Cross - over!

Today we were to have our appointment with PD to sign the contracts and tidy up the loose ends so we could start building on our new block of land.

Unfortunately there's been a bit of a hiccup, as the actual road doesn't match exactly with the plan of subdivision. If you look at the picture from Google Maps, you can see that our block is on a curve, whereas the plan of subdivision shows the road being straight:

As the planned orientation of the house means that the driveway will be at the top right of the block (as shown on the pictures), PD need to make sure that the council will allow us to have the crossover on the bend.

We contacted the council, yesterday and they arranged a meeting for us on site at 10:00am this morning. We had the meeting, and got the go ahead from the council for a cross over in the desired position. With that information PD will go ahead and apply for the necessary permits with Council.

While we were there this morning we noticed that there was another small change - the real estate people had been to the block and set up the signs again, and put up a "sold" sticker on our block. Fair enough! As a result, I've updated the latest picture.


We are now waiting on a new appointment time to sign the paperwork.

Progress Report

Contracts have been signed for our new land, and we pay the deposit today.

Settlement on 14th December.

New contract appointment with Porter Davis on 30th November.

Woo hoo! We may actually see something happen soon. It's only been 12 months......

Thanks to everyone who visits this humble site. We are getting about 1000 visits a month which is awesome.

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Soil Fairies!

Looks as though the Soil Fairies have visited our new block in the last couple of days. New bore holes show that the soil test has been done. As is normal, three samples were taken.


Updated shots of the new block...

from the front

from the back

It's not normal to get excited about some holes being drilled, but we have waited a long time for a start date, and it seems as though we can almost touch it!

Land Contracts

We now have the contracts for the new block of land. Amazingly enough, we can actually understand these - makes things much easier when the title is clear and available.

Anyone want to buy a 1100 sqm block in Leopold with a 12m x 8m garage on it? The catch is that we're not sure when the title will be available....

The only thing I need to do this weekend is to make sure the dimensions of the land are as shown on the site plan (lot 41 below - you can see a bigger version if you click on the image).

We did a bit of a positioning diagram, and sent it through to PD to assist with the drawings - normally the site positioning done with the Sales Rep when you first sign up.

Funnily enough it feels a bit more real now, because we have a date when we will own some land.

Have a great weekend!

Changes

Q: What do you do when you are scheduled to start building in January, and you still don't own some dirt to build on?

A: Look for other dirt.

That right - the saga with our land purchase continues, and we are so pi55ed off with the way things have gone that we have bought another block of land. The original land we put a deposit on doesn't look as though it's going to be available for months (despite early assurances), and the owner doesn't want to talk directly to us, so we decided not to wait.

Makes things very interesting of course - Porter Davis are coming to the party and are going to do everything they can to keep us on the January start date. Additional costs for us are a new soil test and site survey, and a small fee for the engineering.



We are booked in for another tender/contract appointment on November 30th. The new block of land is due to be ours on December 14th.

I'm so impressed with our Customer Service Consultant at PD that I'm not going to mention her name here - otherwise everyone will want to work with her! Our CSC has gone out of her way to help us with this transition, even though I'm sure it's way outside the normal job description.

The new land is still in Leopold, and is approx 720 sq metres in size (about 18 x 40 m). Smaller than the old block, it has some advantages - it's a bit cheaper, it doesn't have a 7 large trees on it, and we can get it now! We are giving up the large shed on the other block, but we will still be better off.

Here's hoping we can start in January!

Tile Selection

Here's what we chose for our tiles in the various rooms in the house. Looking at them now, they do seem rather - errr - brown!

Clicking on any of the images below will open up a larger picture.

Bathroom


Kitchen


Ensuite


Powder Room


Laundry