Fenced in

We made the weekly visit to our land to find that we now have a fence up - we have a secure portaloo now!

Guessing next week will be builders signage and hopefully we'll meet our SS and get more information on the timeline of our build.

Suspense is killing me. 

Cx

The construction fence

Mr Milburn jumpic!

Portaloo Happiness

Just like many other fellow bloggers, after months of paper work we were so excited about visiting our block of land today, only to find that happiness has been found in the form of a portaloo!

This is the first sign of life - the ball is rolling now, thank you Wisdom!

Cx

Sewer Peg-Out & Production Estimating

Thus far, it has been a Happy New Year for The Milburns!

We visited our block during the break and noticed that at some point in the past couple of months we had our sewer peg-out completed! That was a bit of a surprise. We also see that the house next door has now gone up and they're almost done. See pictures below.

This morning, we just got an email from Wisdom saying that our file is in Production Estimating and we have been allocated a Site Supervisor! They did say that there will be some delay because of shutdowns of trades people and other suppliers. However, once estimating is done, we'll meet our SS and find out more about when our site will be scheduled for benching, piering and slabbing :)

Exciting exciting times! Bring on 2014!

Cx

Picture 1: Sewer Peg-Out

Picture 2: Neighbours on both sides, and where did our grass go!

Authority to Commence

We've had the absolute worst time with St George Bank - after receiving our mortgage documents a month ago, it has taken daily phone calls, a formal complaint and still more following up and we finally received the Authority to Commence letter last Friday.

Wisdom's offices have closed for the year, so this will not be actioned until 2014 now.

Our tender cutoff date is 31st January, so we need to begin construction before then otherwise we are going to be affected by any price adjustments! If that happens, I will definitely be giving the bank a call because it's taken a whole MONTH to fix all the mistakes they have made to our documents, and hence have pushed us backwards an entire month. It's unbelievable. 

Anyway - hopefully that's all the paperwork done, so 2014 should be all about the build.

Cx

Final Documents & Formal Bank Approval

Everything seems to be happening today.

We received formal approval from the bank this morning, so we should have the bank documents signed this week and letter to commence construction sent out to us by the end of next week.

This morning we received final documents from Wisdom to check and sign off:

1. Final Construction Plans
2. End Panel (Final Tender)
3. Post Contract Variations
4. Amended Progress Payment Schedule

We've done so much paperwork to get to this point, and this is it! It's funny seeing it all put together now, all the hours spent driving around picking colours, bricks, splash backs, tiles, carpet...all moulded into a couple of documents.

I've had a quick look over and everything seems to be in order, so we'll send them back signed off tomorrow for them to send back to estimating to start the ordering process for our file.

One thing I did notice, was that they have changed the big window at our staircase "due to a change in Wisdom Homes construction methods to a AFW29-10T with a approx. 2100mm sill height". I'm not really sure what it's going to look like now (as I've obviously been going off what we've seen in the display homes) so I hope it doesn't make too much of a difference.

Cx

Construction Certificate Received

Very very excited to have received a surprise in the mail today - all our council approved plans with extra stamps of approval and our Construction Certificate!

After 1.5 weeks we've finally got our Escura Smooth bricks amended to our final variations and have signed off. 

We also received conditional approval from the bank today until we provide the amended progress payment schedule (STG now say max 20% for slab payment) and final tender. Yay!

We are currently having communication issues with novacomm about the theatre prewire so we've had to leave it out of the final variations or our file will be delayed, which will push back pre-tender and construction plans (5 days each) and hence construction start. I've started making enquiries elsewhere now. 

Some CC happy snaps!

Cx

Back to Bricks

Yes, we have changed our minds at the last minute!

I was about to send the signed off final variations last week...and I double and tripled checked everything...but the one thing that kept sticking in my mind were the bricks...

I love our colours, but I really wanted a smooth face brick. I just love the smooth look. We had already decided on the Escura Velour range though because of pricing, but when we were at The Ponds Display we saw some houses being built up and they were using the smooth brick. Ever since - I guess it's been stuck in my mind that I really really want smooth bricks!

So, we decided to get a new quote for the smooth range before signing the final variation.

Over the weekend, we visited Boral to have a last look at the colours as well so that when the quote came back this week we were ready to sign off, and we just both fell in love with the Smooth bricks! We decided to keep the same colours (Pearl Grey and Brown) but change to smooth.

I'm so excited about them! I've posted a couple of comparisons of the smooth and velour below. You can see how much of a difference it makes. And it's the EXACT same brick, just one side is smooth!

Escura Smooth Pearl Grey

Smooth (LHS) and Velour (RHS)

Cx