Rubbish removal

Had an opportunity to visit the block on Monday night as we were in the area after watching our niece, Bella, in her school Christmas concert . Pulled into our driveway and some [insert expletive] low-life had decided to use our drive as a dumping ground for their unwanted household rubbish - not impressed. We found new holes in the ground from the PD soil tests right next to the ones we had done by Henley (taken before we put a deposit on the block). We took some more happy snaps with the cherubs and then drove round the corner to view some local homes. We came across some friends who happen to live round the corner in the estate and as it happens they had witnessed the low-life dump the rubbish not 10 minutes prior to our visit! Thankfully they had taken down the rego and make of the vehicle ;-)

Later that night, I made a phone call to local Constabulary and advised them of the event. The next day I received a call from the boys in blue letting me know that they had visited the site and then visited the 'alleged' perpetrator (who had blankly denied the act) and had been issued with a $220 fine. To top it off, they were told that if they didn't remove the rubbish before the days end, that they would be issued another fine! Later that night a relative went past the block and low and behold ALL the rubbish was gone. Your taxes at work - just lovely.

Another Pre-visit to Hopetoun

On Sunday 16th we made another trip out to Hopetoun to look at more colour and accessory selections. This time we went with only one of the cherubs, the eldest one - a lot easier to occupy in situations like these. She seems to have the gift of the gab and cheeky charm (she only turns 3 in Jan) as halfway through our visit she had befriended one of the colour consultants and was sitting opposite her at her desk and colouring in sheets of A4 paper with fluorescent highlighters supplied courtesy of Hopetoun. This gave us ample opportunity to apply some serious consideration into the colours for the bricks, roof tiles, gutters, fascias, garage door etc.

The staff at Hopetoun as mentioned before were fantastic and we must thank them for their honest and helpful advice. When we left, we had made some firm, agreed, decisions on a number of selections which left me feeling like a weight had been lifted of us. We walked away with even more brochures for upgrades we probably can't afford but we'll let the bank decide that.

Pre-visit to Hopetoun

Thought we'd drop in for quick visit to Hopetoun on Sunday on our way back from Ballarat and see what colour selection tasks await. The place is laid out well with all (well most) of the options marked for each price category. Managing the two little cherubs whilst trying to take in all the info from the staff made it quite interesting. (Thank god for Portable DVD players). Suffice to say come time to make the final selections we will be visiting childless. We thought the visit was quite beneficial although we did have a couple of issues.

1. The colour consultants were nice and helpful although they were very insistent that they could not advise on pricing of items for upgrades as they are only here to advise on the selections, which we thought was kind of odd (this applies to the weekend 'browsing' visits only). The whole premise for coming to these places is to choose what items you want included as part of the build and obviously you'd like to upgrade if the item is nicer and if the price is reasonable and within budget, right? There must be some underlying ploy here to get you in on the day and entice you to make the upgrade with little time to weigh up the cost in the greater scheme of things.

2. Our Display Centre consultant had advised us that we would need to pay $400 extra to have the additional 2mm PVC edging on the kitchen cabinets which we were prepared to pay as we have it in our current home and appreciate it worth. The Hopetoun consultant showed us the standard cabinet sample and what do you know - the PVC edging is STANDARD! What the! Obviously we will be subtracting the $400 from our tender.

3. In the showroom they have a separate room which showcases all of the lighting options and additional room speakers etc. When asked if we can take a look the consultant advised me that we can only go into that room during our 'Electrical Selections' appointment and that it was separate to the colour selections appointment (what 'the' again). Nobody had advised us that there was a separate Electricals app't.

Overall, the visit was well worth it, walked away with a few selections done and dusted and some selections that we need to.... err... 'discuss' (for want of a better word ;-) ).

Land Settlement

We've bought some land in Lilydale in a new estate and are still awaiting settlement, which should have been last month - something about the titles still to be finalised due to the subdivision, which is no biggie as we aren't due to start building till May '08. Aparently PD are booked up that far in advance. The property overlooks the Yarra Valley with green rolling hills - quite picturesque really. It is a bit further out from the city than our current home, but the block is 700m2 - try finding a block that size close to the city!

Tender & Contract Appointments

Got a phone call yesterday from our new Customer Servcie Coordinator 'Holly'. She wanted to introduce herself and lock in a date for our Tender and contract appointments. We settled for the 8th and 30th of Jan respectivlely. This should give us enough time to go to 'Hoptourn', the PD colour selection centre in Port Melbourne and decide on some colours. We have hopefully now made all of the variations we can think of to the house, with only a few items with unknown costs which should be available at the tender app't.

6/12 - Well, we've finally decided on a builder.

We've finally decided on a builder and on Friday the 30th of November I visited the PD display centre and put down some hard earned cash. After months of driving around Melbourne's outer suburbs and masses of comparison spreadsheets we have chosen the Porter Davis Cremorne 41.
We loved the design (obviously) and think the kids, once they are old enough, will come to appreciate it too.














We checked out a host of different builders and nearly completed a full circle back to PD. Whilst some builders were pretty flexible, we were amazed how some were not so inclined. Our PD Consultant 'G' has been really accomodating, as we have hammered her with questions on different options for this and that, some of them a necessity and others a luxury (which, if we can squeeze it in the budget we will).

I must make a quick mention of the friendly folk on the Homeone website (http://www.homeone.com.au/) who have opened our eyes as to what to expect on our journey and who without them I would never have started this Blog. Countless hours have been spent following the forums and taking in all of the highs and lows associated with building. Some of the crappy builders out ther leave a lot to be desired!