We just heard land will be ready 30th January 2012. Looking at land.vic.gov.au it looks like our address will be 29 Spectacle Way. Although, it looks like it will change (again) to Twilight Way in a few weeks time.
Times are getting exciting.
Tuesday 17 January 2012
Friday 6 January 2012
The Plan
While the block had been progressing, so had our plans. We are building with JKC Custom Builders so we won't be going through display homes and building one of those, but met with an artchitect to discuss and work out exactly what we want.
Initially, we were thinking of going a single story home. We had almost finished the design when we really looked at it, and took the block and fall into consideration and realised it wasn't the best thing to do. After thinking about it a bit and finding out what options we had, we decided to look towards a tri-level house.
After speaking to the builder, he organised us to walk through a house which he had previously built for someone else in Drysdale, that would be very similar to what our idea was. We loved it! We didn't like the idea of 2 stories and lots of stairs in the one place for the kids, but the split level meant there were 2 seperate set of stairs to different levels, which made it seem a bit safer.
As our block kind of has a view, the split level meant we could have our entertaining/dining areas upstairs with a balcony to make better use of the view. Downstairs became the kids bedrooms, bathroom, and laundry. The middle entrance level was our bedroom and study.
We got it drawn up and really liked it. Once the land was complete the builder and architect went to the block and pegged it all out to get a better feel for how it would fit. When we saw the pegs, we knew we made the right decision. The backyard would have been unusable with a single story house. With split level, our yard is so much bigger. Standing in the area where the balcony will be we can already see the You Yangs, Port Philip Bay, and have a fair view towards Geelong. When you think the Balcony will be 2.5m higher than what we were standing on, I think we will be very happy when its all done.
The Final Plan on what we will be building is below.
Initially, we were thinking of going a single story home. We had almost finished the design when we really looked at it, and took the block and fall into consideration and realised it wasn't the best thing to do. After thinking about it a bit and finding out what options we had, we decided to look towards a tri-level house.
After speaking to the builder, he organised us to walk through a house which he had previously built for someone else in Drysdale, that would be very similar to what our idea was. We loved it! We didn't like the idea of 2 stories and lots of stairs in the one place for the kids, but the split level meant there were 2 seperate set of stairs to different levels, which made it seem a bit safer.
As our block kind of has a view, the split level meant we could have our entertaining/dining areas upstairs with a balcony to make better use of the view. Downstairs became the kids bedrooms, bathroom, and laundry. The middle entrance level was our bedroom and study.
We got it drawn up and really liked it. Once the land was complete the builder and architect went to the block and pegged it all out to get a better feel for how it would fit. When we saw the pegs, we knew we made the right decision. The backyard would have been unusable with a single story house. With split level, our yard is so much bigger. Standing in the area where the balcony will be we can already see the You Yangs, Port Philip Bay, and have a fair view towards Geelong. When you think the Balcony will be 2.5m higher than what we were standing on, I think we will be very happy when its all done.
The Final Plan on what we will be building is below.
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The Block
Early April, just down the road from where we were happily living, the new dispaly village (Leopold Estuary) officially opened up. To celebrate, they had a family fun day. Free face painting and jumping castles, and free bbq and coffee for the bigger kids. As Charli loves getting her face painted, we decided it would be a good free fun family thing to do. We weren't interested in a new home so we didn't have to worry about anything. HMmmmm how wrong that was.
After arriving at the family fun day, and looking through a Metricon home or two, we found that we really liked the idea of building a new home. We got pricing information on the blocks, and went home and looked into it a bit further. We liked a few blocks, but one stood out for its location seemed perfect, the back of the block got wider meaning a bigger back yard for the kiddies, and the estimated release date was relatively around the time frame we would be working towards.
Over the next week we looked at the different land they had and found Block 1316 was the one we liked the look of. I (Col) walked through the still in construction area up to where the block is and I really loved the look of it. Went home and told Renee how good it looked and we organised to go down the next day (exactly 1 week after the family fun day) and both go and have a look at it. When we returned construction was happening and we couldn't get up. We didn't want it to get away so we put a small deposit on the block to hold it while we decided what we wanted to do. We decided pretty quickly this is exactly what we wanted to be doing so sign the contact and paid the full deposit. Pretty quick considering a week earlier we really hadn't given too much serious thought to building another house. The estimated completion date was October 2011. That gave us about 6 months to sell our existing house before we had to pay the remaining amount on the block. Not a lot of time, but enough to be able to change and update a few things to our current home, to try and increase its value.
At this point, there is no road, and technically we can't even get to our block. But... there is a sign on it, so we wandered up and have a nice little photo of Charli standing next to a sign.
Its now the 6th of January, and we have been notified that the Plan for Subdision has been submitted for approval. Hopefully in a few weeks we will own the block, and can look to begin building as soon as possible. Below are a couple of photos from nearmap.com which show the progress that has been made since we bought the block, and to when it is finished awaiting council approval.
The photo on the left is from April 7th, and the photo on the right is from 9th of December. The block was actually completed around this time in December but none of the documents were submitted for approval due to the Christmas break.
Now we just sit and wait. Below are a few more photos of the block as time has progressed.
After arriving at the family fun day, and looking through a Metricon home or two, we found that we really liked the idea of building a new home. We got pricing information on the blocks, and went home and looked into it a bit further. We liked a few blocks, but one stood out for its location seemed perfect, the back of the block got wider meaning a bigger back yard for the kiddies, and the estimated release date was relatively around the time frame we would be working towards.
Over the next week we looked at the different land they had and found Block 1316 was the one we liked the look of. I (Col) walked through the still in construction area up to where the block is and I really loved the look of it. Went home and told Renee how good it looked and we organised to go down the next day (exactly 1 week after the family fun day) and both go and have a look at it. When we returned construction was happening and we couldn't get up. We didn't want it to get away so we put a small deposit on the block to hold it while we decided what we wanted to do. We decided pretty quickly this is exactly what we wanted to be doing so sign the contact and paid the full deposit. Pretty quick considering a week earlier we really hadn't given too much serious thought to building another house. The estimated completion date was October 2011. That gave us about 6 months to sell our existing house before we had to pay the remaining amount on the block. Not a lot of time, but enough to be able to change and update a few things to our current home, to try and increase its value.At this point, there is no road, and technically we can't even get to our block. But... there is a sign on it, so we wandered up and have a nice little photo of Charli standing next to a sign.
Its now the 6th of January, and we have been notified that the Plan for Subdision has been submitted for approval. Hopefully in a few weeks we will own the block, and can look to begin building as soon as possible. Below are a couple of photos from nearmap.com which show the progress that has been made since we bought the block, and to when it is finished awaiting council approval.
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| 9 Dec 2011 |
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| 7 April 2011 |
Now we just sit and wait. Below are a few more photos of the block as time has progressed.
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| Looking back up where our road will be | Getting close to a road | Charli standing where our block will be showing what we hope will be a nice view. |
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