soil test...

there was a little birdie who came to our land and did a soil test.....we'll soon find out how much we'll be paying for site costs...fingers crossed :)

having fun @ display centres

Aint it fun, fun, fun to snoop into a house and pick it to bits!!

Thats what we did and had lots of fun in the process :) 

Us being obsessed with the butler's pantry - look we can fit two of us in there comfortably :)

This retractable sink top will come in handy when Chris washes his dishes.....

I really like the Cesar benchtop..what do you think?

Btw, do you like Chris' leather jacket ;)

And for the heck of it - I really like these display flowers....hrmmmmm :)

pot drawers

Chris Loves his Pot Drawers - he insist on having these in the kitchen and maybe even having two sets of 3!!!

french doors

I love the look of french doors....

We're having these double doors placed in the Theater (with curtains from the inside) and having them placed in the study too :)

We're also going to place the beautiful door in the master bedroom as its the first door you see as you step through the entrance.

Arnt' they so pretty.

Now to think about the Landry and Entrance door....

floors floors floors

We’re basically going to place wooden floors in the main areas (including bedrooms & kitchen) and have the wet areas set with tiles.

Since its going to cost us a fortune, we’ve been doing a fair bit of research into alternative options other than timber flooring.

We are considering:

1. Bamboo (type: Australiana) 

2. Engineered Timber Flooring (Merbau).

There are two things that set them both a part - one being the price and the second being the toughness.

Bamboo is cheaper and more durable (has a rating of 15.8 in hardness) where as Timber (Merbao) is more expensive and has a rating of 8 is hardness.

Seems illogical to go with the Merbau.

We dont have any pets or kiddies, but it will last a long time and there’s no stress on worrying about the floors incase something heavy drops on it….

Im swaying towards the Merbau because of the look, the first impression when you walk in through the porch entrance and elegance of it (like when I first witnessed it at the display houses).

What do you guys think??? Opinions please….

colours

As part of journey, there is the trip (or for us, it was a frequent trip) to see the colour show room.

COLOUR: I really like the interior of the Lexington house in Caroline Springs and the exterior of the Lexington house at Point Cook.

Everytime we look at the finer details of any colour, we seem to get a headache… :( For some, the process can be overwhelming and stressful because of the large options. For us it was trying to make fit the whole house scheme…..

We have at least agreed on the internal walls. They are the same beige tinge at Caroline springs (and Ive noticed that they use this in a lot of other homes too across Henley and P. Davis).  The delux colour I could match it closest to is: Beidge Royal

Colour in contrast to white

Me going to every wall in every display house trying to match a name to a colour

The standard Lexington 993 Q1 house. Simple and beautiful

tailoring the house to suit us

The Lexington 993 Q1 is simple and practical for us. And we’re very fortunate we’ve got a wide enough block for it to sit on.

After many trips up and down to sales, these were the modifications to the plan:

A. Added an Extra Garage

B. Added the Butler’s Pantry

C. Added the Grand Alfresco

D. Added sound proofing to the laundry and theatre

E. Added 600 mm eaves (CANT believe that arn’t standard!!!)

F. Added double doors to the study

G. Added a whole wall of cupboards/storage space to the laundry

H. Added overhead cabinets in the landry

I. Included brick infill above garage

J. Added Solar panels

deliberation….

There were many starts and stops with the choosing of the beautiful Lexington. These were the houses we had on our wish list.

1. We absolutely loved loved this American style home. It is simply stunning with a beautiful fire place and wood-finished kitchen - STUNNING!

http://www.eplans.com/new_american_house-plans/HWEPL08060.hwx

2. After deciding that it would be a bit difficult to build the above house in Australia, we opted to look for a design that was similar in that concept and what we were after. Mainly Chris had this criteria that he must have a:

A. Triple Garage and 

B. A Fire Place (that was my requirement :P)

So, considering all that, Chris and I fell in love with Henley’s Emperor (I think most people would!). The house at Point Cook literally blew our minds away. If you click on the link with pictures, you will see why….

http://www.vic.henley.com.au/#/House/clendonvale/80/

3. After contemplating a bit more (I think it only took us a month) - there really was no reason for a double story house. It would be too much cleaning for us. Although the view would be simply stunning, the cost was way too much to build. So, Chris decided on the Henley Monterey.

http://www.vic.henley.com.au/#/House/clendonvale/23/

4. However, it was my persistence that convinced him that it actually made more sense to go with the Lexington. And the rest is history.

The hard decisions new builders have to go through is so harddddd and tough on the mind!

process of elimination

So in June 2009, Chris and I decided - Lets buy a house!!!

Naturally, the houses were too expensive for our budget, so instead we went down the path of building our own house, not causing too much stress to our hip pockets. :)

So we went to the sales centre in Taylors Hill to find out what land slots were still available. It was quite overwhelming at first, but eventually chose the right block with ease through the process of elimination:

1. Obtain list

2. Cross off all the blocks that were sold

3. Eliminate houses that were irregular sizes

4. Find one that was a decent size

5. Lastly, find one that was a decently priced

In the end, there were from memory 3-4 blocks that formed part of our options.

In March of 2010, we settled and title was released.

And here we are today, killing the loan and getting ready to build for the house….

the first step

Today is the day…The First Blog of many to come about our (yet to be ) amazing journey of building our first house - The Lexington 993 Q1 with Henley.

Fingers Crossed.