Plumbing and Slab

The build officially started 30/10.

Michael (Operations Manager) called to say they'd liked the job the demolisher had done so much they were going to recommend them going forward. And even better news, Monash Council had approved our plans even though our setback was only 6.8m, not the preferred 7.6m set by council. So this was good news all round.  By then they'd done the second soil test, first soil test having been done while the house was still there.

We'd signed the contract mid September, was pretty painless if you didn't count the number of pages the three of us had to initial - and two pages of course, a copy for CG and a copy for us.

31/10 next two photos - the fence was up, portaloo onsite and all set to go

The plumbing was the first to be done. Here's what we saw on 7/11

On Wednesday 13/11, the polystyrene waffles were down. This photo was taken in the pouring rain, the day the slab was due to be poured. Although Rod, our Site Supervisor (SS), had said it could be poured if it rained, this was too much, and we were advised it would happen any day.  This day was the first time we met Rod in person at the site and he advised we were aiming to have the framework up, roof on and as much Hebel on the ground floor as possible by Christmas.  He'd advised that he'd give us weekly updates on Fridays and he's true to his word.

Lo and behold it was poured the next day, Thursday 14/11

at left the alfresco, and in the forefront the power box.

and one more showing the step up from the garage to the laundry.

Demolition photos

I realised I haven't published any photos of the demo.

House with the fence up pre asbestos removal with the machine all set to begin 

day 2

 day 3 

day 4 revealing a previously unknown to us septic tank

all gone

Design Changes to Radisson 38

Rob from CG was most helpful when accommodating our changes to the Radisson 38. Here is a list of the changes we made:

Downstairs
1. added a 3rd garage with a roller door at the back. We have 3 drivers with one more on the road by the end of next year, as well as a camper trailer which we will store out the back until the girls leave home. So a practical addition. This has added to the length of the laundry, giving us more storage - not a bad thing at all!
2. moved the al fresco from the back to the side as our block wasn't long enough. It still looks pretty good on the side, and that's on our western side. We get quite some shade from the neighbour's house so works really well for us. Installed a 3 stacker door to the al fresco.
3. added a door to the living room and changed the window to a sliding door, so that we can use it as a study. I am considering a pool down that side of the house - there is room for it - but dependent on our budget. With quotes of $60K to $90K it's not something we will do straight away.
4. in the kitchen, changed the bench to an island bench, moved the sink to the eastern wall (that way the island bench is one big flat surface), made the splashback above the sink a window and changed the 90cm free standing oven to two 60cm underbench ovens. Also, I wanted the fridge in the kitchen, not in the BP so we moved the wall of the kitchen/BP to be to the right of the fridge/freezer instead of the left of the fridge freezer.

Upstairs
1. removed the void. We liked the light it let in but the practical mother asked how do you reach those windows to clean them? We both agreed to remove it, gives us a small area to place some furniture - haven't yet worked out what though
2. I thought the bathroom too big. We made the bedroom next to the bathroom larger by taking some of the bathroom.
3. Removed the toilet from the bathroom and  put a Walk in Linen cupboard and toilet as separate rooms between the bathroom and leisure room.
4. Made the two bedrooms the same size.

we now have a 38+6 so I got the name of the blog wrong :( not going to republish... I will have a look to see if I can edit the name.

Colour Selection

Choosing colours was made easy as we did it in two goes, the first visit we hadn't expected to make that much progress but as we had the time, we pretty much decided on the render colours, downpipes, roof tiles, aluminium colour, kitchen cupboard colour, wall colour, splashback, which stone, carpet and floor boards. We were given samples of everything except the carpet to take away with us and consider if they were the right ones. Then two weeks later we returned for the confirmation. Here they are:

A few things remained outstanding
1) we'd chosen as the main render colour Dulux caveman which was no longer available on any colour cards. I was concerned it was a little dark so after a few days we were given the address of a house that used caveman. We drove down to Sandhurst and were happy with it, so were able to confirm we'd make the right choice. Here's that house showing the colours. We are also using that off white render colour, grey pebble 1/2 strength. But garage doors will be surfmist which is very close to the grey pebble colour.

2) appliances were bugging me as to choose any appliance other than those that they offered from their list meant additional costs. Because I didn't want the offered 90cm Ariston, instead they offered 2 Sholtes BC99 TPXA underbench 60cm pyrolytic ovens, an Ariston 90cm PH960MSTGH cooktop and a Sirius SLEM906 82X undermount rangehood. Always one to do my homework, I searched on my favourite Product Review site and the ovens rated pretty well. I couldn't find anything on the rangehood but found that E&S Trading sold them so I called them. The guy said that they were equal to Qasair so I was pretty happy with that. The cooktop had a mixed rating from really good to not so good but I was overall comfortable so went ahead with choosing them.
3) re the floor, I'd really liked the look of spotted gum so we drove to their Vincent St display which featured it - looked fabulous. So that was also a done deal.

thanks to Maddy for her help.

Demolition

Selecting a Demolisher
Carter Grange gave me some names and I also did my own research. I first went to Rafferty's as they'd come recommended by two friends - that was a no go as they have since stopped doing domestic demolitions and are only doing commercial. They recommended a company so we got their quote - $21K. I'd been expecting $10K - $ 11K so that was considerably higher and I was going to have to re-assess my budget. Another quote came in at $12.5 K so that looked good. Followed up with them to give them the go ahead only to find they'd underquoted and couldn't possibly do it for less than $17K. Then got a quote from Victorian Demolitions based in Rowville for a little less, and decided to go with them. Another quote for the same demolition was over $25K!!!

Finding a Rental
Well that turned out to be quite a chore. Five weekends spent checking out all the 4-5 bedrooms houses on a bus route to Brentwood Sec College, working out the times they were open for inspection - 15 mins each - and a few were at the same time so Garry and one daughter went to that and other daughter and I went to the other. Four weeks in a row of not getting our preferred property. Then finally success -a 5 bedroom with polished boards in my price range and available 9/9! we were successful so now we had a date by when we could move out of the house, and demolition could start. Packing then started with scrounging of boxes and newspapers doing the trick.

Tree Removal
We are in the city of Monash and under a vegetation protection overlay meaning that we would have to get a permit to remove any trees over 10m. We called an arborist who advised that we didn't have any, so we went ahead with the removal around 10th September. The irony was our lounge and dining rooms now had so much more light! but I did miss our lovely patio roses, pale blue hydrangea and bank of camellias that hid our garage wall.

Service Abolition
We got the one solitary key 9/9 (not exactly useful when there are 4 of us), with the big stuff being moved Saturday 14/9 thanks to the help of some very kind friends. So in the week or two prior to that, I contacted the power and gas companies re service abolition, and scanned and emailed the appropriate forms advising abolition could start 16/9. Both Multinet and Red  came back with 3-4 week lead times, which I'd already known about. So I was expecting demolition could start around 16/10.

To my outright surprise both gas and power were abolished by the end of that week - namely 20/9!!!

Demolition
it started with the asbestos removal on 27/9. All homes built prior to 1986 had it, and we had more given the eaves we had. Anyway, it was all gone that day, and the demolition could begin the following Monday 30/9. Troy from VD said it'd be all down by Thursday, but this ended up only being a delayed a day due to inclement weather. So by Friday 5/10 our former home was all gone. Only one small surprise - a septic tank under the house that we didn't even know was there, so that had to be removed at a small extra charge to us. They did a fabulous job and Carter Grange must have agreed as they said they'd now recommend them to future CG clients!  Thanks heaps to Troy, Kirsty and gang!

November 2013 - First Blog!

After giving this some thought I have decided to capture the story of the build of our new home with builder Carter Grange. After going to an architect and getting drawings done we weren't able to find a builder in our budget so decided instead to look at the larger builders. And Carter Grange ticked all the boxes. So hope you find this interesting and follow our exciting journey!

I'm a bit behind - the demolition has already taken place,  and build has started but I'll start from the beginning.