in fact I welcomed them as I trusted his judgment from the moment he started putting colours together.

Now onto the exciting part!! COLOURS…………….

We have decided to go with a charcoal / white / grey theme throughout the house… we haven’t gone too out there with colours as we want to jazz the house up with our décor.. So we wanted a clean palette to work with when we move in.

Here are our final selections:

Bricks: PGH ‘cement’ from the Foundations range (Ironed and off white mortar)

Cladding & Render to front 2 piers:  Taubmans Miss Molly

Roof: Colorbond Monument

Gutters: Monument

Fascia and downpipes: Shale Grey

Eaves: Surfmist

Garage Door: Contemporary design in Monument

Windows: Bradnams Ultra Silver Gloss

Front Door: Custom Door in Taubmans Miss Molly 1020W x 2340H (we have 9 foot ceilings throughout the home) with large trilock front door lock J SUPER HAPPY WITH THIS CHOICE!

Bathrooms: We kept just about everything standard in here:  we chose a charcoal tile with white large tiles.  Our vanities are in Licorice Linnea Natural finish. We didn’t get a feature tile, as we put shower niches in both bathroom and ensuite. We did however get stainless steel showers as opposed to the white

Kitchen cupboards: Laminex Polar White - Silk Finish

Kitchen Benchtop: Caeserstone White Shimmer

Kitchen Barback only: Laminex Licorice Linnea Silk Finish

Kitchen Splashback: Dark Charcoal 60x30 Glass tile

Kickboard: Formica – Brushed Steel finish

Sink: Razor double bowl under bench sink with Teknobilli ‘Billy’ pull out sink tap mixer

Internal Walls: Taubmans White Pearl

Internal Flooring throughout whole house: Quickstep Laminate Floating Timber floorboards in Light Grey Varnished Oak Planks Finish

Here are a few pics of our choices:



These are the colours for the kitchen (n.b. the floor board shown is incorrect)

These are the colours for the Bathroom & Ensuite (n.b. the feature tile has been removed & please excuse the quality of the photo as it gives off the impression that it is a browny chocolate feel, which it is not)

On a completely different note… we have finalized our first draft landscape plan.  We did the plan ourselves, as we wanted to save a little extra $$. We followed the Ponds guidelines pretty closely… we also sent it off to the design panel for a brief review, and they didn’t suggest many changes… we just have to wait until our builder submits it for us to get official feedback. 

Here is the draft:

Land Settled!!!

We setttled on our land last Thursday, so we officially own our own little piece of Australia!!! I suppose we should welcome ourselves to the world of debt...

Not a huge deal happening on the house front at the moment... our soil and contour reports are back, we officially require a H class slab... we were hoping for the M but at least it wasn't a P!!

We have approved our fourth and final deposit variation, so we should be moving onto booking our colour appointment soon.  

We will leave you with a birds eye view of our lovely little plot!!

Pre-walkthrough colour selections meeting – upgrades upgrades upgrades!!!

We had our pre colour selections meeting this week, originally it was scheduled for the 26^th but we couldn’t wait so we pushed it forward. We want to try and be super quick on our end and if we go over the 150 day fixed price period then it would be no fault but their own lol! Anyways we walked away from the meeting feeling a number of emotions… excitement, disappointment and confusion!  =/

Ok so first things first, the meeting provides the opportunity to go through exactly what’s included and what is classed an upgrade… and just about EVERYTHING we wanted was an upgrade…  I was ready with my pad and pen and wrote down the prices of upgrades that related to us… some we will get, some we won’t. 

 The biggest shock to us was the stone benchtop – we didn’t realize that we only had a selection of 6 colours from the Essastone range included in our Impressions package. If we want another colour from the Essastone, Cesarstone or Quantum Quartz range we will be charged extra.  I had already decided (prior to this meeting) that I wanted Cesarstone – Snow… when asked how much to upgrade we were blown away!  Safe to say we will be TRYING to pick one from the standard Essastone range as it will still give us the same look, but it’s not as white as the snow. 

Other than that, the standard range that they provide isn’t bad at all and we are quite happy to go with it.  We will be upgrading a few little bits and pieces though.  We will post our final upgrades and selections after our official colours meeting.

We’ve also spent the last couple of weekends looking at bricks.  In our colour selections folder, we were only given the brochures and standard inclusion list for Austral so we trekked out to Horsley Park to see what the bricks actually looked like… Out of all the standard bricks, we liked the Brampton from the Whitsunday range.  I must say that we didn’t fall in love with it, for the reason that the colour is baked on, so if it’s chipped then a yellow colour is seen – not the grey. Both of us were a little concerned about this so we decided to go see some houses built in this brick.

We managed to see one that was just built that was for sale, so we went up to see the finish and there were a lot of bricks chipped (which I guess brickies cant help!)  so we did some further research and noticed that some MDJ clients were selecting PGH or BORAL bricks… I used the meeting to ask about the option to use another supplier.  We can do so, provided we pay 300 to change.  Fine by us! In the scheme of things it's a small price to pay for what we want. 

We have since visited PGH and BORAL and we have both FALLEN in love with the PGH - Cement brick from the Foundations range.  This brick is coloured all the way through so chipping won’t be an issue.  Safe to say I think we have finally decided on this one.  

Other than the above, we don’t have much more to report on, land should be settling this week and we decided to go to the Sydney Home show on Sunday… we picked up quite a few little ideas with regards to colours in our kitchen, outdoor decking, heaps of brochures for plantation shutters, I’ll let the hubby do his ‘purchasing’ thing with all these suppliers!!!!

Over and out!

House decided and Land registered!!

Ok so it’s been a while since we last updated you on what’s been happening and let’s just say there have been a few movements!

Firstly we have decided on the house we are going to build.  As mentioned previously we were both leaning towards a McDonald Jones Homes and that’s the one we decided to go with.  We are building the Havana 3 with the Tropicana façade =) We accepted the proposal on Easter Saturday and placed the deposit a few days later.   They were able to ‘come to the party’ and offered us a deal we couldn’t resist! YAY for us.  Right now we are waiting on the soil, contour & other reports on the land to come back so that we can get an accurate indication of what the site costs will be…    We are really hoping that we need an M class slab, even though we have budgeted for a H class one… the extra $$ will go a long way! We are also in the process of finalizing the changes we made to the plan – and believe me we have made a few! Our rep said that it’s almost a different house!   Probably not the best piece of advice for people wanting to build, but we sort of had no choice considering the restriction in width we had on our land…

Secondly, we received the official notification from Landcom saying our land has registered!  It was a few month’s late but that didn’t bother us at all.  We are planning to settle on or before 26^th May - we are just waiting on our bank manager to finalise the loan docs and send them over and we are on our way to officially owning our own piece of Australia!

Thirdly and lastly for this update, MJH sent through our colour selections folder last week. We’ve been through it and both got very carried away and excited about all of the choices.  We had to remind ourselves not to get too excited as it can be very daunting having so many things to choose and so many upgrades to consider!  We are going to take it one step at a time and try and stick to the standard where we can, but some things we know we will be upgrading.  We will be visiting a few suppliers this weekend to see some of our favorite selections in person – it’s amazing how different a sample can look on a brochure rather than in real life!  Our walk through with a MDJ rep is booked for 26^th May… stay tuned for the outcome!

We had a good play on the envisage website (http://www.studiom.com.au/)  and FINALLY came up with the façade colour schemes below:

Hopefully we don’t change our minds on this one! So far we are extremely happy with MDJ - they have kept us up to date at every step of the way. They even sent us a nice sms on Friday telling us that our colour selections book is in the post.

Stay tuned… more updates coming shortly!