Statement of Compliance

After months of waiting, our stage finally received its Statement of Compliance!  Now waiting for the land title.

Our (original) Choice of Facade

When we were house-hunting, we fell in love with the Georgian-inspired Manor facade of Boutique Homes.  Aside from its architectural design, I fell in love with its colours.  Most houses here in Australia have either brown, red or cream coloured bricks. This display home stands out from the other display homes. I think because it's the only one in this colour scheme and I'm naturally drawn to white houses and traditional facades.  Most display homes nowadays have modern facade so to me, this Georgian beauty stood out.  I also like the Hamptons style facade but at the time of our selection, Georgian style won my heart.

Unfortunately, Carlisle do not have this facade.  The closest ones they have are the Classique and Grandview facades.

This is Classique facade and it is very lovely!  But this is an additional $16,000 on top of the base price. This is not available to T-range models so this is out of our list.

This is Grandview facade, this is only an additional $3,500 to the base price and is quite similar to the Classique facade.  I think it's nice too and within budget so we initially chose this facade.

Land Title Delayed... Again

Lots of things happened in the past few months that I've been silent. There were some changes to the facade and colour selection,  some additional upgrades and some dramas in the release of land titles.

The first reason we chose to buy a land in Lakeside is because we were told that titles are expected  in Nov 2017. It got moved many times and we thought it would finally title in April so we signed the contract with Carlisle on March 26.

To our dismay, Lakeside failed the audits and at the moment,  titles are anticipated end of June 2018.  This is really frustrating. 😤😡

On a lighter note,  our home loan application had been formally approved.  So we are just waiting for the land to title so we can move on.

Preliminary Tender

We received our preliminary tender documents two weeks ago.  We were given 48 hours to review and sign it but we requested to extend it to a weekend.  Our CLE initially agreed to it but at the very last minute told us that she cannot grant us extension.  We were not very happy with it but a good thing happened as a result of the many changes we requested especially in our electrical selections.  We were scheduled for a Tender Appointment with a Tender Presenter.  We were told that we were not entitled to this because our package is fixed price.  I'm not sure why, but I think everyone should have a Tender appointment.

Our last electrical appointment was not very satisfactory.  Our consultant was not very thorough and not helpful at all.  A lot of things were not explained to us.  Our emails were not replied to and when we called Carlisle office, it was only then that we were advised that our consultant no longer works there.  Most of our changes are electrical selections and it's difficult to do this via phone or email.

We also had a lot of questions about the preliminary tender and we refused to sign it without being explained to us in details.

The morning of our Tender appointment went very smoothly.  We were able to change and add items to the Tender document.  Before going for lunch, we asked the presenter why the door on the first floor is not aligned to the door on the ground floor.  As you can see in the photo of the facade, the windows and door upstairs are symmetrical to the ones on the ground floor.

But in the drawing the door upstairs is not aligned to the door downstairs.  There is a big void space on the right side of the door.  This is not what I am expecting with this facade.  Being OC, this is not acceptable.  I expect the doors to be symmetrical.  Anyway, this was not resolved on the day and we are going to have another appointment to discuss this further.

Grandview Facade Colour Selection

So here are the 3 facade colour selections on Grandview facade, from 1st to 3rd... I personally am confused between our 1st and 2nd choice but still leaning towards 1st choice because of the uniqueness of the grey bricks.

Tough choice... 

Colour Selection - Part 3 : 3rd Choice Facade colour

We were also told to choose a brick from another manufacturer.  We chose PGH Category 5 Mist.  We couldn't find a PGH brick that is close to AustralBricks' Steel but PGH's Mist is very close to our second choice which is AustralBricks' Biscotti.

In Visualiser, it looks more grey than brown. However, the actual colour of PGH's Mist is closer to Biscotti (brownish). Here's how it looks like in Visualiser:

This is a bit cheaper than Steel but a bit more pricey than Biscotti. Upgrade to Mist costs $3100.  I don't know if this needs neutralisation too like Steel.

Colour Selection - Part 2 : 2nd Choice Facade colour

We were told to choose another brick as our 2nd choice in case our first choice is discontinued. 

For our second choice, we picked AustralBricks Category 3 Indulgence Biscotti. This is cheaper than our first choice and I think it looks good too. For this brick, we only have to add $2,400. Not so sure if this needs neutralisation too. The more I look at it, the more I like it.

Here it is on a different angle in a different lighting:

Colour scheme is similar to the first choice, it's just the brick and balcony render that is different. Instead of Dieskau, the balcony render is in Grey Pebble. 

I tried it on visualiser and this is how it looks like:

Colour Selection - Part 1 : Facade

We had our colour selection last month.  I thought we came prepared but there were still things that we were unsure of during our appointment. By the way, we are building with Carlisle Homes.

These are the colours that we chose for the facade: Hopefully it will look like how we imagined it to be. The brick is AustralBricks category 5 which is an additional $4,900! This type of brick needs neutralisation which is an additional $800.  To accentuate the colour of this brick, we also upgraded to off-white mortar.  I don't have the price yet but you guessed it right, it's an additional cost too!

I tried it on Carlisle's Visualiser but it was very limited; the facade was lacking some features like moulding on the garage and windows. The colours in visualiser do not look like the actual colours.  

We originally picked Grey Pebble for the Balcony render but the designer thought Dieskau will blend better with the Cat 5 bricks "Steel".  I was unsure whether I wanted the windows to be in Monument or Surfmist.  Either will look good but the designer thought Monument will give it a bit of contrasting effect so I opted for Monument.  I wanted to have a brighter and lighter shade of white paint for the first floor, mouldings, timber posts, entry door and garage door but it's a bit tricky to pick the right shade of white.  Too bright a white and it will look like a primer so again I chose Surfmist.  This is what they used in most display homes and I've seen how it looks like on actual houses so I think it's a safe choice but will still give me the look that I want.  I hope they will look good together... fingers crossed.

Lakeside is now taking shape

First stage is due to title this month.  I was walking by the lake last weekend and took snapshots of the estate from the park.

Single or Double?

When we were in Sg, we always dreamed of living in a double storey home.  And so ever since we moved to Australia, that has always been our goal.... a double-storey home.  

It could have been an easy decision but there were also a lot of factors to consider. 

Firstly, can we afford it?  After consultation with finance managers, brokers and accountants, we reached to a conclusion that we can afford it.  

Is it practical?  Hmmmm...  to be honest, I don't think it is practical.  All we need is a four-bedroom house with a theater room and a small study that I can use as a home office.  There are a lot of good single storey designs that satisfy these requirements which are $75k -100k less than a medium-sized double storey house. 

The difference in weekly repayments can be used to lessen the number of years to pay in our mortgage.... Or we can use it to travel or pamper ourselves.  So yes, it is not the most practical option but we are drawn to our goal .... Double-storey.  There is always this voice whispering to us to go for it.

The kids like double storey for the simple reason that they want a house with carpeted-stairs that they can slide on everyday.  My eldest, C, said she likes the wow factor of a two-storey home.

I like how a two-storey house looks tall and pretty from outside.  I also like the view from the balcony on the second floor.

Hubby on likes the privacy that the second floor offers when there are gatherings at home.

Some people advised against building a double storey home, but we feel that it is something that we have to do and experience for ourselves.  It is better to experience it and regret it later, than regret that we never took the chance to experience it at all.  

If the time comes we realise it is not for us, we can always sell it and downgrade to a smaller house.  

God is good.  God always provide.  

House #4

Belle will be our 4th. Belle is short for Bellmont which is the Carlisle layout that we've chosen for this build.

This will be our fourth house yet it feels like we're first-timers again.  The process and experience is so different from our previous houses.

Our first home was built in Sta Rosa, Laguna in Philippines.  Hubby bought this before we met so I wasn't really involved during the building phase. However, we jointly paid for it while working in Singapore so I wasn't exempted from the stress of paying our first mortgage.

House #2 (Catherine) was built in Paranaque City in Philippines.  We had it built while hubby and I were based in Singapore.  We had a few trips to Philippines during the building process but most of the correspondences were done via phone and email. I'd say it wasn't that stressful... it was just difficult to be off-shore while building it.  There were many things that we wanted to do on this house but relaying everything to the builder was challenging because we were so far away.  Around that time, smart phones were not so popular yet.  My mom in the Philippines would take photos of the house using a digital cam, download it to a computer and email them to me.  My mom's not a techie person so she had to wait for my siblings or cousins to do it for her.  Added to that, I was pregnant with my son and always felt sick, weak and tired. By the way, this house was meant to be an investment.  It didn't happen though... long story.

House #3 is a unit in Southern Sydney.  It's already built and was pre-owned so we did not experience building a house from scratch in Sydney.  I should say though that the stress level during house hunting until settlement was just the same as building a house... it's just a different kind of stress... different kinds of issues.

We are just at the early stage of House #4 but we already had a lot of issues... and that is why I decided to create a blog.  Hopefully when the house is finished, all these stress will be all worth it.