Floor Plan and Various Elevations

We only made a few adjustments to the standard floor plan.

1. Increase the garage size to maximum possible for our block (Approx 75cm), this will add a significant amount of storage space once shelving is built.


2. Extend the alfresco by 2m (essential given our outdoor space is a premium so maximisation of the existing space is important.)


3. Reconfigure pantry to put the fridge on the outside

Our modified floor plan and elevations.


Front Elevation



Living Side Elevation

External Colours!!!

Quick update (coz its late)



We had our colour selection today (more to come later in the week), just wanted to get this up since I had a photo avaliable of it all.

The image below is all our external colours.

Roof Tile - Baramundi
Brick - Austral Macadamia
Garage Door - CB Ironstone
Gutter/Facisa/Downpipe - CB Ironstone
Render to Portico - CB Ironstone
Render to front projection - Deep Orchid (The red-purple)
Window Frames - Black (looks great against the light bricks and does not detract from the render feature)


I think we have a good mixture of dark and light colours in the externals, enough to contrast against each other whilst still maintaining some balance.

Colour/Tile Selections to date

We have so far managed to sort out a few colours already!

• Walls - Wattyl Chalkbeige


• Skirting, Doors, Architaves - Wattyl Chalkdust


• Glass Splashback - Dulux Zuni


• Ensuite Benchtop - Laminex Lunar Stone Gloss Finish


• Ensuite Cupboard - Burnished Wood (May Change as it is quite dark.)


• Kitchen Benchtop - 40mm Quantum Quartz Starlight Black

Now for some pictures.

Ensuite

Chalk beige is the top paint chip the bottom one is chalk dust, the feature tile runs in a row above the niche.

Tiles will have a chocolate grout, the feature square tiles will 'sink' into the grout showing only the very top of them.

Kitchen/Living Areas

The green/blue is Dulux Zuni it will look great behind the glass complimented by a black stone bench and white cabinets (undecided on the shade of them just yet).

The tiles will have a beige grout.

Stone Benchtop

Bathroom/Laundry/WC

We are not having Zuni in the bathroom or laundry I left it in the photo (opps..) anyway the green square tiles will be a feature on the bath and shower.

We do not have samples of the splashback tiles for the laundry but it will be a light mocha colour.

The Next Step - Land!

Choosing the block of land was surprisingly very easy for us.

We had five requirements.

1. Large enough to fit our chosen house
2. The orientation must be correct (Living areas getting the north sun)
3. Good F'Way access
4. Close to friends and family
5. Most importantly in our price range.

We had been scouting for land for about 2 weeks prior to even looking at houses to get a feel for areas we wanted to live in.

Being from the Tarneit area we both wanted to stay close to home.
We inspected the following estates:

• Reflections (Great concept but no land available in the locations we wanted)
• Wyndham Waters (In its final stages, I got the feeling that the prices had been jacked up to take advantage of the boost, checking prices on realestate.com.au where about $40k less than what the developer was asking and for better blocks to boot!)
• Marquands Corner (Had friends in this area but nothing in the right size)
• Williams Landing (Too expensive for us and no guarantee of title in time for FHOG boost)
• I loved Alamanda but the price was just to much for us, plus freeway access from Point Cook can be a pain.

Finally we chose Rose Grange - in the Clearwater Rise releases. Reasons being:

• Well priced
• Great freeway access via Leakes Road
• Just squeezes under 20km as the crow flies from Melbourne- 23km by Car (~35minutes morning peak hour)
• Close to existing schools, shops and future developments
• A stones throw away from a natural creek as well
• Land is due to title in mid-April.

Luck would have it that we just beat another couple to the last 'perfect' block, We'd put my $500 holding deposit down then went to physically check the land (where as they did the opposite)...

First Post!

We've been on the Homeone forum for a while now (Silver user already!) and we have not got a blog up yet so here it is!

Where to start...

Firstly we were going to start our search for a home this November but the boost to the FHOG was to much of a temptation so we started one year earlier - thanks Kevin 07/247/747/Santa with a big bag of cash.

One thing moving our plans forward one year has taught us is that when you have too it is amazing how much money you suddenly have spare to save. We have managed to get about 13% of the house and land value (FHOG + our deposits) in 4 months all without resorting to eating cardboard!

Initially we fell in love with the Grandview 27 from Big M, what we did not fall in love with was the price tag ~$190k without any flooring, bi folds, stone benches etc. (*Note promotions may have changed by now*).

We flirted with the idea of the Santorini 29 from Big M's but we were left underwhelmed by the standard inclusions, I love the floor plan but once again the cost of getting what we wanted in it would have been too great.

That is when we found the PD Hayman, knowing that it would be stretching our budget (Not wanting to borrow much more than $350k) we decided to check it out and get some pricing.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3421/hayman29.pdf (*Edit* PD Removed Old PDF relinked it from a copy i had saved)
At the time the price was $196k for the 29sq version but the current promotions of full tiles and carpet to the house and various other promotion inclusions like bi fold doors, higher ceilings, render to the facade, overhead cupboards, stone benches all meant that we could have what we wanted within or very close to our budget.

What is there not to like:
- Large pantry- Two large WIRs- 4 bedrooms + Study
Our only concerns were the size of the minor bedrooms, but given our current plans the size of those rooms is not immediately a problem nor do we consider them to be going forward. After speaking with some H1ers whom have built a 29sq version of the Hamilton (The Haymans sister house) we were satisfied that the bedrooms will be fine.

We looked around at other builders to compare sizes, prices and inclusions once we were satisfied that even if we built a smaller house say a 3 bd room it would not be much cheaper to build.

So the Hayman it was.