Monday, January 24, 2011

Floor and Elevation Plans

Here are some pics of our plans.

Ground Floor:


First Floor:


Front and Side Elevation:


Landscaping Plan

Our council requires a landscaping plan to be submitted with our development application so this was one of the first things we tackled after signing our contract.

I got the name of a landscaping design company that has completed quite a few designs in our estate and contacted them. They were both friendly and professional so we decided to go with them. We had an initial telephone conversation with them to discuss what we were after and they had a draft plan to us within a couple of days! The draft was actually pretty good, we only had to make a few amendments (change placement of a few things) and we had our final plans within the week.

Here is a copy of the plan:

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Basix Completed

Well as impatient as I am, I couldn't wait so I sent an email to our CSR today just asking about BASIX and YAAAYYY it's back. She has sent us our Post contract variation to review. It's needs a few changes but once that's done it will be signed and will move onto the next step. I will hopefully hear back this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest.

Meeting Neighbours

I stopped in at the site (well land) on Saturday and I was greeted by one of my neighbours that has moved in. He came over and and introduced himself. Seems like a nice man, they have a young family.

This all feels more real and I just want the building to get started so I can move in and join the community.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Rubbish still there

Well the hugh earth mound is still there (it's growing it's own grass now). I decided to ring up the builder again and ask what's going on. Apparently the owner has spoken to the other neighbour and agreed to have in moved in the next 2-3 weeks (they didn't realise it was on my land too).

Will just have to wait and see what happens now but at least something is planned.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

New Customer Service Rep (already)

On Tuesday I got informed that we had a new CSR (we are still in pre-construction fase). I am okay with this except the reason I was happy that we had our original CSR was that she is handling the other builds in our estate so knows the ins and outs for there.

Well yesterday I got a call from our new CSR and what can I say...she is LOVELY. I'm very pleased!!! She was so nice to deal with and was very informative. She's up to date with our file and where it's at and also let me know that she calls all her clients weekly to provide an update of any progress. That is exactly what i'm after so I know it's progressing esp when it's in this fase where you can't see anything physical being done.

Smiles all around!

.....now back to waiting for that BASIX to come through.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Other people's rubbish

Well after approx 2 months of a massive earth mound (from a third property being built) being on mine and my neighbours property I rang the builder to ask when it was going to be removed. It should be gone in a week or so.

We also have small bits of rubble and another person's sediment catchment fence on our property instead of theirs. As long as they clean up their stuff before we build (as I don't want extra cut and fill costs because of them). Do others have this problem too?

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Waiting Waiting Waiting

We are now in the pre-construction stage of the process and I think the most frustrating as it involves a lot of waiting for things to be done that are out of my control. That's really hard for me, I guess cause I'm impatient and I can't oversee to make sure stuff is happening. I will have to learn to have some more patience and faith.

This week we received the final plans (including shadow diagrams and X-sections etc) and questions from Design. We have approved these so the next step is now to get the BASIX assessment done. I think this should take approx 2-3 weeks.

After the BASIX assessment comes back, we will have to make any neccessary changes and then get the basix cetificate. I think it's then on to get approval for our designs from the estate and also the get a statement of environmental effects done.