New Start date!!

Got an email yesterday from our PD CSC 'Holly' asking if we would be interested in bringing our start date forward. Apparently they have had some vacancies come up to due some clients not getting titles completed in time. I replied immediately saying YES PLEASE!!

So its official, we now have a site start date of March 28th - 6 weeks earlier than originally scheduled - we are over the moon. Basically it means that we won't be moving in around the busiest time of the year, Christmas! Best case scenario, if it takes them 26 weeks (they allow a max of 30) we could be at handover by the end of September.

Coulour swatches

Here’s some of our colour choices from our appointment. All very neutral colours that we can add to, or subtract from, using furniture, appliances or cushions etc.

The kitchen overhead & below-bench cupboards are all the same colour, 'Licorice' - and the picture below shows how the light benches with the dark cupboards will look. This was our inspiration.

The colour swatch below shows the aray of different cabinet colours we chose throughout the house along with the external gutter and fascia colours too. The kitchen bench top is made from Quantum Quartz stone - we tried to match the colour for the laminate in the walk in pantry. It was pretty close.

The picture below shows the bricks we chose - Boral 'Mocha'....notice a brownish theme happening....

The Contract Appointment

Well the day finally arrived. We were going to find out all the costs, finalise our changes and sign on the dotted line. Little did we know we would need to sign our names at least 50 times and still have to go away and make more decisions!

We arrived at 2pm and met 'Holly' our CSC. Firstly we went through the Post Contract variations we had included ie: items dicussed 'after' our Tender Appointment. One of which was to render just the balcony on the front facade (as opposed to the balcony and Garage). At our Tender appointment we had been told that the cost to render the balcony would be $666 - a price we thought was quite cheap). A few days after the tender appt Lou had rung Glen and asked to proceed with that option based on that amount. When we got to the cost for the balcony render, it was a staggering $2933!! What THE...!

NOT... happy... 'JAN'!

Did we miss a meeting? No - apparently 'he' had looked at the wrong item when quoting the figure & the figure he gave us was to render the garage & not the balcony at all. You can imagine our disappointment & how annoyed we were! Was this our problem? Well...apparently so.

When we explained that this mistake was another let down on their behalf & expressed our unhappiness, Holly invited Glen to join us and explain what had happened. He happily admitted fault, but explained that this should have been the price & we could decide if we wanted to proceed or not. After we politely and in no uncertain terms told him what we thought about his blunder. I asked to speak with the manager as this was the second time they had screwed up the figures and expected us to wear it. For us, it was more the disappointment of thinking we were getting it for a lower figure & then being told "no actually it is over $2000 more than origianlly quoted” that ticked us off. While he went off to speak with the manager, Holly tried to sympathise with us as much as she could, as we were obviously quite annoyed & stressed (to put it mildly). (PS I'm still waiting for a response from PD Head Office re the last pricing mix-up on the garage extension costs)

He returned saying that all the managers were in a meeting, but was able to pull one of them aside and brief him on the situation. They had agreed to halve the difference and therefore we would need to only pay $1,466 rather than $2,933.

After a short break to compose ourselves & discuss our frustrations in private, we moved on from this and carried on with the other items that had changed.

At the end of the session there were still a couple of things that we still needed to decide on (after being given the prices). Holly was great, saying we can go home & think about them & just confirm if we wish to proceed with any additional changes or just leave them out & she would just do them as a Post Contract Variation (no.2). We then signed the HIA Contract and initialled all the pages and plans. Oh, and by the way we also picked up some errors on the plans which they had messed up as well. It pays to be listening & looking!

Although a little soured by the 'rendering cost' debacle at the start, the overall experience was great & we had lots of laughs. Holly was fantastic throughout and made us very comfortable. A PD newbie was also sitting in on the meeting, 'Mary', who was also very accommodating and helpful in making decisions. Before we finished up, a Feedback form was provided for us to fill out at our leisure and Holly encouraged us to be honest and detailed. Suffice to say, we took it home to add some additional pages to it ;-)

The Colour Selection Appointment

On Tuesday (29th Jan) we attended our colour selection appointment. Lou dropped the cherubs off at her sisters (she has been so helpful during this event) and then hopped on a train & tram to my work. We then took a quick 10 minute drive to the Port Melbourne site below, arriving at 12:30. From other fellow bloggers going through PD we had been told it would take round 2-3 hrs. We decided to get there early as we wanted to make some final choices on the render for the balcony along with confirmation on the window colours. After 15 mins our colour consultant 'Shelley' asked if we wanted to get started early - hey, why not?

The selection itself consisted of all the internal wall colours (including feature walls), all the cabinet and bench top colours, skirting and architrave style, tap fittings, door knobs and handles, locks, garage door style and colour (front and rear), bricks & mortar colour, roof tiles, balustrades, basins, render, even the colour of the water tank out the back. All in all we took 2.5 hrs to make all the selections. When we left we felt pretty darn happy with ourselves. We had spent a lot of time visiting display centres to make sure we knew what opitons were available and had chosen what we thought looked nice (and within budget).

The major upgrades were the bricks. We chose Mocha, a category 4 brick and also the 'off white' mortar - not as cheap as you think when you consider this is a double storey – a lot of bricks. In the next blog I'll try to add some pics of the samples we walked away with to show some of the colours.

After the app't we had a little time up our sleeve so we dropped in at the National Tiles display centre again for another quick look. Our tile app't is on Feb 19; still a little time to decide on the colour scheme for those. Next Tuesday we go in to sign the contract. Apparently this should not take as long as the tender and we finally get to meet ‘Holly’ our Customer Service Coordinator who has been very patient as we bombard her with queries and ‘tender’ changes.

One last look

Lou and I went out one last time (without the cherubs) to view some displays to help finalise our choices before our Colour Appointment. While we were out there we dropped into the Cremorne in Mernda which has the same facade as ours (but were not getting the full render or the abstract art building blocks in the front!).

The image below is a display with the bricks we are getting, Boral 'Mocha'. It also has the same colour scheme with the dark grey roof, gutters and cream fascia, downpipes and windows (the colour is Colourbond 'Paperbark'). The mortar is also the same, flush off-white.

Our garage door will look like this one. Its a remote controlled panel lift door in the 'Caprice' style in the Paperbark colour.

Colour Homework

A couple of Mondays ago (21st Jan) Lou took the cherubs out for one last look at what was on show in the Mernda & Craigieburn PD display centres before our scheduled colour selection appointment. Visiting during the week was a little quieter in the displays which was handy as the youg ones were somewhat inquisitive and playful with the spec home props! Nothing broke thankfully.

Lou took her pen 'n' pad and listed all of the items worth noting in colours she thought we would like. Items included the wall colours, feature walls and tiles. She listed all the locations and home styles so that we could later call Hopetoun and find out each of the styles and colour names. The idea was to take a bit of the leg work out of it all & make our next intended last visit together (less cherubs) for that coming weekend a much more quicker & efficient one.

It was a sucessful day filled with 'adventure-a-plenty', a bribery of McDonalds & a massive play stop in between locations. Cherubs were zonkered by days end & lets just say that mummy's trip was a very quiet one on the way home. zzzzZZZZZZZZZ