Goodbye 2015!

What a year! It's hard to imagine that just 12 months ago we had barely thought about moving house, let alone buying land and building again.  But here we are with just one day of 2015 to go and we are the proud owners of a beautiful waterfront lot with a rapidly growing new home taking pride of place on it. The frame was officially completed on Tuesday 22nd December and, true to form, PD kindly sent the next invoice that very afternoon.  Oh well.  The following pic was taken on Christmas Eve and I think it fully explains why we're doing this.  Bring on 2016 and our brand new home in Sanctuary Lakes.  Happy New Year!

Taking it to another level

Another big week on site with the second floor frame going up, along with the roof trusses on Friday 18th Dec.  There's just a little tidying up to do and then it will be time for another invoice.  Wonder if they'll crack it before the Christmas break? For once, I'm hoping it all slows down a little ;-)

First floor frame on Tuesday 15th...

South side, Eve's WIR on the left, master WIR on the right.  Windows above the kitchen bench top are centre. 

Progress to Friday evening.  Roof trusses on. Porch and balcony frame done.

North side.  We're normally there in the evening and can't take pics in this direction as we face the evening sun.  No problems this morning, though.  Al fresco and terrace to the left.

View from the terrace out to Port Philip Bay

First floor, looking from Master bedroom towards the front. 

We've been framed!

Amazing progress over the last week.  Just 3 days after the pour, the guys were back on site to backfill the footings.  That was a huge relief because I was wondering how I would get the levels back without pouring hundreds of dollars into the hole.  Fortunately, the levels are looking reasonably good and I can once again visualise how the landscaping, pool etc will look.  

Sonia had a call from out new site supervisor, Matt, on Tuesday 8th December. He introduced himself and said that the frame had been delivered to the site and that the framing would begin that very day.  Yes, everyone has an opinion on leaving the slab to set, not leaving the frame exposed over the Xmas break, blah blah blah....but it's such a good feeling to see real progress being made.  True to Matt's word, we took a walk to the site that evening and found that work had indeed commenced.  

The next day (Wednesday) our house took on a third dimension and started rising from the ground.  Awesome feeling!  After so much stress and grinding delays, it is now starting to come together.  Matt assured us that the build would proceed smoothly (...only time will tell), and that the frame would be complete by Chrsitmas.  Very happy with that.  Its's been non-stop over the past week and the tradies were even there on Saturday (probably much to the dismay of our fellow islanders!). Keep it up PD....you may yet redeem yourselves.  Here is a sequence of pics showing work over the last week.

Framing Day 2....

Framing Day 3...

Framing Day 4....

A teaser of the views from our kitchen/lounge/diner...

SLAAAAB....!!!

Awesome week this week.  The tradies have cracked on and the slab was finally poured on Friday 4th December.  I was away in Malaysia for the majority of the week but Sonia sent me updates each day along with pictures of the progress being made.  Fortunately, though, I got back home at 7am on Friday to see a procession of concrete trucks awaiting their turn to unload.  A total of 16 loads (around 1000 tonnes) and 11 hours later, the slab was complete.  

I spoke to the concretors in the evening and they commented on how big a job it had been. In fact, they had to return on the following day to begin clearing and removing the form work.  That is a tough job, especially because it was a very hot day on Friday with temperatures reaching the low 30s. We visited a couple of times on Friday and then went back to see the finished product on Saturday. 

Very surprised at the sheer size of the slab, especially the depth.  Even the concretors commented that this house wouldn't be moving any time soon.  Around the edge, the depth is almost 6ft in places but, then again, the slab cost a small fortune due to the fact that we are on a man made island. It has certainly led me to wonder how I'm going to get the levels right around the house.  I might need to rethink my plans for a pool that is at the same level as the al fresco.  

Overall, though, we're really pleased at how the house will sit on the land - it will have a great presence.  

Friday was an especially big day because Sonia finally received her 50th birthday present - a Mercedes A Class with all the trimmings.  It's the updated model and the first in Australia - gotta love it!!!  So, a very expensive day as well. The slab invoice arrived around 3pm, swiftly followed by an invoice for the Merc!  To round out the weekend, we met with our good friends the Whittakers on the slab this afternoon and shared a champagne toast.  Happy days!!!

Early morning pour....

Starting the pour....

One of 16 loads....

Deep footings....

Champagne on the slab....

Looking at the triple garage to the rear of the house...

From the laundry, across to the al fresco....

Garage, looking back. Plan is to have a pool behind the garage....

Pipe dreams...

This week, the builders went underground....literally!  Despite a couple of wet days, pipes, drains and the electrical meter box have gone in. Hardly the most exciting part of the build, but progress nonetheless. Next will be a site clean before formwork and the first big milestone - slab pour.  The plan is to have the slab down by the end of the month so hopefully we'll see more progress this week.  We have appointed Darbecca Building Inspectors to keep PD on their toes and they will need to be on site the day before the pour for the pre-slab inspection. Maybe this week...?

 

Site Start

Finally.....

Work officially commenced on site with test drilling on Monday 9th November.  Sonia had a call from the PD slab supervisor to explain that earthworks would start the following day and, true to his word, an excavator was on site Tuesday.  This week has seen site levelling and the insertion of steel screw piles across the site.  Next week will see pipes go in and the slab should be poured by the end of the month.  We can now start to visualise where the house will sit on the land and it has become very clear what a great block we have.  Not only do we have sweeping views of the water and out to Port Philip Bay, but we will still have a very large garden (to landscape weed, mow....!) with lots of room for a pool.  It seems a very long way off but we're finally underway.  And it feels great!

The Story So Far.....

Back in April 2011 we moved into our brand new Wisdom Impression 38 in Kellyville Ridge, NSW. Having endured a somewhat stressful experience (exacerbated by the end of our lease coinciding precisely with the end of construction) we vowed never to build again.  Our building journey was captured in our original blog ourimpressionofbraemont.blogspot.com.au. Looking back, Wisdom Homes was a very good builder but it was surprising that in January 2015 we found a block of land in beautiful Sanctuary Lakes VIC and put in an offer to buy. Yikes....the offer was accepted on 11 January and we suddenly found ourselves looking for a builder and our perfect house....yet again!

Our house requirements were very specific as our block is overlooking the water and on a wedge-shaped (albeit large - 925m2) block in a court on a private island of only 35 plots. So we were looking for a large frontage with scope for a triple garage (on the left hand side to enable a north facing garden and pool to be situated behind), a large al fresco and terrace at the rear left of the property to make the most of our amazing views across the lake and to Port Philip Bay beyond. We also needed the master bed at the rear (again, to make the most of our views). 

Given these requirements, our choices were quickly whittled down to a handful of project-builder options or go down the custom build route. It's amazing how few house designs have the master at the rear - why do Australians apparently insist on sleeping at the noisiest part of a house? We spent some time considering the Urban Edge Kato, but surprisingly the sales representative never bothered following up after our after-hours initial appointment - a weird state of affairs that perhaps lost them a sale - it certainly raised a big doubt in our minds about them.  Next was the new Metricon Balmain - a very nice house and good design but we couldn't see past the dull looking Metricon houses that abound in parts of our suburb.  Finally we took a drive out to Keysborough to view the Porter Davis Plaza 49 show home and....WOW!  The show home is spectacular and we immediately fell in love with the design which ticked most, if not all, of our boxes. 

We finally handed over a deposit on 9 February 2015 and were offered the incentive of a June site start.  Yes...June....! So why, I hear you ask, are we now at 2 November and only today have we seen a fence appear on site? Well that, my friends, is a long and tortuous story that involved councils, architectural review committees and neighbours that couldn't be tracked down.  Mostly though it consists of poor administration by Porter Davis which has frequently led to me considering termination of our contract and a fresh start with another builder.  I won't bore you with all the tawdry details.  Suffice it to say that we hope the build goes more smoothly than the contracting and admin. The low point was probably when we emailed PD management to ask why our building coordinator consistently failed to respond to, or even acknowledge, our emails....only for management to fail to respond or even agknowledge our email themselves....very poor customer service.  There has been only one person that has helped us consistently - Luke C. Had it not been for his calm, professional demeanour we would undoubtedly be building with another company.  Well done Luke......such a shame you have been repeatedly let down by your colleagues in the PD customer service team! 

Anyway, we have spent a lot of time refining the house design to suit our requirements and fit squarely on our block.  To be fair, PD  have been very flexible during the planning phase and did manage to broker some big wins for us relating to property setbacks. And here is the finished design...

PD, make sure it goes well from this point on please....!

So, as of today we have a tap, two survey pegs, and a fence.  Site start is scheduled for Wednesday 4th November with a 270 day build period.  That means we should be finished by 4th August 2016.  Join us on the journey....here we go again!

The views from our block.....