Research for our flooring & bathroom selections

We must have gone to Di Lorenzo half a dozen times leading up to our appointment, just to try and cement our ideas.

I never thought that choosing a colour scheme for your home would be so hard. The selection of standard bathroom and flooring tiles at Di Lorenzo is actually pretty good. The feature tiles though, we didn't find anything that really grabbed us.  In the end, we chose a feature tile that was not part of the standard package.

We spent hours wandering around trying to decide on what we liked.  I think it wasn't until the 3rd for 4th visit that we came to a decision on what we wanted. The feature tile we weren't too sure on at first, but we finally decided on Option 2.

Option 1

Option 2

Flooring (shiny tile for main floor area) & smaller tile for bathroom, ensuite & laundry

We wanted similar internal colours to those used in the Drysdale 27 on display at Homeworld Kellyville.  Below are some photos taken of the flooring in the display home.

These are the samples we had to choose from.  We ended up going with the carpet on the left (in the first picture below).

Trying to decide on a brick

It was time to choose a brick so headed on out to PGH to take a look at our brick options. I felt sorry for the kids, they hate being dragged around doing "unfun stuff"!

We want a brown coloured brick. Something warm, chocolatey (mmmm). Needless to say, that before we choose a brick, I am sure we will change our minds a dozen times.

There are so many beautiful bricks colours but we soon realise that they (all of the bricks we really like) are not in the standard range.

Standard brick choices are:-

The Summervilla Collection

• Vanilla
• Pearl Grey
• Mocha

The Alfresco Collection

• Chocolatto 
• Vino
• Expresso
• Sorbetto

I think there are some more but as they didn't appeal to us, we didn't pay attention to them (sorry).

Pearl Grey

Mocha

Vanilla

To assist us in making a decision, we obtained a list containing addresses from PGH for a number of brick colours we were tossing around.  Over the next few weekends we drove around The Ponds, Castle Hill & Bunya to view houses already built.

We were finding it extremely difficult to agree on a brick. We went from wanting a brown brick to a light brick, back to a brown brick, a darker brick, our procrastination was endless.

At first we thought we would select a brick in the standard range. We were originally going to go with Chocolatto until my friend, whom works for PGH, advised us against it due to it being a slurry (or painted) brick.  Therefore, we were swaying towards Mocha or perhaps Gravel (we agreed we would pay a little extra to upgrade).

House built using Gravel Bricks

Smoke

Nutmeg

House built using Smoke & Nutmeg

Loam 

House built using Loam

We tossed around the prospect of a smooth faced brick like Smoke (light) or Nutmeg (dark) but changed our minds because of the idea that many new schools and electricity substations use these two bricks, and in time, the brick seems to crack. I liked Loam but J didn't so that was out.  I liked Mild Steel, although a little lighter than we wanted, I really liked the texture of the brick, but J wasn't sold on this one either. J liked Blue Steel Flash but I wasn't fussed on the blue/grey tones, but then we discovered Nickel Flash. It had reddish brown tones and a really nice texture. We obtained the address of a house and took a drive out to see it. Believe it or not, we both agreed that this could be the one!

Nickel Flash was a category D (I think) upgrade. We decided that it was worth paying extra for as it would be the first thing you would see every time you drove into your driveway.

Nickel Flash

Our minds were made up....

Until they weren't :(

A bit of bad news...followed by some good news

In July Eden Brae held a information evening at the Home Option Gallery for people interested in building. We thought we would attend to enable us to gather some insight into what to expect when building. It was an interesting evening, but we realised it was not really that relevant to us as we had already started the journey. It was only after the presentation when we were speaking to a couple of the EBH sales reps that we found out the land was now expected to register around July 2013, and not March as previously advised. Now, this was a bit of a blow for us.  We were still living with my husband's mother and we were fairly certain we were starting to outstay our welcome.

The 3rd August came around fairly quickly and it was time for our tender presentation with Charles DeMarco.  Everything went well and Charles made things a little better by telling us that registration was likely to be in May with construction likely to commence in July 2013.  This was good news for us.

We went home feeling a little more positive than we had been when we arrived.

Good times ahead....or so we thought.

Eden Grange

It was only a month later that J stumbled across house and land packages by Eden Brae Homes on Realestate.com.au.  Prices for land seemed very reasonable so we took a drive out to the sales office on site to take a look at the master plan for "Eden Grange".  It was a quiet area, somewhat rural and old but with a lot of potential and definitely a place we could imagine raising our children in, so we headed down to Homeworld at Kellyville to take a look at the display homes and find out a little more information on the proposed development.

We spoke with Gaven, whom told us that the land was expecting to register in January 2013, with construction to commence approximately 2 months later (March 2013). He advised that we could choose any style of house, you weren't locked into the advertised house on each particular block. So we took a look through the homes that they have on display. We entered the Drysdale and instantly fell in love with it. We loved the floor plan and I particularly liked the gallery kitchen. I am a firm believer that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and the Drysdale's kitchen is right in the centre of the house. It was perfect. 

To cut a long story short, Gaven provided us with a fixed price package, taking advantage of $1 promotions at the time.  On the 3rd July 2012 we put down our deposit on the house and land package with EBH. This time we knew we had made the right decision.

From the beginning

My husband and I had been renting since we first moved in together, long before marriage and kids. We had become very tired of constantly having to move when our landlord decided to sell up.  In early 2011, our house was put on the market. Here began the constant "Open House Inspections". Having 4 children, 3 of which were under 6, this was a huge burden and one we did not want to endure for many years to come. So the decision was made to buy our first home. However, we didn't have any savings behind us, and to enable us to save enough money for a deposit would mean asking  our family for assistance. Our only option was to ask the (my) mother-in-law if we could move the family in with her indefinitely. After much deliberation, she agreed (reluctantly) for us to move in with her.

At this stage, we were planning on buying an existing house. It had never crossed our minds to build. In May 2011 we moved into the mother-in-laws house.  We didn't start our house search right away, as we had to get a bit of a deposit behind us first. 

It wasn't until early 2012 that we got serious about finding a house. We were planning on staying around the area that we had been living as two of our 4 children attended local schools.  We attended several open homes and quickly realised we would be paying a lot of money for something that wasn't exactly what we wanted and would potentially require a lot of work to get it up to the standard that we were after. It wasn't until we attended an open house in a newly built home that we discovered that the only way we could get what we wanted in a house was to build.

We spent many weekends visiting display homes and this cemented the idea of building our own home.....so the search for land begun. Ideally we would have loved to have bought land at The Ponds but it was well out of our price range. We considered buying a block of land at Glenmore Ridge but the block we looked at was directly opposite Mulgoa Reserve and would require a bushfire rating of around BAL29 and this would add up to $13,000 onto our budget so we decided against it.  In the end we found a block of land at Bunya which was within our budget and on the 16th April paid a $200 holding deposit.

We had the choice of 4 builders at Bunya.

1. Champion Homes
2. Wisdom Homes
3. Eden Brae Homes
4. Allcastle Homes

We looked at all the houses on display and decided we liked the Esperence by Wisdom Homes. But unfortunately it wasn't going to suit the block, so the search continued.  We ended up at The Ponds and found the Providence (Wisdom Homes) which was a perfect size and layout for our block. We travelled out to Gregory Hills to check out the Providence on display out there, and fell in love with it. This was a perfect home for our family so we went ahead and arranged a tender with the Sales guys at The Ponds. We paid our deposit to enable a tender to be done and had our tender appointment in May 2012. 

During this time, there was no building happening at Bunya which concerned us. Registration seemed to be taking a long time on the release prior to ours which didn't leave us with much confidence. On the 7th June we were to pay our 5% deposit to Landcom.  With our loan approved and a bank cheque in hand we headed over to our Conveyancer to hand over the cheque and exchange contracts. However, at the last minute, the hubby and I made snap decision to pull out. It just didn't feel right, and even though we knew we would lose the deposits already paid, we knew deep down that it was the right thing to do for our family.

Back to square one.....