Landscaping Challenges

Another disappointment came in form of drainage easement. When I was discussing the concept design with my husband, he suddenly recalled that we have a 1.5 meter drainage easement from our back fence where we are not allowed to build any permanent structure, plant trees! Only grass would be allowed because council authority may need to have access to the underline pipes anytime!

I contacted our landscape architect right away, she missed it as well. So, we have to remove the permanent garden beds along with plants from that area. Now there will be only one big tree at the backyard placed in the area where the easement ends! To plant herbs etc I am planning to buy portable garden beds from Bunnings instead and also will be planning some vertical garden. I think the plain green backyard won't look bad either as there are plenty of plants at front and sides already.

Our landscape architect has picked 'Sir Walter buffalo' turf, which looks amazing.

Parts of landscaping plans below:

Landscaping Plan

Here is the Planting Schedule:

Planting Schedule

And planting details:

Now, the builder can submit our plans to council as soon as we sign our building contract.

Next step  for me would be: get a landscaping quotation from a suitable company.

Color Appointment with MJH

Here comes the most exciting part of the building process, getting to select the items and colors for everything your house needs. Let's start.

We were well prepared. Our Designer consultant Kate was very helpful. We could provide our primary selection information and she suggested if any other shade would work better. Until lunch, it went out quite smoothly. This is our external color palette:

External Color Palette Cordova Two Classic Facade

Items:

Brick Urban One Pepper ($)
Mortar: Off-white Ironed
Bag & Paint Areas (as shown in picture): Taubmans Abstruct
Roof & Gutter: Colorbond Basalt
Fasia & Eaves: Taubmans Surfmist
Garage door: Simline Surfmist
Downpipes: Taubmans Braidwood ($) - third color to exactly match with the brick
Garden Water Tank: Colorbond Jasper
Windows: Bradnans Monument Matt
Front Door: Newington XN5 in Taubmans Mountain Wine Gloss finish & Translucent Glazing ($)
Aircon pipe colour: Basalt

External Color Palette Cordova Two 

The below picture is from Austral's website showing brick Urban One Pepper and similar color tones (garage door, fascia, windows) we have selected:

House with Urban One Pepper brick

Insulation:
Roof Insulation: Sarking
Ceiling Insulation: R3.5 Ceiling Batts
External Wall Insulation R2.0 Wall Batts
Acoustic Wall Insulation to Mastersuite, Home Theater & Bed 3: R1.7 Soundscreen

Let's move on with the locks and other fittings. We have upgraded the main door lock with Gainsborogh Tri-locks in Bright Chrome. Deadbolts were added to internal garage door. Sliding glass doors to laundry door and Alfresco automatically comes with a deadbolt system. However, we have added Diamond Security net to these two glass doors. Pictures below:

Internal and Main door lock

The left picture (on top) shows the door lock update for the entire house. Interestingly, you have to add 'privacy lock pin' to these locks for extra cost of 40$ each! So, we had to choose 6 locks for four bedrooms and two bathrooms (I really don't one anyone accidentally entering the bathroom when I am there).

Fly screens for all of our 16 windows were already included. Here is the picture of diamond security mesh for Laundry and Alfresco sliding glass doors: the color will be matched to the door color which is Taubmans Illusive White.

Diamond Security Mesh for Laundry & Alfresco Door

Let's move to internal colors now. I am a warm person, so we agreed to have warm neutrals through out our interiors.

Internal Color Palette Cordova Two

Wall color of Bedrooms, Home theater: Taubmans Calico Biege
Wall color of Living Areas, WIR, Pantry, Laundry, Bathroom & Ensuite: Taubmans Smooth Pebble
Ceilings, Cornices, Skirting & Internal Doors: Taubmans Illusive White
Double Hung Sliding Door to Home Theater ($): Taubmans Illusive White

I collected this picture to understand how Smooth Pebble would look:

Taubmans Smooth Pebble

Kichen and Butlers Pantry (Upgrade from Walk-In-Pantry):

Bench-top (Kichen and Butler's Pantry): Caesarstone Linen
Under-bench Cupboards (Kichen and Butler's Pantry): Polytec Belgian Oak Matt
Overhead Cupboards: Polytec Marni Lini Matt
Cupboards above Freeze space ($): Polytec Marni Lini Matt
Spashback (Kitchen and Butler's Pantry): Cosmic Aura
Shelves in Butler's Pantry: Polytec Marni Lini Matt

Cordova Two Kitchen Color Palette 

The kitchen I was inspired by is in one of Metricon's display homes:

Kichen benchtop in Caesarstone Linen

The IT desk will also be in Polytec Belgian Oak Matt as it is just beside the kitchen island:

Cordova Two Family Room (Collected from MJH website)

We were keen to have some shelves above the IT desk, but that was priced around 900 AUD, so we didn't include it. Will look after it after handover perhaps.

For the kitchen finishes and appliances, we stick to our standard inclusions from  Fisher and Paykel as part of the 'Heart of the Home' package. For kitchen sink, we went for 'over mount' one. Also, we selected 'separate cook-top and oven' as opposed to 'stand-alone' one (My husband really liked the stand-alone cook-top cum oven, but we couldn't go for it as it has some gaps with the kitchen cook-top where oil. dirt etc gets stuck easily and it is very difficult to clean).

Oven: F&P...900mm Electric Oven
Cooktop: F&P...90cm Gas cooktop
Rangehood: F&P..90cm canopy rangehood
Microwave F&P..microwave
Dishwasher: F&P.. 60cm Stainless steel dishwasher
Refrigerator: F&P..French Door SS Fridge
Washing Machine: F&P 10 Kg Top Load
Dryer (mounted to wall): F&P 5 KG Clothes Dryer White

Please see pictures below:

 Fisher and Paykel Kitchen Appliances Heart of the Home Package

Over-mount Sink

Then comes toilet fittings selection and the happy feeling vanished after a while.

Our Ensuite selections are:

Benchtop: Caesarstone Walnut
Cupboards: Polytec Gesso Lini Matt
Accessory: Mizu Drift Glass Shelf ($)
Tiles: Cotto Karl Biege

Note: We couldn't select a shampoo nook here because the shower was placed on the outer side wall, and the rest of the two walls aren't thick enough to build a shampoo nook. So, they have to thicken that wall for an extra cost and then there will be separate cost for shampoo nook. So, we opted for a glass shelf instead as we found it is not worthy to spend nearly 500AUD for a shampoo nook in ensuite.

Cordova Ensuite Color Palette

Bathroom selections are:

Benchtop: Caesarstone Linen
Cupboards: Polytec Artisan Oak Matt
Bath: Caroma Newbury 1675 island bath
Shampoo Nook ($): 470mm*305mm
Shower Screen: 10mm Clear Toughed Frameless Pivot Door ($$)
Tiles: Cotto Tibur White

Cordova Bathroom Color Palette

Other items common to both bathroom and ensuite are:

Mizu Drift Single Towel Rail
Mizu Drift Straight Toilet Roller Holder
Toilet Suite: Porcher Quatre Close cpld Toilet Suite 4* ratings
Vanity Bowl: Manooga Bowl 70mm White

Frameless Shower screen, Bath tub, Toilet Suite & Vanity Bowl 

Now let's discuss our biggest disappointment part that came in the middle of our wet area item selections: I communicated in one of my earlier post that it took nearly two months to finalize our 'deposit variation' due to few items, those are requirements from authority for us to be eligible for HAF rebate. One of these, a hobless shower so that a person with a disability can use it (i.e. accessing the shower while sitting on a wheelchair perhaps). So, we communicated this upfront with our sales consultant several times and he proposed there will be a recess (kind of a step-down) and the shower screen will be placed there so that the default hob (around 1.5") that comes with a shower screen will be off-set. So, we agreed and signed the deposit variation.

Now in our color appointment, we learnt that this would only solve our problem if we select the Frameless Shower which is priced above 2K AUD! So, that's a shock to us, and we were really upset that all our earlier communication resulted in nothing but TWO months delay in the process. Kate apologized that our sales consultant should have contacted someone from the color studio before he proposed this solution.

So, obviously our earlier excitement wasn't there anymore, but we continued.

We were keen to have as much storage space as possible. So, we have included 5 4D-M (60cm width) Units: two in WIR and three inside built-ins of all bedrooms. These 4D-M units are usually not recommended for built-ins. In our case, it was possible because, we upgraded to Mirror sliding doors for all built-ins.
Also, we upgraded to ventiated shelvings in lieu of standard ventilated shelvings. These shelving related improvements (glass door, shelving types and 4D-M Units) are costing us nearly 5,200 AUD$. A sample picture below (I don't have the picture of exact unit though).

Also, My husband and I had different opinions about the swing direction of WIR door, so we updated it to a sliding door in our last planning appointment.

Flooring: We checked the price for flooring. Price of 'All vinyl' or even 'mixed of carpet-vinyl' looked way higher than our estimate if we do it from outside. So, we are not doing flooring with MJH.

But the price of vertical blinds on every window except laundry sounds reasonable, so we decided to include that in our color appointment. The color selected is Ivory (should go with our wall colors). Picture below:

Bottom Calico Beige and Smooth Pebble, on top Blind's color Ivory

We thought it would take much less time as we were well prepared. But it was more than 4 PM when we finished. We end up expending nearly 12k today on top of our earlier selection. We emphasized making the home more functional than aesthetics. So we tried to pick the best color that comes under default inclusions. Let's wait for few more months and see how they come together!

Now waiting for contract sign appointment followed by electrical.

Planning Appointment and Landscaping Update

Had a discussion today with our landscape architect Susan. There is a huge recycled water tank at the backyard shown in our house plans which is not very pretty I must say. So we decided to ask the developer to put it somewhere else, if possible. We asked the same during our plan presentation meeting with the Builder today. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any other place to shift it! Now as a remedy, what we need to do is to put up a fence around this tank and grow some vining plants like money plants etc to hide the sight of it.

The plan presentation meeting went well. We reviewed and sent our feedback to the builder earlier. Still it took 30 minutes more to sign-off the plan. We asked for the below changes ($ means there is a cost for this change):

• Change of two awning windows of bed 3 to double hung windows like bed 2 ($)
• Gas point available in living to be moved to Alfresco area (for outdoor Bar-B-Q etc)
• Additional water and sewage points to Alfresco ($) for future installation of a basin
• Additional support to mount TV in living area and home theater recess ($)
• Sliding door to walk-in-robe instead of swing door opening into the master suite ($) - because me and my husband couldn't come to an agreement on which side the door should open :)

One step closer now.
Looking forward to our color selection appointment on 22-March-2016.

Landscaping, Flooring etc

To submit plans to council you must have a landscape plan. Most builders provide you with a landscape plan I heard, but unfortunately McDonald Jones doesn't. But our sales consultant introduced us with a landscape architect who has done few of their display homes.

We are communicating with our landscape architect. Already provided her with house plans, design guidelines from project, soil test and contour survey reports. We will be discussing in detail about landscaping on 15-March-2016. Earlier we were informed that the landscaping plans will take at least one week to draw. Once we get it, we have to manage quotation from landscaping companies for landscaping implementation, fencing, driveway, letterbox and what not! I just don't want any of these minor quotations hold us from submitting the construction loan with our financial lender.

We are really planning to build on budget. So, landscaping, driveway, fencing even flooring will be done through contractors other than the builder.

for flooring, we are planning on using Vinyl on living areas, carpet for bedrooms and home theater, tiles for alfresco and patio.

So far, we are checking websites of different flooring companies and also planning to visit a few in next weeks. If anybody can recommend some reasonable flooring companies would be fabulous!

Land registered! Plans drawn: We're making progress!

The most uncertain part that could delay your dream forever is over. Our land is registered on 7-March-2016.

We also received our soil test report and contour survey on 03-March. Both the reports are looking good.
Meanwhile our preliminary plans appointment (PPP) is set for 15-March-2016. McDonald Jones has shared the plans with us an week before. We are trying to review it. We found out two windows of one bedroom is 'Awning' window which we don't like at all. Will ask in our PPP meeting to amend this. We are only allowed to ask for minor changes for free of cost though.

Somehow I had an idea that Kitchen, Butlers pantry will be considered as wet area and will be tiled by the builder. But I was wrong. Only Laundry and Bathrooms are considered wet area.

Plans give you detail idea of your house, few things are completely new: window height and width, glazing, types of windows, position of your ground water tank, position of AirCon, flooring, tiling, number and size of cabinets and lots of other things. And it would be wise for us to put some effort to review this 14 page document thoroughly.

A bit of a background

Since July-2015 when we could secure a land via Landcom, we were looking for an at least four bedroom house  because we are a big family. We got two wonderful twin daughters, and my mom will be staying with us most of the times. After much research for a house design that fits our needs and must not have the master suite at the front of the house: we selected Cordova Two from McDonald Jones.

Cordova Two Classic Facade

Cordova Two Floor Plan

We confirmed our choice through a deposit on 11-Dec-2015. It took nearly two months to fix and accept the deposit variation! And at last, upon showing our frustration to our sales consultant, we moved to next phase: Consolidated Tender on 1st-March-2016.

Surprisingly from then, things are moving quite fast and I am excited to write about our Journey.