15.5.10

Being the last block on the block.....

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , ,


You may have mistaken this picture to be of a random rubbish dump. You would be forgiven for thinking that! But imagine if your beloved, expensive block of land turned into a rubbish dump.


This is the result of being one of the last blocks to start in the new estate of Laurimar. Apparently this is common practice for new estates, and commonly done amongst builders.

I mean where else are you going to dump your dregs of cement from the mixer, that annoying tree stump you just pulled out of your front yard. Broken bricks and half cut-off roof trusses. Even that broken pram you had filling the back of your ute. "Ahh theres an empty block that's not being used, and look there's already a pile of rubbish!"

Every week we've been out to our block, we've noticed more rubbish collecting. It seem the builders have a strict code of disposing of their cans and wrappers on someone else's block!!!

So boo to the care-less and selfish builders that grace our lovely estate! We will have to fork out around the $1000 mark to have our block cleared before building starts in a week.

But the beautiful thing about building with Porter Davis, is that unlike many builders, one of the first things they do is put up a fence around the entire block. So hopefully short of someone scaling our fence, we will be done with the rubbish dump!

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19.4.10

Great news!!

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , ,


We're back!!


If you read my last post which was in January, we faced the devastation of having our finance with the Commonwealth bank rejected, and losing our January start date with Porter Davis. We were informed in January that the earliest start date we could hope for if we got our finance sorted would be maybe June or July.

The Commonwealth Bank did everything to help us, but the low down was getting rid of some excess credit card debt was going to be the only way to build our home.

About a month later we were given the name of a mortgage broker by a friend. We were a little sceptical that anyone could help us, but this woman came highly recommended.

Kerryn Feder visited us one Saturday afternoon and breezed in with her portable office in a suitcase. After a few hours of going over our complicated finances, she bravely gave us some hope that maybe she could work at getting the loan through in two parts. She then left us to go and work on a solution.

Kerryn came back to us in a week or so with a couple of solutions. She could put the first loan through and consolidate our credit card debt with the equity that had already grown from our land. Once that loan was approved she would then apply for the 'construction' loan. It looked like a great plan on paper, but would the bank be willing to give us that much money given every lending institution was tightening up its lending options?

To cut a long story short, the first loan to consolidate debt was approved with no problems. Kerryn then got busy preparing the second loan for us. Ironically, she found the best option for both loans was with the Commonwealth.

We signed all the papers for the second loan, and after a couple of weeks passed, we found out this week that the construction loan is finally approved.

Kerryn was absolutely thorough with all our finances and honestly and professionally handled the whole process. She saved our home and made a miracle happen. We are very grateful for all the effort she has put into helping us get these loans! Highly recommended!!

We are now in the process of getting a start date with Porter Davis, and the best thing is that it's looking like we'll have a June start date. This means we should be in our new home by Christmas.

More to come......

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6.1.10

Disappointment

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , ,

Well we've had an unfortunate halt on our building. Site start was meant to be in a week, but we had an unwelcome call from the bank on Christmas Eve telling us that our home loan had been rejected!


We thought that it was all through and approved and getting the final contract was just a formality, well apparently the Commonwealth Bank had a dodgy loan guy and approval shouldn't have been guaranteed due to some of the previous debt we have.

So we still have our block of land, and Porter Davis are still ready to go when we are. It's looking like we may be able to apply again in the middle of the year.

Very disappointing given we were planning to be in by the middle of the year.

I will continue updating this blog when things are moving again, and then there will be the building progress... so stay tuned.....

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26.10.09

Contract signing!!!

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , ,

PORTER DAVIS CAMBERWELL 29


Last Wednesday we had our final contract signing. It took about 3 hours, but was great for getting a bucket load of info.

As the plans were all drawn up for final checking we found a few alterations that had happened at the drafters discretion that we hadn't asked for, so it was a good thing we could go over everything like a scene from CSI.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that the Bi-fold doors that were an upgrade with the package we got, were actually added onto our family area. We had thought that they would replace the standard sliding door off the meals area, but it turns out that we could have the sliding door off the meals 'as well as' the bi-fold doors. Meaning that our whole living area could be opened up on a nice day or if we had a party!

As we only found out about this at the contract appointment, we opted to keep things as we thought they were; but after having a night to think about it, we both decided having 2 doors would be a better option that would give us more flexible living space.

So where you see the couch in the family room, will now have bi-fold doors across that wall!

We also had to check door openings, a couple were opening the wrong way, and on the draft they gave us, the garage internal door was opening into the foyer. We have asked for an internal door to open into the mud room(off the laundry).

Overall we were very happy with our final plans, a few changes had to be made but generally all is looking good. We are now on the home run to our house being started.

Very exciting!

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14.10.09

Colour & Electrical appointment

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , ,


Monday we had the arduous task of choosing all our colours for our Porter Davis home inside and out, as well as our electrical appointment.


Electrical first was interesting. Who would have thought that we would pick where every light switch and power point would go, which ones would be on the same switch etc. We made sure with power points that we had plenty in the kitchen, and also put 2 separate power points in each of the kids bedrooms. You can never have too many power points!!

The colour appointment took a few hours as expected. We finally got a very nice look through the house with neutral colours of chocolates and coffee.

The outside we have gone with a red/brown brick called 'Ripponlea' with light render to the bottom of the house with casing above it. We have also picked the colour of 'Ironstone' for our colorbond roof, gutters & downpipes, and also our panel lift garage door.

I fought to have a red entry door, my husband wasn't so sure but with the designer on my side and agreeing that it would look good, we have a nice red double entry door!

Overall we are very happy with the final look we have chosen, and now with that all locked in the only things left to do is pick our floor tiles and sign the contract. January being the start date is not all that far away!

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