Ready To Go!!!

Hello friends,

It's been a while since my last update, as most of the time nothing significant was happening. Well it's been a long wait and finally it happened yes friends in the last few weeks we received the following:

* Developer Approval for our plans - after two rejections.
* Then....... wait wait....... yes the Building Permit LOL
*Then the all important but dreaded and hated unconditional home loan approval aka Home Mortgage (imprison for the next 30 years LOL).

We didn't expect to receive all the approvals this year but we did and are extremely happy.

A funny story..... I normally go to my land to do a (well everyday) check up to see who been throwing what on my land and also to see if our backyard neighbours builder Highview Homes (more like Lowview Homes) had taken the large chunk of concrete which they dumped on our land away (which they still haven't). A couple of weeks ago I went to my land to do my everyday check up, when I arrived at the land I was fuming as the builder haven't removed the concrete so I walked around the land to see if any other garbage have been dumped on my land. When I completed my inspection and walked back to the car, I looked around and then I noticed that I have some water meters and taps. I just stood there surprised and went blank for a few seconds. I was thinking why are there water meters and taps on my land when I'm no way near construction yet. After a few seconds I just laughed thinking how I didn't see the water meters and taps when I was walking around my land as it was right in front of me LOL. Anyway I was so over joy that we have the water meters and taps that I rang my partner and tell her about it (crazy over some water meters and taps LOL) and she said SO (woman!) LOL.

The next wait is for site start. We were told that site start could occur between mid Jan 2010 and early Feb 2010, hopefully the former, so until then have a happy, safe and enjoyable Christmas and New Year. See you all in 2010.

Contract Signed Yippee!!!

Hello friends,

It's been over a month since I last update, well the heading says it all yes we finally signed our contract and it was before the cut of point for the $32,000 First Home Owners Grant (FHOG)now now I know the abbreviations does not look good so don't laugh as I'm not a F HOG lol. Anyway Zuccala Homes in the end provided us with the all important contract before 30 September 2009 cut off date as promised so a massive THANK YOU to them and I salute them for meeting the timeline. We would also like to thank our Sales Consultant (J.R) for her patience and assistance during this period, she is fantastic and in way it is sad not dealing directly with her anymore.

Yes there were some mistakes in the contract but they were minor but most of it are spot on so very happy with them on that part as well.

I would love to share what was written in the contract but they made us sign as part of the contract a confidentially clause which restrict us from talking about it (not happy personally, but commercially understandable). What I can say to those of you that's just started make sure you get everything in writing I mean everything and make sure you list down all the stuff you want to get quoted on before tender. For those of you who signed tender and are waiting for contract recheck your tender e.g drawings, standard inclusions etc over and over again until you feel confident that everything are correct and all upgrades you want are there because they aren't flexible to any changes especially to drawings when contracts are ready for signing. The variation fee for any changes are outrageously shocking. So make sure you recheck everything because we wanted to do a couple of minor changes such as rendering where the front door area are, which we now regret for not checking properly and now can't be added on unless we pay the outrageous variation fee.

Ok that's it for now. Those of you who are still interested in my boring blog keep a look out for the next update, and those of you who are don't want to follow my blog anymore then party hard lol.

Colour Selections

Hello Friends,

Yes I know it's been over a month since I last posted, and I'm sure you all were kicking and cursing me for not posting the colour selections lol. Well it hasn't been good times, I have been under a lot of stress from work and the progress on our building, well mostly from building because we have been waiting and trying to get updates for our very slow tender (nearly 10 weeks and still waiting - talk about slow hey, wondering if they really care?), I am nearly at the point of giving up on the idea of building, maybe I should just buy establish (less stress), it is so frustrating and at one point it seriously put a strain on my relationship with my partner (building a house is suppose to be enjoyable not a nightmare!). After researching about Zuccala Homes and getting good feedbacks from past clients, we seriously thought we found the right builder, well how disappointed I am now (oh well life sucks when you have no power to control things). The only thing keeping us with them at the moment is our wonderful sales consultant, but the ice is getting very thin. Anyway that story is for another time. So right now I need to get my mind of it and what better way to do it by writing about our colour selection.

I'm sure you probably just want to know how our colour selection went right? So here it goes, before arriving at the colour selection place, we were both nervous and excited, we did do some pre-planning on what we wanted but knew that those colours or items might not be standard. When the time arrived for our selections we were disappointed with their standard range actually we were totally shocked!!! We thought that there would be a good variety to choose in the standard range like other builders such as M*tricon, P@rter Davis, JGK but we were wrong. For benchtop and cabinet they only offer about 20 colours/pattern (we initially thought it be the whole laminex colour panel range), there was only 2 choices for cabinet handles, 1 style for internal door handles - either choose chrome or stainless steel, standard tile range wasn't that great, bathroom fixtures were like so 70's (looks very cheap) etc. So pretty much most of the stuff we wanted were upgrade$$$. Their brick range were ok and their standard paint colour range was excellent, we had a lot of colours to choose from, so that was a positive (well the down side is that our estate convenant restricts us from using certain colours for our exterior, stupid covenants lol). Another positive was the colour consultant she was good in helping us choose the colours, so a big THANK YOU.

You probably think by now "yeah yeah just let us know what you've chose". Well here it is folks, so enjoy or bore from our colour selections. Oh yeah for those of you who probably thinking "what the hell are colour selections?" well start building to find out lol.

Brickwork: Boral Heritage (the brown one)

Mortar Joints: Smooth/Flush

Mortar Colour: Natural (Yellow sand/Grey cement)

Colour Rendering:

Render 1 - Dulux Yarwood

Render 2 - Dulux Colorbond Dune

Render 3 - Dulux Colorbond Jasper

Roof: Homestead - Sambuca (black)

Windows: Black

Letterbox: Colorbond Jasper

Garage Door: Madison Profile in Colorbond Dune

Driveway: Expose Aggregate Concrete

Entrance Door: Corinthian Madison PMAD 104 Pivot with Translucent Glass

Entrance Door Paint: Dulux Redbox

Guttering: Colorbond Monument

Fascia: Colorbond Dune

Downpipes: Colorbond Monument

Eaves: Wattyl Magnesium

Interior: Walls - Wattyl Magnesium

Interior: Ceilings - Wattyl Magic White

Kitchen Cupboards - Formica Graphite Velour Finish

Kitchen Benchtop: Ceasarstone Ice Snow with Bevelled Edge

Kitchen Glass Splashback: Grey Nurse

Laundry Cupboards: Formica Antique Wiluna White Velour Finish

Benchtop: Ceasarstone Walnut with Bevelled Edge

Bathroom & Ensuite Cupboards: Formica Antique Wiluna White Velour Finish

Bathroom & Ensuite Benchtop: Ceasarstone Walnut with Bevelled Edge

Tapware: Bathroom & Ensuite Vanities - Novelli Diablo Basin Mixer

Bathroom & Ensuite Showers - Novelli Diablo Bath/Shower Mixer

Bathroom & Ensuite Showers - Methven Satinjet Futura Rail Shower 770mm

Bathtub - Novelli Diablo Bath/Shower Mixer and Novelli Bath Outlet

Kitchen: Novelli Goose Neck Sink Mixer.

Tiles: Walls & Floors: 400x400 - grey colour

Internal Door Handles: Chrome (the bottom one)

Well I hope you enjoy reading and looking at our colour selections. If the end results turn out shocking when the house is completed (if we build) it's the missus fault lol (sssshhh). Anyway, next is tender but who knows when that will be (hopefully soon). We might not even get to tender, if we don't have tender by end of next week, we might just cancel and get out of building or go to another builder, let wait and see what happens next week (at the moment I'm extremely disappointed at Zuccala Homes).

Land Development Pics

For those who are interested on how part of an estate gets built. These pictures were taken during the development of our land stage. The works on land started around early September 2008 and completed in May 2009. Enjoy.

Road and Service Connections:

Digging up the rocks for the road and I think putting in the drain pipe.

Look at those ugly rocks!!!

Rocks are dugged out and levelling of the road starts.

Laying the Gas and Water pipes.




Complete the laying of pipes underneath road and levelled the road ( looks more like a dried out river bed than a road lol).



Starting to look like a proper road.

We have road kerbs yay! That's a good looking piece of dirt (wonder who owns it lol???)


Trench dugged out for house drain discharge point and water connection point.



Connection point for fresh water (black cap), recycle water (purple cap), and I think gas (on the black pole).

I think the H written on the kerb stands for House Drain. Also there are GW (Gas & Water) and EO (Electricity) engraved into the kerb.

Electricity connection point.

No idea what that big black box is for.



These pipes goes through the big black box.



Road nearly done.



We have crossovers and foot path.




Sewer: For those who's interested in knowing how they construct the main sewer.


Sewer trench dugged out and I think the big metalic thing is to protect the workers when they are down there (stops the dirt/rocks from falling in).


Sewer pipes are laid and this will eventually connect to the man hole hence the big unused space.


Preparing to build a man hole for the sewer.


Man hole taking shape.






The sewers are done.



Well that's it for now, I hope you enjoyed the pics (pretty boring hey lol).

Update: We are booked in for colour selections in a couple of weeks time, so stay tune for an update on our selections for our house (and of course pictures), going to be fun!

Land Settlement

Hello friends,

This is our first time writing a blog and it feels so strange sharing our building experience to the world (well my part of the world anyway). I hope all you guys will enjoy reading our journey in building our first house. Well lets get started...

Land: We decided to build our first house in Aurora Estate in the northern suburb of Melbourne. The reasons we chose to build here was that the cost of land was lower than the surrounding areas, has recycled water which is good for the environment and ofcourse for our cars lol, what the estate has to offer e.g optic fibre, schools, sport facilities (I can hear some of my friends laughing already), and close to my parents house. We started looking for land in November 2007, signed our land contract on 22 February 2008, land titled on 25 May 2009, and land settlement on 25 June 2009. Yes it's just over 1 year and 4 months (that's a long wait to get a piece of dirt).

Builder: We are building the Galleria (30m) by Zuccala Homes, at the moment we are waiting for tender (was told roughly 7 weeks) to see how our house will look like and the all important how much we are up for. If everything is all good then we wait for contract (roughly another 5 weeks on top), once done we signed and wait for the build to start (so roughly another 4-8 weeks). Just a never ending wait.

Anyway that's it for now, and please come back soon lol.