Title date notifcation.

Today we received a letter from our conveyancer.   This had attached a copy of the engineers report for our stage and also a letter from the developer's conveyancer stating that our land will title in November.    This is a month earlier than we were originally advised so we are very happy people.

This means we can move along with our house selections and plans and hope to start before the end of the year - yay!!!

New Nearmap Image Update

This is the estate as at 16/7/2010 taken from Nearmap.   Isn't it amazing the difference between the previous update in April to now, so many houses on the go!!

Ka-Ching Ka-Ching goes the cash register

Today we had a meeting with Premier to analyse the specifications of the  house and discuss the little "extras" that we desire.   Over an hour later, I now know the meaning of lintel, finial, what reveals & madison boxes are.

Also discovered the EXTRA  costs of awning windows instead of sliding, the cost to have the original facade including colour bricks around house, bullnose window sill bricks, twin brick piers and brick fence inbetween, the cost of having a small piece of steel lintel over the back garage door is $320, even though we have already paid $370 for the same over the main garage door which is more than twice as wide!!  Picture rails to lounge, hall, family & master.   Can you hear the cash register ringing???  About $5,000 for all this.

We will have to wait to get the EXTRA cost of awning windows at the front including side light windows in the bay to the master (because that is extra!), the cost of having a larger bi-parting sliding door in the alfresco, and the cost of having a zone put in for the ducted heating, putting a door in the hallway to shut off the kitchen/family from the lounge room, turning the coat cupboard into a half & half shelves & hanging and having 2 doors to open instead of one. 

I wonder why I ever uttered those immortal words "I was thinking" and started all this.
What you see when you see a display home is not what you get, anything nice is always EXTRA, you never see basic inclusions, they always upgrade the display house to the hilt.

So I now wait for Premier to get back to me with all those other EXTRAS, and the sound keeps going ka-ching ka-ching.

Its just bricks, tiles and mortar - how easy is that?

Today David and I had a great day, on his rostered day off spending a day with the one he adores, what did we do?   Well, his car was in for a service so we beetled off in my little Excel over to Reece at Burwood, Challenge Roofing at Officer, A & L Windows in Hallam,  and a visit to both Jamieson display homes today armed with trusty tape measure to check on things once again!!! 

The outcome is "ta da" we have finally decided on the bricks, tiles, and window colours:

Bricks are Austral Canterbury, with off-white mortar.

These roofing tiles are Monier Elabana Sambuca .

   And last but not least

  White Birch Windows.

On our way back home we called into The Avenue at Casey, to discuss the positioning of our driveway crossover which we want to be on the right so that our alfresco area will take full advantage of the northern sun.   We are happy to report that we have in our hot little hand the engineers report for our stage which luckily has our driveway crossover on the right hand side.   I asked whether our land is still due to title in December and was advised that is still the case!!!   Much progress was made today.   

Alternative facades for house

Both of these facades are good, all depends on cost of course!!!

Preliminary Paperwork Received & Conveyancer Appointed

Today we travelled down to meet with our Premier Homes rep James and received this giant folder with all the plans, specifications, sample contract etc. for our new house.   We will need to go over all this paperwork VERY carefully over the next month or so to make sure we are happy with everything contained therein.   We have one more go at making any changes for free on the plans, and I will be investigating every fixture and fitting contained therein before we sign off on everything.  Big thanks to Room 4 a cubby for his tip on extending the toilet and relocating the bathroom door - a great idea.   James also had the idea of putting a cavity sliding door at the end of the entry hall so that when I have the gas fireplace (I decided I will get one!) on it will keep the heat in, so we will consider this in the final plan.

We asked him about having the Bungalow look above for the facade of the house, this seems to be quite expensive with different size gables needed for the garage and centre of the house, so we went off and snapped photos of different facades of other houses that we like in case the cost of the bungalow look is out of our price range - so many decisions to make.

We also need to visit the Kitchen guy as I want to change the layout where the oven is to get rid of the little cupboards and drawers they have as I need bench space on both sides of the range.

We have lots of decisions yet to make before we sign the contract, so I can see it will be a very busy month or so.

We went for a drive down to the block today, but it was a very wet soggy mess, with no action yet.   Amazed at the amount of building that it happening though, as its been 3 weeks since we have been there.

We have now signed with Maria at Superior Conveyancing as well, so I will contact her this week to find out if she is any clearer on whether our land is on track for December 2010.

Let the fun begin - I am glad that we have time to do all this work.   In a way it is good that we cannot build straight away so I can get this all done.    However, come December, if there is no action on the title - I may not be so happy.

Hope to be adding to the blog a lot more frequently, as more decisions are made.