Saturday, March 12, 2011

Moment of Truth

The tender meeting went extremely well.

The site costs were reasonable and no surprises. If anything they came in less than we expected.

The modifications to the plan were also less than we expected. We added a vanity outside the kid's bathroom, much like we had at our former house. We also added 1m across the middle, extending the dining room, laundry and bathroom. These changes were accepted by Henley with little fuss.

The electricals came to more than I had planned, but we included nearly all the fittings and in the end not having to worry about installing later seemed worth it.

We came to a reasonable arrangement with the pool in terms of OH&S. In addition to boarding it up after installation, we will pay for a temporary builders fence around it.

So the floor plan we have agreed to is



The site plan with the pool is



We came away feeling very relieved and believe we made better choices based on what we learnt from the previous builder.

Contract will be ready at the end of the month, hopefully they will start on the site in May and we will have moved in by Christmas.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Chatz,

    Very nice and practical floor plan you've got there. We also chose the Talise for a knock-down-rebuild in Mt Waverley as well. We hope to have settlement next week. Will be happy to answer any queries you may have. Good luck with your build and congratulations on your choice - we're very happy with ours even though it wasn't on display.

    Regards

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  2. What a coincidence, are you building the Q1 or Q2? And did make any changes to the plans?

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  3. Hi Chatz,

    We built the Q1. Changes we made are: Flipped the front in order to use the existing cross-over and to keep the alfresco and family living area on the North side, extended the garage and added a window to the front and roller door at the rear, slightly bigger alfresco (But smaller than the grand alfresco) and added a bath tub to the ensuite. We went for the standard face brick (Farah) facade as the other facades added quite a bit to the price. We also changed all the sliding windows to Aluminium awning windows. We had our pre-handover inspection yesterday and have booked in final inspection and settlement for next Wednesday. Site scrape was in September last year and there was a bit of a lull after Christmas because everyone was on holidays. Things picked up again maybe a month ago.

    Regards

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  4. Hi PandT,

    Thanks for replying. Congrats on getting to this point, you must be excited to be moving in soon.

    I completely understand if you aren't comfortable with this request, but would it be possible for us to drive by to see the facade since we have gone with Farah and just bricks as well? If its OK, send me an email to david.chatterton at gmail.com.

    Thanks.

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  5. Hi there Chatz and PandT,

    I'm Mee Mee and I accidentally stumbled upon this link; I am so glad I found you both!
    I too have picked the Talise Q2 (31.15 sqs) and hope to start work on my land once it becomes titled in Oct/Nov this year. My land at the Sandhurst Club is only 495 sq.m but the Talise Q2 sits perfectly on it!
    I love the design and will confirm with Henley on the building contract. A little apprehensive as I read some heart stopping comments about Henley; hope both of you don't mind sharing your experiences with me. It's my first home!
    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete