Contract Appointment

Well! Yesterday we had our Contract Appointment with Porter Davis, and it was a looong process!

At the appointment, we went through all the items covered off at the Tender Appointment, went through the additional pricing for upgrades selected at the Colour Appointment, went through the contract drawings, elelectricals, and finally walked through the contract itself.

We also asked our CSR lots of questions, and got answers for everything.

We arrived on time at 9:00, and left at around 1:45 (not quite so bad - there was a one hour lunch break in there!). When we left, we had more paperwork! Shown below is the Victorian New Homes Contract, The Post Contract Variation, Colour Selection details, and the Contract Documentation which includes the drawings and specifications up to this point.



It was nice to see some of the drawings come together with our own little custom touches such as the wider space for the fridge, the capped water point for the fridge and the extra width in the garage.

The heater: Yes, we now have our heater included as a post contract variation. It's a Jetmaster 550 (comes with yet another remote control!). I've added a photo below, which I took in one of the display homes. The heater is setting us back $6,780 fully installed.




Major upgrade items:

• Heater: $6,780
• Category 4 bricks: $2,725
• Off White Mortar: $Category 2 Roof tiles: $1,399
• Render: $1,220
• Tiled balcony and lined eave to portico: $1,492
• Quantum Quartz Benchtop (promotion special): $700
• Evaporative Cooling (promotion special): $1,138
• 1000mm garage width extension: $2,695
• 3 panel aluminium stacker sliding door: $1,351
• Stain Grade Timber staircase: $1,608

Of course there are quite a few lower cost items, which add up to a big number!

A big thank-you to Susan at Porter Davis. Susan was very thorough and patient, and nothing was too much trouble. She provided answers on the spot for all of our questions, and we went away feeling very good about our new home.

We are still set for a January start - which means we need the land title by December.

Variation - the heater!

Hi All - time for another short update. On the land front, things are progressing! Apparently all the approval from all the necessary time wasters are through, and the contracts have been signed. Soon we should see some dirt being moved! We are told that the work should be finished 4 weeks after start of the earthworks. Yay!

On another matter, we have always considered that we would like to build in one of those real flame, gas log fire places into our family room. This would be ideal for heating up the room we are likely to use most, without having the central heating on.


The picture above shows the style we like, installed in the Cremorne 41 at Mernda. Now - being the typical tight-arses we are, we decided that the $6-$7k asking price for Porter Davis to install one of these babies (a JetMaster) was pretty steep - and that we could get one installed after the build, for much less.

Yes. And No. Our visit to the home show Sure, you can get a heater installed afterwards, however the real flame effect heaters we are looking for require a box - and the boxing is usually done on the inside of the home (for ease of construction, and cost):


Of course, we would like our heater flush on the wall, and the box on the outside of the house. Not so easy, and certainly any money we save initially soon disappears!

A call to our CSR at PD reveals that we can possibily still have the heater included as part of the build. Time to look at the JetMaster range! The one we like is shown below, and will cost almost $7k for PD to supply and install.

The good news is that the heater is flush on the inside wall (unlike the picture above, where it's built into the room), and the slab is extended with extra brickwork to handle the heater box on the outside of the house.

Lesson learned!

It seems that for us, things are always backwards - we couldn't make the tile selection appointment earlier in the month, and the next available date is October 16th! The folks at National Tiles are flat out!

Naturally, we wanted to push back out contract appointment - however doing this will delay the start of the house. End result: Contract appointment this week, and tiles to be put through as a post-contract variation.

Just curious - do you prefer to read one large blog entry every couple of weeks, or shorter ones more often? Let us know!

Colour Selection Appointment

How time flies! Last week we went for our colour selection appointment at Hopetoun Interiors, and I haven't had time to write about it until now!

The colour selection appointment was set for 9am at the new Hopetoun Interiors showroom in Port Melbourne.

As I said in the last blog entry, the showroom is great, with the exception of the lighting.

Our appointment was set to last for 2 hours (the standard time allocated for a Porter Davis Lifestyle home). Everything to do with colours and fitting are covered, with the exception of the tiles - tiles are covered in another appointment at the National Tiles Builders Selection Centre in Port Melbourne.

As you'd recall, we went in a couple of weeks back to make some preliminary decisions on what we wanted - so we went into the appointment fairly well prepared.

What was covered:

• Bricks*
• Roof tiles*
• Motar colour*
• Gutter
• Fascia
• Downpipes
• Water tank colour
  
• Window frames
  
• Paint (including any feature walls, and architrave and skirting board colours)
• Front and back door selection*
• Exterior Door locks*
• Laminates for
  
• Bathroom
• Powder Room
• Kitchen
• Ensuite
• Walk in pantry
• Laundry
• Vanity basin styles*
• Interior Doors
  
• Interior Door handles*
• Stair stain colour (we upgraded the stairs to stain grade timber)
  
• Balustrades etc*
  
• Floor coverings (we will orgainse our own later)
  
• Handles for linen cupboards*
• Handles for wardrobes*
• Handles for Kitchen cupboards and drawers*
• Handles for bathroom, laundry, ensuite*

Items marked with * are items which we upgraded!

One of the annoying (although not surprising things) is that the standard range of most items are functional, but not really well suited to the home being built. Most people will want to upgrade many things. The exception is the laminates and paint colours - the range is huge.

Needless to say, we chose many items which were considered upgrades, however we don't have any firm costing on these until the Contract Appointment.

Changes are permitted after the colour appointment, either by calling the Hopetoun consultant within 48 hours, or the CSR after that.

Even though we were very well prepared, the appointment still went longer than the 2 hours - to the extent where we felt quite rushed towards the end. Fortunately for us, our consultant doesn't book her appointments back to back, so we could spend a little extra time finalising the details.

The end result is a complete detailed list of the colours and fixtures, printed for the customer to take away. The number of upgrade items on our list is a worry....