Day 16: Drainage Plumbing Done; Waffle Pods & Steel Mesh Delivered!

It's been kinda stressful week for us. MDJ discontinued our flooring of choice which means we'd have to go back again for reselection. Hmmm could it be that the profit margin with our brand of choice is not high enough for MDJ? They didn't elaborate on the reason, just said it's for our own interest. Not really buying that lols! Ooopsss i might get in touble here so I'll leave it at that:). We saw this opportunity to explore our options again and  much to our delight MDJ is open to cancellation of flooring without charges. We then set off last weekend to visit suppliers for laminates, floating timber, bamboo flooring, etc. and we found some really sweet deals. There is no doubt we would have saved around 4K or more if we source the flooring elsewhere, but after much thought and discussion we jumped the gun and just went ahead with MDJ. We didn't really liked any other laminates, so without batting an eyelid we went with the new craze that is bamboo flooring. It's said to have a very high janka rating for hardness (way harder than timber) and will definitely be hard on our pockets too (what with another 3.4k variation)! Right at the bottom is the picture of our new flooring - coffee color! It's the most popular bamboo color, we would have gone for something a little bit non-conventional but the other color we liked (brushed antique) might be too rustic for the theme that we have in mind (which is quite frankly as clear as muddy water right now hehe).

And since we are in the vicinity of our property, we decided to drop by and have a look at the drainage plumbing etc that was supposed to be done yesterday. And surprise surprise, waffle pods and the steel mesh have also been delivered! This is taking faster than expected. We should be getting the slab done next week depending on the weather. Woooooooot!!!

Day 14: Piering And Slab Framing

After 6 days and 3 cancellations between, piering was finally carried out today yeyyy!!! It's been raining almost everyday, what a crazy summer. We couldn't take time off work and so we had to rely on our Site Supervisor (SS) to look after our interest on piering measurement. And unfortunately, the inevitable has happened - we exceeded our allowance by 24.4 lineal meter which will cost us another 2K :(

Day 9: Fence and Portaloo Installed!

Day 1: Site Cutting

Just when we are pressed for time to meet the start of construction deadline, our mobile lender had to arrange for revision of our document due to a mistake they made on the mortgage fees. We were so close in getting that approval before 2011 ends but it's just wasn't meant to be. The heavens said we are too eager and we need to slow down lols! On 3rd Jan 2012, our mobile lender advised us that our loan have been approved-in-principle. At this point we thought we are ready to rumble, but apparently we still need to obtain the "Authority to Commence" letter from the bank before construction can commence. Ha! Too many steps, it's insane hehe!

And finally on my birthday 9th Jan, this much awaited letter was finally obtained and on the very same day our file was released for construction. Yey!!! This called for a double celebration so I and hubby went out for a seafood platter which was soooo good - lobster, oyster, scallops, prawn, squid. Double yum!!!

Sixteen days later, we received an SMS from MDJ saying that today, 25 Jan 2012 marks the start of work on the site! We couldn't wait for our respective day jobs to come to an end so we could drop by our land. We braved the rain yesterday and below is the pic of what we were welcomed with. I can't wait to see the whole process unfold in the coming days and months! I'll leave you with these before and after photos. Happy Australia Day!!!

A Piece of Land Down Under

Pegged 21 Jan 2012

Day 1, Site Cutting - 25 Jan 2012

Electrical Selections (check check check!)

Due to the Christmas holidays, our Electrical Selections can only be scheduled on Jan 2012, deym! Luckily someone pulled out on 12th December, and we got the slot! This is a blessing because it will allow us to include the variation to the bank for the construction loan approval.

As usual, we went to the meeting prepared and aware of exactly what we wanted. Thanks to my hubby whose second name is forum, and his persistence to discuss with me almost everyday (tee hee!!). We are very much conscious of spending unnecessarily for top of the line and innovative technology of today (a ducted vacuum would have been a nice gadget to have!) And as much as we want to live the dream, we have to be realistic and strictly limit ourselves with what is essential plus a just a little bit more for good measure ;)

With Christine's help (she is such a darling, very patient and we had an easy session), These are what we have come up with:
1) 20x wiring for future downlights in hallway / family room / kitchen
2) 37x double power points all over incl outdoors(it maybe overkill but what the heck!)
3) alarm panel system
4) 4x 2-way switches
5) 2x 3-in-1 fan-heater-light for bathrooms
5) 2x TV, pay TV, antenna, phone points, reinforced walls
6) some other minor miscellaneous stuff

Regardless of how much we were careful, we still ended up with a total of $8.5K for electricals. This brings us up to $80k on top of the base price. This reminds me of the earlier conversation with the sales people - they have given us a realistic figure back then. Mind you, this additional 80k includes the minor variations that were later on required by the council before they could approve the plans. So far, our experience with McDonald Jones has been pleasant to this day. Hope this will always be the case all throughout the building process.

Building Contract Signed!

About a month after the color selection, we received the building contract (with plans and consolidated tender) for signing. We reviewed it for a week and found a few significant mistakes that could affect our bank loan, the most significant being
(1) our names are shortened - I have three first names and Bjorn got two!, and
(2) the flooring was not included in the quotation.

It took about 3 weeks for both parties to sign the contract as well as the variations. We are running out of time to finalize the building contract, and so we can then submit our construction loan application to the bank. We are concerned that we won't be able to get our bank loan approval within the timeframe we are bound with to start construction. The construction companies are so clever, we have to start construction within 150 from the date of deposit (april 30 2011 in our case) beyond which we would have to pay additional 1K for each month od delay. It makes sense considering that material prices will most likely increase by then. Our 150th day is on nov 30, I don't think our construction loan will be approved by then, we'll probably be ready to start by mid-december. But again, it's Christmas holidays and chances are construction companies will be closed for 2 weeks (xmas and new year holidays). My gut feel tells me we will only be able to start construction in January and we'll have no choice but to part with another 1k or 2 as penalty. Hopefully McDonald Jones will give us some grace period.

The moment we received back the signed contracts, we immediately contacted our ANZ mobile banker (who I highly recommend for being not a "hard sell" and a really good customer service), to get the ball rolling for our construction loan. He's been to our House fives times, without qualms of going back again if we needed to see him over some minor things! Quite a nice and sincere chap, and we are quite comfortable with him. The bank interest is going downhill so we couldn't be any happier to conclude these financial matters at this time of the year. The downside is, in a matter of months, our hard-earned savings will all be wiped out for sure. But I guess we'll just have to bite the bullet and let tomorrow take care of itself ;)

Inclusions and Upgrades Review

Demo homes play with your head, and is indeed the best marketing tool out there. For a moment, you begin to envisage that you will get the exact same house for just a little above the base price. And then you go through your consolidated tender and you are way over budge! It also doesn't help when you are in the showroom for your color selection. How nice it is to have all the best things in life! Suffice it to say, we initially planned on getting upgrades on almost everything that will look better. But at the end of it all, we had to scrutinize every nook and cranny of the tender and just upgrade whatever is really essential, or is it? So here it goes -

1) upgrade to McDonald's impressions package totally free (promotion)
2) reverse cycle a/c @ 8K (discounted) plus another 3K Easter discount which essentially brought down the a/c price to 5k only. Not bad huh?!
3) went with steel frame + colorbondroof which is included in the impressions package

... And basically indulged on the following at a cost:
4) sarking and anticon blanket for the roof - this has something to do with thermal insulation and condensation control
5) upgraded bricks
6) half-rendered facade
7) increased ceiling height to 2.7mm from standard 2.4mm, since we are only building one-stores house
8) door to master's b/r walk in wardrobe - to minimize those nasty dust
9) trilock for the front door
10) stainless steel shower hobs for 2 bathrooms
11) laminate flooring to entire house (except the wet areas) - it took us a long time to decide on this. But based on our calculation, the savings if we get it outside is not that significant considering that we have to pay the builder to soft nail the skirting. Doing it ourselves is out of the question right now as we are both busy and besides we may not have a knack for it lols!
12) kitchen splash back to full height! Since we chose this magnificent metallic black (inclusive in the impression package), why not go all out for that glittery look ;)

All in all, we are up by $69K from the base price. I say it's not that bad at all, we estimated 80K based on initial discussions with consultants and we did well. This gives us some budget for electricals and driveway, the landscaping will just have to be done slowly with the aim to get that 5K rebate.