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.....