It's starting to look like a house now....

In the last couple of weeks we have seen the deck put down, internal doors are on, downstairs wooden flooring has been laid, cornicing and architraves have also been done. We have also had the bathrooms and laundry waterproofed ready for tiling. Anyway, here are a few more pictures....

Us out the front of the house with our fine looking temproary front door beind us. My wife Nicole and our son Mitchell with me.


Looking at the front left hand corner of the house where we will be having a feature wall. We love the windows in these bedrooms. They let in loads of light and make the rooms seem even bigger than they are.


This is a couple of pics of the deck out the back. You can see that it flows really nicely from outside to the inside.




Looking through the opening into the media room. We are going to have some nice wooden cavity sliding doors here as a nice feature


Looking from near the media room back to where the kitchen is going to be. You can see that the wooden floors have been laid. Obviously they still need to sand the floors and polish them. They should look great once they are finished. We have also had them laid at the same angle as the deck.


This is going to be Mitchell's room. We love the brightness to this room. Those windows really open the whole room up.


This is our bedroom. The deck from our room has been done now and it is much bigger than we thought.


This is back downstairs looking from the front door towards the back. It's great that you can just see straight out to the trees outside.


This is an example of the internal doors we have chosen. Nicole really liked the 3 lines running down the door.


Nicole's favorite room. This is the upstairs sitting area. The light in here mid morning is just fantastic. This room allows us to separate our living areas a bit.


And finally.....our bathrooms have been waterproofed. Now we are ready for tiling which should happen this week sometime.

I've been slacking

While I've been pretty slack with the updates to the Blog, our builders have been flat out. We have now got the roof on, windows in, the electrical rough in has been done and AC rough in completed. This week they are doing the plaster and then we really need to make some decisions quickly.

Anyway, below are some more pictures to bring you up to date.

This is a picture showing the roof lines. The roof has been finished here and the windows are soon to go in.



Showing the front of the house with the different roof lines and levels



Windows have started to go in now. This is a picture down the side of the house. We really like the overhang at the back of the house on this side. You can also just about make out the opening downstairs which is going to be filled with large stacker doors.



Shot of the front near the garage. You can see the wilderness green colorbond above the garage. This is goingt to the the same colour and material as on the other side of the house at the front



Looking through the large window from the media room. This will be looking over the pool.



The large stacker doors have gone in downstairs. This allows the inside to connect with outoors. There wil be a deck outside and the track for the doors is set down so there is no lip between indoors and out.



View from the master bedroom. We are right in the trees here and have a balcony on the right hand side which looks straight at the bush land.



Looking from outside near where the edge of the deck will be. This shows the view through the stacker doors and through the living room to where the pool is.

You've been framed...

It's been ages since I last upated this blog and a lot seems to have happened in that time. The frame seems to have gone up in no time and it is now starting to look like a house. It's great to actually see how the house flows from room to room and the sizes of rooms. It just makes us more eager to move in!

This first photo shows the construction of the frame when they had pretty much finished the ground floor.



This second photo shows the first floor



Next we have a view from the hallway into the media room. There are going to be cavity sliders to close this room off from the rest of the house.



Now we have the roof trusses done



This is the view from one of the bedrooms upstairs



This is looking at the front entrance of the house



And the roof has started to go on.

Anyone for a Slab

We now have a slab. We dropped around to the block this evening after work to see the progress and were surprised to find our builder and the concreter still there. Apparently they had been a bit let down by their concrete supplier not getting the trucks there on time. everything seems to be OK, it's just taking longer to dry!

Anyway, here are a couple of pics.

Pool is done, and so is the blockwork

Time for another quick update.

They have finished concreting the pool, and it looks a lot bigger than we thought it was going to be. At least it now gives us a bit of perspective on the size of some of the rooms.




They have also now done the blockwork and are ready to pour the slab today.




So, hopefully the slab will be poured today and I can head over after work to take some more pics. Then we are meeting the builder on site on Saturday, by which time the ground floor frame is supposed to be up.

We have a Pool

Well, a hole in the ground at least.

Things have really started to move now.

The site has been scraped


and we have a hole in the ground which will become our pool


Apparently they will be concreting the pool tomorrow and then next week they are planning on pouring the slab.

It's great to see some action at last. Let's just hope it keeps moving at the same pace.

Good News at Last

Well we finally had the news that we have been waiting 10 weeks for. We have got Coucil approval. This came through last Tuesday and then on Wednesday the builders were out there scraping the block. We now have a block of dirt rather than grass :)

We had a site meeting with the builder on Sunday morning to go through a few decisions and have a look at the house layout. The builder had staked out the approximate outline of the house so we could get an idea of it's placement and size on the block. It's really hard to get a true perspective of the size without anything there to guide you and it all looks so small. I'm sure it will all be OK though.

Anyway, the plan at this stage is that the surveyor will be out this week to survey exactly where the slab is going to sit and then next week on Tuesday they start to dig out the pool.

It's great to see that something is starting to happen, even if it is only a scraping of the block!

Frustration!!!!!!

Well the frustration is building more and more. It's just a shame that it's not the house that is building!

Our plans have been in council now for about 10 weeks. As far as I'm concerned this is a ridiculous amount of time. Especially considering we used a building certifier. Our builders have spoken to the council a few times about this but never get a very satisfactory response. It almost sounds like they haven't even looked at it yet!

Is it any wonder there are housing shortages when things like this take so long.

Anyway, vent over now. I guess I just go back to waiting.

At least in the mean time we have been able to get out and about to look at bathroom fittings and tiles for the pool. Hopefully this should keep us relatively sane.

Home entertainment setup

Well I am getting myself really confused with how we are going to set up our home entertainment systems. The pic above shows the floorplan of where things are going to go. Hopefully those smart people over at Homeone can lend a helping hand.

The plan at this stage is to have a drop down screen, projector and in wall/ceiling speakers in the media room. In the Lounge room we will have a 50” plasma and all the AV equipment in our entertainment unit. We will need to run cabling between the 2 rooms.

Now I just need to get my head around how it will all fit together.

Not much too report

Well, it seems to have been an age since I actually updated this blog and the reason behind this is that not too much has happened. In the last couple of weeks we have submitted our plans to council and are now just playing the waiting game. The plans were submitted by our builders through a private certifier. Apparently this is supposed to speed up the whole process, but we will just have to wait and see.

As part of this process we had to get a relaxation statement signed by one of aour neighbours. This is because we will be building the garage right on the boundary. Fortunately our neighbour had already been warned that this was likely to happen and had no issues in signing the application. At least that's one hurdle we have got through.

I am now just wanting to get started on the whole process. With all the rain we have been having up here in Brisbane I seem to have to keep going to the block to make sure the grass isn't overgrown! The sooner they start building the sooner I don't have to worry about the maintenance.

Anyway, in the meantime it gives me opportunity to investigate our options for air conditioning and home theatre set ups. The problem here is that the more time you spend researching, the more expensive it seems to get.

Mitchell Alexander has arrived

Well as I mentioned earlier in the blog we were expecting our first child. Well he finally arrived at 4:10pm on the 14 January 2008.

Nicole and I are both ecstatic at his arrival and understandably our focus on the house project has shifted somewhat. Fortunately we are at a point where we are just waiting for things to happen!

About the house

I thought I would just give you all a bit of an idea about the house that we are planning on building.

Here are a couple of 3D images of what the house might look like from the front:

and the back

Downstairs we have the double garage, study/guest room, kitchen, laundry, dining, family room, media room/lounge, large deck (corner stacker doors from indoor to outdoor), and pool.

Upstairs we have 3 medium sized bedrooms, 1 large master bedroom with balcony, large WIR, and ensuite, second bathroom, sitting area.

How we got where we are now

OK, seeing as I was a bit slow to start this blog and we have been going through the motions for a while now, I thought it would be prudent to draw up a timeline of how we got where we are today.

Oct 2005 - Returned from UK to our small house in Chapel Hill which we had bought 2 years earlier. Immediately after getting back we had grand plans for a major renovation/remodel of the house.

Dec 2005 - Dec 2006 - We met with numerous builders and architects and looked at numerous display homes and the prices for our ambitious reno kept going up. We eventually decided that the costs involved were just not justifiable seeing as there were still going to be compromises witht the eventual build. So we decided to have a look around at buying an already established house.

Jan 2007 - Mar 2007 - Spent this time visiting many open houses and found one house that we really liked. Unfortunately we were slightly too late as it was just under contract. Anyway, during this time Nicole was also trying to persuade me to think about building. I was interested but it seemed like a lot of hard work and a lot of unknowns. After spending a lot of time looking at houses we realised that we weren't going to be able to get exactly what we wanted.

Apr 2007 - It was about this time that things just fell into place. We found out Nicole was pregnant and found the block of land within a couple of weeks of each other. As soon as we saw the land we knew we wanted it. So contract was signed and all went through without a hitch.

May 2007 - June 2007 - Settles on block and after looking at display homes we decided that we didn't want to compromise, so we found an architect.

July 2007 - Oct 2007 - Bit of back and forth with architect to finalise the plans to get something we are really happy with. When we started we had a budget in mind, which the architect designed the house to meet. It was once we started to review the plans that we started to chage things which increased the cost. I guess this is the danger of starting with a blank sheet! It was also about this time that we realised that when you are building you never talk in days, it's always weeks.

Nov 2007 - Dec 2007 - Time to source a builder. To do this we got in contact with our architects again to find out builders they had used in the past. They gave us a list of a few and we had some of our own. We sent off the plans to them and eventually got quotes back from 3! I guess a lot of them were just not interested or are too busy. Anyway, one of them was Kaha Homes who we were most impressed with.

Jan 2008 - Have met with Darryn and Melissa of Kaha a couple of times with questions and have now signed a contract with them.

Now we just can't wait to get started.

We have a builder

Well it seems like a fairly momentous occasion! We have signed a contract with a builder to build our house. We have decided to go with a group called Kaha Homes. They are a small builder and we were really impressed with the way the conducted business. They are very approachable and seem to share our vision for the house that we want to build. Check out their website at www.kahahomes.com.au.

So why did we go with Kaha. We contacted a few builders to get quotes and start times. Kaha just seemed to be the best and most interested in what we are trying to achieve. They had some great ideas for the project and were willing to spend the time talking about what we want and listening to what we wanted. They also have the added advantage that they only build one house at a time. This means that they are 100% focused on our build which should hopefully avoid too many delays.

So, we have a start date for early Feb. This is conditional on a couple of things. The first is getting the pool plans and engineering drawn up and then getting the whole thing through council. They use a certifier, so hopefully this won't be too much of an issue. I'm sure we will find out though.

It just finally feels good to know that we are starting to move forward again!

Choosing the house design

Well, now comes the exciting part. Time to decide what we want in this house.

This is somewhere we want to be able to spend the next 10-20 years together in. This means we want it to be perfect from the start. We had a look at a number of display homes and really liked one of the Adenbrook homes (can't remember which one). we had them visit the block to make sure the house would fit and we were pretty close to deciding on one. Then we started to add on all the extras to the house that we wanted and the price started to creep up. We eventually realised that if we went in this direction then we would always feel that we have compromised and not got the house that we really wanted.

That's why we decided to go with an architect. They came up with a great initial comcept that was about 85% of what we wanted. After a few changes and a bit of back and forth with the architect we got the plans that we are really happy with. I'm not sure if I can upload a copy of them seeing as they are copyrighted, but will see.

Anyway, that was between July to October. Who would have thought it would take so long. We started to realise that when building a house you never talk in days, you always talk in weeks! At least we got plans that we are really happy with. Now comes the tricky bit of finding a builder to help us realise our dream (without it costing a fortune!).

Our Block of land

Well as mentioned before we found this block of land by chance. Nicole came across it while doing a realestate search on the web and they were doing an 'open house' for the land. Basically we were allowed to view the block. As soon as we saw it we realised that it was just what we wanted.

The block is about 1400sqm with a creek running through the middle of the block. This means on one side of the creek we have a nice flat area to build on and on the other side we have a great area for kids to play. A lot of the block is conservation area which means that there will never be anything built there and we have complete privacy.It is in a private estate with only 4 other houses there currently and one other block on land to be sold.

Here are some pics:

Time to get started

OK, I have been a lurker for a while on the HomeOne Forums and have seen the good work that everyone has been doing there with their blogs so thought I might as well give it a go.

So the deal with us is that we purchased a block of land in Chapel Hill, Brisbane back in June 2007. It was a block of land we came across by chance, but immediately knew we wanted to live there. We actually already lived in the area and had done for a number of years. More about the block later.....

Nicole has always wanted to build and I have been somewhat resistant to the idea in the past. But after looking around for a number of months at houses trying to find one that we liked and wouldn't have to make changes to my way of thinking quickly changed. At least now we have the opportunity to create somewhere to live that we will be happy in for the next 10-20 years.

Just to add an extra degree of difficulty to the whole project at about the same time we found the block we found out Nicole was pregnant! Nothing like a challenge.

Hopefully we will be able to keep this blog up to date on a reasonably frequent basis, but I am notoriously slack when trying to do things like this. Anyway, here's hoping.