So... we are currently in the process of having our plans drawn up by the Architects and getting a final price on the build. Unfortunately we discovered we will have a huge drop down to the garage because of driveway gradient, this has added and extra $15k or so for steps, drop edge beams etc (And when you are way over your initial budget.. this makes you nervous)... We did ask earlier on in the piece if we flipped the house and had the garage on the other side would that help and we were initially told it would not make much difference. However being the cautious type that we are G and I have decided that we would ask the question and have the architects look at flipping the house on on the site, it might waste a week and a few dollars, but we cannot move on until all possibilities have been looked at. I am sure they are thinking here we go again amateurs telling us what to do!!
Now we'll wait and see.......
One week later......
OMG!!The tender has come back with a saving of $20k!! To be honest we will probably end up spending that on the driveway but the at least we will not have a huge 1.6m step down into the garage and we will not have to retain behind the garage as well!! Even though we have delayed the building process by making these changes, it has worked out for the best and now any doubts we had about the positioning have been allayed!!!
Final plans being compiled by the architect so hopefully early next week we will be signing off to go to council!!!
Now on to the fun stuff I hope......
Wednesday 6 November 2013
Wednesday 16 October 2013
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions! Which Builder, Which House?????
Sooo approximately 3 months after our snap (uneducated) decision to purchase a block of land in Bella Vista (the old section not the new Bella Vista Waters) and a few quotes and "presentations" from various builders we have decided to go with the Alkira Elyse.. yippee!!!
Here is our block on a lovely sunny day.....
Buying the block was quick and easy, lovely location and good sized block very hard to find these days we have a 22m frontage!) and with our lack of understanding about fall etc we thought we had the perfect peiece of land...... until........ we tried to put a house on it!
To say this has been a learning experience is an understatement and for that we will eternally be grateful to Colt at Wisdom who had the patience and expertise to educate us on fall, cut and fill, the house building process in general, wants and needs etc. The reasons why we did not go with Wisdom were: we were unhappy with the narrowness of the house we were putting on the block; the stairs that were added to the design to compensate for the fall of the block and the minimum cut and fill requirements of Baulkham Hills council and we were not comfortable with the modern look of the house - we were after something that would suit the area we were building in, classic and timeless.
Why choose Alkira??
Well we originally looked at Alkira and loved the Elyse 15 on display, classic, beautiful and the quality of build and featured inclusions were excellent, however at that time it was not within the budget we had set for our build. So we looked at other builders and "settled" for some of their designs and went through the quotation process only really to find at the end we needed to up our budget anyway. We were soo close to signing with another builder but thought it was only fair to revisit the house that we really loved and see if we could get close to the bigger budget we had now resigned ourselves to.
The guys at Alkira assisted us with the planning of the house and we settled on the original Elyse design (not on display) it is a little bit bigger and suited our plans. They also assisted us a little with the budget and in the end added in a few extra benefits to maintain the quality inclusions that a house of this size and style deserves! Needless to say we also decided to let the bank own a little bit more for a little bit longer on the theory that if you are going to build a house because you can't buy one that suits you, you may as well go for broke and have everything that you would like to have in it!
Anyway..... I am a first time blogger but wanted to keep a record of our "adventure" into the world of building, besides I have found other blogs very useful sources of information and maybe someone might find something useful in this (or not)!!!!!
Here is our block on a lovely sunny day.....
Buying the block was quick and easy, lovely location and good sized block very hard to find these days we have a 22m frontage!) and with our lack of understanding about fall etc we thought we had the perfect peiece of land...... until........ we tried to put a house on it!
To say this has been a learning experience is an understatement and for that we will eternally be grateful to Colt at Wisdom who had the patience and expertise to educate us on fall, cut and fill, the house building process in general, wants and needs etc. The reasons why we did not go with Wisdom were: we were unhappy with the narrowness of the house we were putting on the block; the stairs that were added to the design to compensate for the fall of the block and the minimum cut and fill requirements of Baulkham Hills council and we were not comfortable with the modern look of the house - we were after something that would suit the area we were building in, classic and timeless.
Why choose Alkira??
Well we originally looked at Alkira and loved the Elyse 15 on display, classic, beautiful and the quality of build and featured inclusions were excellent, however at that time it was not within the budget we had set for our build. So we looked at other builders and "settled" for some of their designs and went through the quotation process only really to find at the end we needed to up our budget anyway. We were soo close to signing with another builder but thought it was only fair to revisit the house that we really loved and see if we could get close to the bigger budget we had now resigned ourselves to.
The guys at Alkira assisted us with the planning of the house and we settled on the original Elyse design (not on display) it is a little bit bigger and suited our plans. They also assisted us a little with the budget and in the end added in a few extra benefits to maintain the quality inclusions that a house of this size and style deserves! Needless to say we also decided to let the bank own a little bit more for a little bit longer on the theory that if you are going to build a house because you can't buy one that suits you, you may as well go for broke and have everything that you would like to have in it!
Anyway..... I am a first time blogger but wanted to keep a record of our "adventure" into the world of building, besides I have found other blogs very useful sources of information and maybe someone might find something useful in this (or not)!!!!!
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