Final plans signed - Let the building begin!!

Update:

We received our Council approval on the 17th September, which was great!!

We met with our building company today and signed off on the final plans, colours, electrical plan and variations.

Early next week the builders will complete their pegout (which means we will officially be able to see exactly where the house will be!!). Once this is complete, they estimate about 2-3 weeks until site start.

It was great to be out at the land again today and we can't wait until the commencement of our new house :-)

The wedding is about 6 weeks away, so we are very excited about that too.

It's ours.....ALL OURS!!! :-)

As per the the post heading, the land is officially ours! The settlement took place today, which was very exciting! We now own our very own piece of Australia :-)

The land registered last week too (26th August 2010)...so it's official, we can now get our build on.

One slight problem, we're still awaiting Council approval. Our application was submitted on the 16th July 2010 and once it registered, Council became aware of the fact that the soil in our area is very saline and hence we require some amendments to the slab (so it's more suited to the salinity).

Our Builder received the letter from Council last week stating the additional requirements. Now were are awaiting a PCV relating to this amended slab, so we can sign off on the changes and then the builder can send the amended plans back to Council. They said they aim to send the plans back to Council by the end of this week. Hopefully Council will then approve our plans sometime next week.

Then from there it should be all systems go! From what I understand, our FINAL plans are then drawn up and we have a meeting with the Building Company and sign off on everything and supply them with any additional documentation (if required).

So hopefully the build start isn't too far away.

Speaking of things that aren't too far away - the wedding is just over two months away. We have remained productive with completing things from our "to-do" list, however there is still plenty to do. Very exciting all the same :-)

We will keep you posted as to when we get the final Council approval and an estimate of when we hope to start buildling :-)

Peace out.

Update :-)

We don't really have to much to report at the moment. Our plans are still with Council - awaiting approval. Our land still hasn't registered, however after a quick call to Landcom today, they indicated it would be the end of August, so that's good. Ultimately, it's beyond our control, so we're remaining patient and enjoying the down time before everything on the house front gets busy again.

We have been to see the land twice since our last post. We went with my Dad, my brother and my niece to see the land/house (display home) and they loved it! Dad has been there numerous times before, however loves the area so much, he's always willing to come back. My niece loved playing in the park as well. A few weeks later we went back with Michael's Grandpa (who was visiting from QLD). He enjoyed having a look around and it was great to show him everything.

It's completely finished now!!! So exciting! We even have a nice tree lined street...the crazy thing is that the trees are on the Council nature strip, however are all planted basically in the middle of the front of everyones block. The trees will really get in the way of all the builders when they get started, plus our soon to be driveway. Fun times. I must say, it is a nice tree all the same :-)

In other news, the wedding is fast approaching and we have been able to dedicate some much needed attention to this. Having said that, we still have so much to do. Our weekends are always busy without the wedding/building - so the addition of the beforementioned means our weekends are extremely busy! Approx. 14 weeks to go until the big day! Very exciting!!

Will post more again soon :-)

Quick update

Just a quick update to advise that we now have our approval from The Ponds (received on the 07/07/2010). Our new brick choices were acceptable to their guidelines (which is great as we much prefer our new bricks).

Our plans have now gone to Council for approval - this will take anywhere from 4-6-8 weeks. The waterboard will also complete a sewer pegout during this time.

We have received the rest of the quotes we were waiting on - and just need to finalise and sign the post contract variations. After all of this is done, we can finally put away all of the copious amounts of paperwork and await the approval of our plans by Council.

According to the "unregistered land" link - our land is now due to be registered on 30/07/2010. This could change - however, to date, the delay in registration has had no impact on our progress.

Keep you posted with updates in due course :-)

An update about nothing...

Well as the heading suggests, we have a whole lot of nothing going on at the moment. Well, that's how it feels...

Ok - so we have now chosen our new brick colours and added extra planting to our landscape design (rear yard) as requested by The Ponds Review Panel - so hopefully now we will get their approval as soon as possible (as our original assessment was rejected).

We have been for our electrical, staircase and flooring appointments too - so that's all of our appointments out of the way.

Besides that we're just awaiting on a lot of quote/s from suppliers - of which some we've had to chase up on numerous occasions. These quotes are not paramount to our file moving forward - however, we'd like to have them all finalised anyway. Some things are just dragging on for too long! We're remaining patient and staying positive - hopefully this week we can finalise some of the quotes and post contract variations :-)

Re: Land registration: it's now listed at the 16th July...Here's hoping.

During this period of inactivity, we have been able to focus on our wedding plans, which is very exciting :-)

Will post again soon when we have more to report. We will be heading out to The Ponds again within the next month :-)

Two steps forward....One step back.

Our builder advised us last week that we had received BASIX approval - which is great! One approval down, a few more to go.

On Wednesday (16th June) our CSO advised that she had submitted our plans to The Ponds Review Panel for approval (YAY!!!!) - however, then advised us on Friday that the preliminary feedback (from The Ponds) was that our wonderful brick upgrade of BLUE STEEL FLASH was not permitted at The Ponds - Denied!!! This is because it is made of about 3 different shades (of greys and blue). It seems they want all bricks to be one uniform colour. Ho hum.

Alas, we were prepared for circumstances such as this (during this experience) so took it in our stride and made a trip back out to PGH bricks at Schofields today (Sunday 20th June). We have now come up with a few other brick choices and look forward to finalising our final choice this week. All in all, it was great that our builder was so prompt in letting us know this information :-)

After that, we went on to visit our land and it was wonderful!!! So much has happened since we were last there...the street lights have gone up, Telstra pits in are the ground, electricity pillars erected and tree bays in place. It was such a glorious day and we were in awe of this new place that we will call home - it was so nice to be in a place where we felt so energised (especially after the stress over the past 6 months or so) - Splendid!!

Building has even started in our area (however in the land releases prior to ours) - We're hopeful that our land will register soon.

This week, we have another appointment with our builder - this time to finalise our staircase design, electrical requirements and also ALL of our internal flooring (carpet/tiling/wet area selection). It's going to be a LONG, yet very exciting day :-)

For homework, we are going to look over our house plans and look at where powerpoints, light switches will be required...as well as what lighting options we plan to use.

We hope you enjoy the photos we took today :-) (Oh and it's 5 months today until our wedding!!)

Rain, rain - go away!!

Well, it's been raining here in Sydney for the past 2 weeks and is forecast to be raining all of next week too. Hmmmmm....

Before the rain started, it looked like they were about to lay the elecricity cables...put in street lights, Telstra pits etc (in our land release area) - however, upon our last visit to the land (last weekend) this still hasn't been done. Understandably. So there's not a lot to report regarding our land.

We went to our colours apointment at the Home Options Gallery on the 31/05/10. That went really well!! Almost too well. We even had time to go out for a yummy lunch. Then it came time for our kitchen appointment and we were confronted with a few issues. To cut a long story short, the kitchen we thought we were getting (as per The Ponds display home) was slightly different to the "standard" one on our plans. Eeek! After a slightly stressful kitchen appointment, we finished up our long day and came home and emailed EB about our concerns. They have sinced replied and cleared up a few of our concerns, so that's a good start. Hopefully we can get everything else resolved a.s.a.p.

So now we have officially chosen the colours for the following: bricks, mortar, roof tiles, gutters, fascias, down pipes, window frames, moroka, driveway, kitchen, bathroom vanities, internal paint, skirting, cornice, front door, front balcony rail, internal stair rail. We have also added a few upgrades along the way - especially in the brick and plumbing (toilets/showerheads/basins) departments.

Our next appointment is in a few weeks, where we will finalise our: electrical requirements, internal flooring (including bathrooms) and an appointment about the staircase options too - party times!! We won't have the time to visit The Ponds prior to then, so hopfeully some more land progress has been made upon our return.

In other news, we emailed our landscape plan to The Ponds Review Panel the other day and they replied saying that their preliminary overview indicates that everything looks good. So that's a positive outcome. I'm sure they will look at it in more detail once it's officially submitted. EB has advised that our BASIX certificate has been issued, so that's good also.

We hope to resolve our queries with EB promptly and then, from what I understand, our application for approval will go forward to The Ponds Review Panel. Then from there, it will go on the Council for approval. Hopefully in that time, our land will register (which in now due to be in July/August) and we can settle on the land and it will be all ours!! ...and all ready to start building on :-)