Developer's Approval & Gift

We received our house plans, Basix report and landscape plan from the developers Bingara Gorge and they had the offical stamp of approval on them which is great news. My husband dropped in to see the Sales person and was given a gift for settling on our land. It was a lovely hamper with wine, olives and other bits in it, very nice of them. I had joked with the sales lady when she said we needed to pick up our gift that I hope it was $$$ as we are quickly running out.

Gift from Binagra Gorge

Slowly unwrapping

YUM!

Landscape Plan

The night we got home after signing off the building contract I finally sat down to do the landscape plan. I had started it about 10 times but just couldn't get my head around the size of the yard, sounds silly as we wanted 1/2 acre and then I couldn't for the life of me work out how to fill the bloody thing up! Anyway I put in Jacaranda trees at the front with a hedge of lilly pilly and agapanthus across the front on either side of the post and rail fence. I have a beautiful standard Azalea in a wine barrel that I will plant in the front of the bedroom windows and we will turf it with buffalo. We are having a chook shed for the 5 chickens and vegie garden down the back. My mum is giving me some trees from her house and one of them is a Mulberry Tree so that will definately go near the chook shed for shade. We just have to work out how to dig them up and transport them 3 hours without killing them. I can't wait to move into the house but we have a lot of work to do outside once we get there, but it will be fun starting from scratch. I have submitted my plan but haven't heard back if its suitable or not so fingers crossed x

Mulberry Tree - hopefully ours will look like that in a few years

Cherry Tree - 2 are going down the back in front of the Chook Shed

Contract

Our Building Contract was sent out and we made an appointment with our CLO for the next week for signing. The contract is pretty straight forward with no real surprises, I think we only had one question. The appointment took about 1 hour they go through the contract with you and stress that the final plans are what they go off not what is written in the colour selection or your consolidated tender. I had a bit of a panic then and double checked we weren't getting the bagged front as we paid extra for the upgraded bricks for the whole house. The CLO was very good and listened and explained anything you asked. We signed off on every page of the contract and then we got a list of things we need to do before it can be submitted to the Certifier like a BAL Certificate, which we need to get off Wollondilly Council for Bush Fire rating, a letter from the bank stating they are giving us the money and a landscape plan (which is required by our developer) and of course I haven't done it yet!

Final Plans

I think its time to catch up on whats been happening. Our plans went to the drafting department and they were hoping to have them finalised before they closed for the Christmas break but they didn't get them finished which wasn't a problem. We went away camping for 10 days over Christmas and had a very cold and wet day but it was still great. We didn't take any of the house stuff with us which was good to have a little break. Once MJH got back they sent us our plans to sign off, we had a few little changes like the position of taps and gas points and just the way the stacker doors opened, no big dramas. We finally got to see what the $3,500 paid for on the "Corner Facade", I really like it, there is a little pitch roof with 2 colums and a cement slab, I think it should look great.

Colours Appointment

We went for our colours appointment and I was a little nervous even though I had most things worked out. The night before I sat with all the folder pulled apart on the lounge room floor writing down what I really liked. Our Interior Designer Lesa was excellent, she listened to everything and always gave feedback, she wasn't too sure about the colour selection for the outside of our house, she thought it might be too dark, until we showed her a picture and she quite liked it, she gave us advice on how to accesorise outside like the colour of the driveway. The Kitchen was the hardest decision we found, in the end we decided to go with what they had at the display home at Kellyville, we all wanted to have a modern "ish" house (well sort of), I love Country decorating but we all decided we wouldn't do it in this house as it really isn't designed that way. I was going to put in a Shaker Style kitchen but after talking to Lesa about it decided if your not going the full style it will look odd. We upgraded the kitchen a fair bit, we got the 40mm ceasarstone benchtop, the Polytec Thermolaminated cabinets and 2 banks of drawers with soft closers, and we picked the Baumatic Appliances. We had decided to get the dishwasher and microwave package but in the end we took that off, we will buy a dishwasher when we move in and we already had a microwave. Other upgrades were, 2 metre cupboard for the laundry, I'm so happy I'm getting it, I've always wanted a nice laundry, high ceilings, high doors and some of the main ones in the Lin 1 doors, lever handles, we increased the height and width of the stacker doors in the family and dining and we got the 4 LIN 1 doors (2 fixed) in the media room. So hopefully with all this our house will look very nice.

Getting it Right!!! The Extra Garage

We went back to the planning stage again with our block change. We decided we would like to put a double garage up the back of the block seen as we we have 2 driveway access being on a corner block. I have put a pic below to show how it would look. BUT,,,, then we got the tender back and the price was ridiculous so that idea was scrapped much to our disappointment. I might add the 2nd double garage is actually a brewery for my husband. We had to go back the drawing board and work out what else to do. We asked to have it attached to the side of the house next to the original double garage but we weren't allowed because of the mine subsidence board. What we finally were allowed to do was add a 3200 wide extra garage to the side of the house, it will be in-line with the other garages and will have 2 windows instead of a garage door. So after all that we finally signed off our CT!

SOLD!!!! We sold our house

After six weeks on the market and quite a few inspections we sold our house to a elderly couple who need somewhere flat and with a low maintenance yard. The 10 day cooling off period was nerve racking, this is the first time we have sold a house, and hopefully the last for a while. By the final day I was a bucket of nerves, but it all went through with no hassles. What we didn't realise was our settlement day was in 35 days including cooling off, so we didn't have much time to pack up. Fortunately the couple buying our house kindly offered us to rent while our house is getting built as they are in no rush to move in, there are really some kind people in this world. Now we can just relax and get ready to go away for Christmas and slowly pack next year.