Olivia Katherine

Well, I know I said it was a quiet week on the site but in our lives it has in fact been a very busy and exciting week. One of the best in our entire lives in fact.

Wednesday 10^th August saw us welcome a beautiful baby girl into the world at 0857. Olivia Katherine Martin weighed in at 8 pounds 12 and measured 51cms. I have included a few pictures like the proud Dad that I am.

We have had a lovely visit from my parents, which was wonderful as we could share our experience with them. Being the proud grandparents they are she has already been showered with gifts.

External Drainage

As you may have gathered we are regular visitors to our site and noticed today that the external drainage has been completed and the pipes are all in place and capped ready for the next stage, framing!

After the external drainage there has been a bit of a week of minimal movement on site. Oh well we are assured by our site supervisor that things will spring into action next week with frame delivery first thing Monday 15^th August.

Slab poured

A couple of missed phone calls from our site supervisor on the morning of the 2^nd August gave us a hint there may be movement on the site. About 1100 we managed to get ourselves organised to drop passed the block and have a look. To our amazement there was a completed slab awaiting us a day earlier then expected!

The concretor’s have been a great crew from start to finish and have worked hard to get our job completed on time (a day early in fact).

It is hard to believe what a difference a few truckloads of concrete can make to our whole picture of the build and is such a boost for us.

Rebar and waffle pod footing material in place.

In the most dramatic development to date, I decided to drop by the block on the way home from work early in the morning only to be greeted by the wonderful sight of the waffle pod in place and most of the rebar completed ready for the slab to be poured Wednesday.

I bring Dawn back to the site later in the morning and the concretors are slaving away in the sensational late winter weather we are now experiencing to finish the slab framework. This finally gives us a visual representation of the finished floor height and gives us a real exciting feeling that this is going to be a truly beautiful house for us. 

Internal drainage appears and council inspection

A quick trip to site reveals that the plumbers have been and gone leaving behind them the internal drainage required for our slab to be poured. 

Things are progressing with military precision so far. We can only hope that this pattern continues for at least a few weeks to get us out of the ground and seriously underway.

Piers poured.

Today our piers were bored out and the first site of concrete on our block brings an even bigger smile to our faces! 

With the first of the wooden boards going in to display the outline of the slab we can finally see what is going to be our first ever family home coming together.

An excavator on site!!! Imagine the excitement!

So another Monday comes and goes with no movement, we are starting to get a little down but considering the rain that Sydney and the Central Coast has received over the last week we really can’t be surprised. The last thing would would want is to see the excavator bogged up to the tracks!

Tuesday arrives and mid morning I head out to the block to see how the drying out is progressing. To my absolute pleasure I see the excavator not only on site but being packed up having already completed the site scrape or cut and fill! I cannot believe how much happiness we get from just seeing a beautiful green bare block turned into a brown bare block! It has finally started!

Construction Commences, well almost!

So I may have rushed through the earlier stages to get to this point but, believe me, it has only been a rush in cyber world and has definitely felt like every bit of the 6 months it has taken to get to this point.

Firstly our retaining wall has been completed and we are extremely happy with the result. Anyone who needs a retaining wall on the Central Coast don't hesitate to contact Robert Cook landscapes!

So we received a phone call from our site supervisor on Friday 15^th July to advise us that construction was scheduled to commence with the site scrape on either the Monday or Tuesday of the following week. You can imagine our excitement at this news after the long period of seemingly endless e-mails, phone calls, meetings and late nights spent lying awake thinking about out decisions.

So....

Monday – A portaloo arrives on site!

Tuesday – Fencing arrives on site, a quick phone call to our friendly site supervisor reassures us that the excavator should be on site Wednesday to get underway.

Wednesday – The heavens open! Not only do they open but they continue for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and into Sunday in what becomes the wettest July since 1950 with over 200mm rain in that period.

Another week gone but at least we can hope that two severe rain events in one year is enough and we won’t have to put up with another. Fingers crossed!

Out of council!

Well, after a few phone calls to prompt movement and action our plans came out of council on 1^st June. 

This has been a relatively painless and quick (4 weeks exactly) procedure for us. Having reviewed other people’s applications which didn’t have such a smooth and relatively speedy transit through council I can only put this down to the professional application for DA prepared by Metricon and the detailed landscape plan prepared by Nathan Cassidy.

Unfortunately now comes the council imposed variations (and unfortunately further price increases) to the plan.

Bushfire construction requirements

- No pivot timber door, changed to more expensive hinged door.

- 5,000 litre rainwater tank changed to 7,500 litre tank.

- Gutter guarding to entire house to meet flammability index of not greater then 5

- Stainless steel weepers

- Screens for laundry doors and opening windows.

- Door sill to roller doors on garage to prevent ember intrusion.

Unfortunately another little Metricon trick was also revealed when council mandated that sarking be necessary to the inside of the colourbond roof. We had already allowed for this in our contract, or so we thought, but Metricon then informs us that the basic sarking cost doesn’t cover ‘seal all gaps’ to roof/wall junctions and therefore the cost of the sarking has increased! Surely any sarking installation should automatically include the sealing of all gaps? Just another trick for first timers and another thing we can warn people about.

Anyway, out of council we come and into the construction certificate phase! Unfortunately this is another long period of waiting throughout which there is very little that the owners can do to progress this issue. We were informed by our customer support officer at Metricon that this normally takes around 2 weeks and ours took approx 20 days. This seems like an agonisingly long time when we are just waiting for it to progress to the next stage but in the grand scheme of things this wasn’t too bad.

In between the council approval and the construction certificate being received we had made progress on a few other parts of our project.

Dawn and I headed to the Tuggerah showroom of Carpet Call to make our selections for our upstairs and downstairs carpets. This was another relatively painless procedure because we had a general picture in our head of the feel we wanted in the finished product. I think if we had our time again though we would make the drive down to Sydney to the Seven Hills showroom where apparently it is much more clearly defined what are the level 1, 2, 3 etc inclusions as per the contract.

Our landscaper started construction of the retaining wall that we wanted built across the back of our property to really frame the block and give us a more defined view down into the grassed asset protection zone behind our block. Unfortunately some of the heaviest rain in years arrived on the Central coast during this period and delayed this somewhat. Some of you may remember the June long weekend in 2007 when the heavens truly opened, well, the June long weekend of 2011 really gave it a run for its money! 

Studio M Internals and Electrical selections

23^rd May was Studio M d-day for Dawn and I. We headed out to Baulkham Hills nice and early with a good idea (so we thought) of all the choices we would need to make. From the second we started we were blown away with the minute details we were going to have to make decisions about, from the kick board colours to the angle of the trim in the skirting boards.

Fortunately we had our wonderful consultant Selma with us to guide us through every single step and keep us focused on the bigger pictures. Her patience with us throughout the morning was amazing and very much appreciated. Following the advice given to us when we did our external selections we went in with a long wish list in our heads. 

Throughout the morning we had to give some ground on some things to keep the cost in check but overall we are very happy with the outcome. Dawn even got the spa bath she wanted and I got the second rain style showerhead in the ensuite so overall a good outcome. 

Unbelievable however was the price of putting in the under mount sink that we had in mind for the kitchen. However we looked at it, we just couldn’t justify the extra cost and therefore the sink became a victim of the give and take system but we think it will look great nonetheless.

Electrical selections were the order of the afternoon and once we got the hang of it this seemed to be a relatively painless, if not cheap, procedure. We decided to avoid the extra cost of having Metricon install our down lights throughout the house and instead opted for the much cheaper bayonet fittings which we will arrange to be changed out before we move in. This will save us many thousands of dollars based on the Metricon down light price.

We also upgraded our air-conditioning after examining the square footage allowance of the base model and discovering that it would be tested to its limits especially during the hot summer days. We also decided that it was much easier to deal with this extra cost now then to discover that we needed to upgrade the system after handover.

We left feeling satisfied with our efforts and a new positive outlook towards the next phase of the project. We were starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

Contract stages

As anyone who has ever built a house before will know, regardless of the builder, there are many different stages to the process of getting the final contracts completed and Metricon is no different. There are the initial preview statements (Basic estimates), then the Tender presentation completed after initial site investigations and soil testing followed by the building contract after all site investigations are completed but then there is the hydraulic assessments and bushfire variations, the Basixs changes and on and on it goes until the final unconditional contract and building plans are signed off on.

Metricon was sold to us throughout our initial enquiries as the builder that would not hide any costs and would be up front throughout to keep us informed of the price to prevent blow outs. We however found this to be not exactly the case. As we have advanced further and further in, the costs have continued to climb (some through our own additions but many unexpected). We also believed that by building with a large and well respected builder we wouldn’t have to be checking every single detail to ensure accuracy.

Just one example of this checking and fault finding came when we received our initial hydraulic assessment and quote for drainage. Based on the initial provisional sum of $600 in the preliminary contracts we weren’t expecting too many surprises so you can imagine the look on my face when the e-mail arrived with the hydraulic variation and the cost was $4,800. Needless to say this e-mail was followed with a few lengthy phone discussions and some e-mail ping pong. The answer we finally got after many stressful days was ‘we’re so glad you brought this to our attention, it appears to have been an error from the plumber who grossly over charged on the quote’, this “error” highlighted to me the importance of double checking every item we were asked to sign.

We should also mention at this point our thanks to Nathan Cassidy for creating such a detailed and accurate landscape plan for us to submit with our council plans. He has been a great source of advice and reassurance for me throughout this endeavour.

Our plans finally headed into Gosford Council on 10^th May 2011. Unfortunately, as everyone knows, once the plans go into council there is very little that either the builder or the owner can do to speed this process up. So unfortunately at this point the waiting game started. 

Back to the beginning!

So, we cast our minds back to the very beginning of this whole adventure. It seems like a long time ago, well, because it was! We signed our initial contract and put down our first $1,500 towards this adventure on the 9th February this year.

Dawn and I visited most of the Metricon display homes in Sydney and Newcastle but spent the most time in the homes at Fern Bay, near Newcastle. This display centre was only one Metricon house initially but they have recently opened two more and well worth a look!

The customer service we received there from Tim, was outstanding. He provided quick and accurate answers to all our questions and made us feel at ease throughout the process that nothing we were going through was unique and that we had nothing to worry about. At no time did we feel pushed into making any decisions by Tim and his team and felt comfortable that this was our decision made on our terms. 

So, Dawn and I finally settled on our final structural design changes with the inclusion of an outdoor room and formal dining room on the back of the house to make the most of our wonderful bush outlook. Apart from a few window changes to accommodate the new roof line and to gain the most natural sunlight we made very few changes at this stage. 

Everything we did change however was instantly illustrated for us using the excellent computer software on site. The ability for Tim to give us a virtual 3D view of our house as it will sit on our block was excellent and made us even more convinced that we had made the right decision.

Next stage after this meeting was to wait for the preliminary contract estimates to be prepared! One of many long waits throughout the Metricon preparation stages. 

Our block!

Well, I have finally decided to get organised and sit down to put some information on our blog for our friends and family to be able to keep themselves up to date with the building of our first home.

My wife, Dawn and I have decided to build in Narara on the Central Coast of NSW. We have been living here for approx 6 years since Dawn moved to Australia from England and I settled here after university in Armidale.

Our block is in a great sheltered location overlooking a lovely grassed asset protection zone which gives us a beautiful bush outlook over the land below which we don't have to maintain but get to enjoy! Best of both worlds we think.

Dawn and I spent many hours trekking through the many display homes all over Sydney and the Central Coast deciding on the builder and design we would go with for this project. We eventually decided to build with Metricon Homes because of the beautiful finish in there display homes, the great design that we found to match our lifestyle both now and into the future and the customer service received throughout our enquiries.

We are building a Phoenix 38 design. The house is five bedrooms and two bathrooms with a seperate study downstairs and sitting/theatre room for me! We have a beautiful open concept living area with outdoor room and formal dining area across the back of the house to take in our great views.

I will do my best to catch up with our posts to bring you up to date with our build. As it stands, the piers were poured for our slab this morning. We are very excited to finally see progress on the site as it has been a LONG and at times extremely frustrating process to finally get things happening on site.