Commencement on site - Excavation

We have movement on site!
On Thursday we had the excavators on site for a few hours to level what was already a very flat block, followed by delivery of the site toilet and driveway gravel on Friday.
We are looking forward to the concretor starting on the piers very soon...
My count has 101 pier holes to be dug!



Site after excavation

Drop Panel / Pier Specification Plan

 Thanks to the flowchart Kavehman sourced from Provincial and supplied on his blog the journey ahead of us is a lot clearer!

DA & Demolition

DA Approved - pop the champagne!

The DA was approved in excellent time for a Christmas period we were very happy! The only issue was that we had to wait for Provincial's Christmas break to finish on the 19th January to get things under way... we jumped ahead and locked in the demolition date and started to look for somewhere to rent nearby in the meantime.

In hindsight given the engineering delays maybe we could have moved out and started the demolition a little later but this was a good time when work was quiet and family was available to help.  Thanks to our family for all their hard work!

Before the demolition we started the arduous task of selling everything we could - and we mean everything... Doors, gutters, toilets, kitchen, A/C units... the list goes on. Generally we sold the high value items via ebay and left the rest to a big demolition sale.


The Demolition

We went with the builders recommended demolishing company Site demolition Pty Ltd after getting a few similar priced quotes and talking the husband / wife owners and being impressed with how genuine they were.

The process went smoothly just taking just a little longer than planned due to a excavator breakdown (it was old and a bit undersized and was replaced immediately after our job). Surprisingly we were not too emotional as I think we both had the new house in focus (and we had seen a steady decline after the demolition sale). See pictures below:-

Before

During

After

Choices and Changes

Why did we initially choose Provincial Homes?

• As mentioned in our last post we reviewed many floor plans. We planned to keep looking until we found a plan that was 98% as we wanted it - we did not want to spend too much on structural design changes. We narrowed our choice to two builders in this process.

• Provincial were one of the few home builders to be totally transparent about the cost and upgrades applied in the show home. It was our intention to work top-down, not bottom-up when making selections for our home - the outcome we wanted was closer to the show home, not the base house. Too many choices may have ended in divorce! As this was not our first home, and very likely the last we plan to build we wanted some bells and whistles.

• Real feedback... forums such as the Homeone - Building A New House forum and other blogs from people going though the process were invaluable.  The other big one for us was getting the location of houses currently being built or recently finished from the builders. This enabled us to drive around and see the progress made (or not made) and talk to a lot of the owners about their experiences.... a lot of insight was gathered  which helped reduce the two builders to one!

• The quality of the homes - both in the show homes and out in the field. Solid concrete slab rather than the waffle slabs we see so often now. Backing the quality with 12 months of maintenance  - hopefully if we need this it will be timely and done without multiple follow-ups...

• We like the more personal aspect of Provincial - they weren't one of the big Eden Brae or Metricon's  that had show home receptions that were crowded and felt like new car showrooms!

Structural Changes

As mentioned we chose the Woollahra 40 with the new Impression facade. The prospect of sitting on the balcony watching the kids play in the front-yard and street was too appealing! We kept many of the major upgrades in the display home - namely the staircase and butlers pantry.

The only major structural changes we made were to include a third garage, extend the Alfresco area, and replace/add bi-fold doors between the meals/family and alfresco. We spend a lot of time entertaining outdoors and have built it as close as possible to our existing pool.

Other minor structural changes included:- 

• slightly reduce the width of the meals room to match the rumpus room
• create a cupboard for the kids toys in the sitting room by slightly reducing the size of one of the bedroom WIR's
• Include a double-sided indoor/outdoor fireplace to the rumpus/alfresco - we hope if this works out it could become a real feature of the house!
• Change the kitchen to include an island bench
• Cavity sliding doors to the study/entry and Lounge/entry

Selections

We had the selections appointment on the 9th December and were pleasantly surprised with how easily it all went. The selections consultant at Provincial was friendly and knowledgeable and we had done considerable research ourselves prior.

As mentioned the baseline we used was the show home and some of the selections we made were:-

• Organic White Caeserstone to the Kitchen, Bathrooms, and Laundry bench tops
• Silver Dollar colour to the glass splashbacks in the kitchen and butlers pantry
• Wall Paint Colour - Torte
• Trim and internal doors - Struan Grey
• Dishwasher in butlers pantry rather than kitchen
• Blackbutt floors to most of the ground floor minus the study and Lounge.
• Silver Birch - Resin carpets
• Underfloor heating for the ensuite and main bathrooms
• LPG Underground Gas
• Glass doors to the ensuite shower and WC - we agree with Jess & Ayden that toilets need doors!

Electrical Selections

The electrical appointment was done at the Prestige Electrical offices on the 30th January. We were expecting a hit to the budget at this point and it didn't disappoint. We like to finalise as much as possible so we can minimise work done later and damage / disruption to walls and ceilings including insulation afterwards.
The selections consultant was very helpful and incredibly patient as we went through what seemed like 50 versions before we settled on the final configuration... We tried to think of everything and found walk-through's of the display home while visualising furniture and fittings was very helpful.
The final plan is shown below:- 

 

Decision Made...

Welcome to our blog as we build our first home with Provincial. This blog is intended to share our experiences with family, friends, and others considering, planning, or currently building.

We have purchased and lived in two homes but have long had the building of a new home on our bucket list! We made the decision to build after lengthy discussions and research on whether to renovate our house, sell & buy another, or find land and build. In the end given we love our location and have great neighbours, we decided to keep our large block of land and knock-down and rebuild.

We've decided to build the Woollahra 40 with the new Impression (balcony) Facade from Provincial homes after looking through countless floor plans and  display homes.

We have already gone through a lot of the pre-construction steps - see the timeline.  Our build is due to start  next week hopefully- fingers crossed!! We have fast grown impatient for work to begin as the engineering plans have taken much longer than expected. We are keen to be in before Christmas and given the DA was approved on the 9th of January it should have allowed enough time...

We will provide a few more details on the steps and choices made up until today in our next post. For now see our plans and external selections below:-

Ground Floor plan

First Floor plan