How much you reckon?

The bank now has a copy of the quote and the plans so they can satisfy themselves that the end product will be worth enough for them to sell and get their money back.
We've had no end of headaches with the incompetent people at our local credit union. I'm sure the only person who understands how a loan should work is the manager, and we're "not allowed" to talk to him.
At this stage I'm wishing there wasn't a $2K early termination fee... but I think regardless, we will refinance elsewhere when it comes time to selling our old house.

No shed for me :(

We met with the builder this morning at a very foggy 8:00 AM to discuss the finer details and try and finalise the quote.
We're probably going to go for oxide coloured only rather than stamped concrete, up the bath and tap allowances, and add a few electrical items. By the time the sums are done on that lot, that keeps the price about the same as it was. which is $2300 less than the bank said we could have, so that's good, except...

We still need to come up with a 9KL water tank, an oven/range/cooktop, the slab and shed and the network/sound gear.
Looks like the shed has to wait.

Drum roll....

In another one of those stages, which I'm sure there will be many, we've been waiting pretty anxiously for the revised quote from our chosen builder (hence the lack of posts); and the wait isn't entirely over yet because we don't have the details in our hands, but... he has confirmed that the revised price is about what we thought we'd worked it out to be and not heaps more, which would have obviously put a big dent in the whole project's progress.

So GOOD news, we don't have to radically change anything and once the fine details are set on the whole deal, we'll be off and racing!

Those concrete bricks really don't look right when they're small....
Not too bad in this pic.

But pretty average in this one.

I think more importantly, as an idea killer, they're also not actually a standard house brick size, even though they describe them that way. This means the window reveals and slab dimensions etc would all need to be altered to suit.
Too late.

Colour Conundrum

We were thinking that option 3 was for us, so, we've been looking for a more red brick to suit than the one we had been looking at to use in option 2. We thought Selkirk had the answer for us in their Regal Red brick, so we found their local agent and went for a look at the display this arvo.
Unfortunately the brick in real life, looks nothing like the internet picture (well it was red), so that was a no go...
We did however find another option (yes, yet another one!) that we were kind of interested in. Actually I found 2, but let's not go there :)
It's a concrete block, much like the large sand stone look blocks that you see about, but it is brick size. They come in a few shades of 'sand stone' and some other colours too.

Which I guess would result in something like this

I actually found one that looked a lot like this:

That I think I really quite like, but...
Ahh, well... too many choices. I guess we could always do a different colour scheme on each of the 4 sides of the house :D

BTW, my PC has started doubling up on the heading over ---> there on the voting list. Don't know why that is, but I didn't stuff it up in case yours is too. :)

Plans delivered

This morning before work, we met with the builder breifly to drop off the plan and engineering detail.
We should have our final price in about a week.
All of a sudden things are getting a bit 'real'... scary.

Voting results so far...

We've been watching the voting results with interest over the last week or so.
The most interesting thing has been the massive (in percentage terms) number of votes in favour of the bottom light coloured brick house. A scheme we least liked.

Also very interesting is that the colour scheme we had originally been working towards for ages, has received no votes at all, including our two votes! That's right, we've actually both ended up voting completely independently for the red and dark grey combo (#3).

I'm still a bit concerned that the Bluescope steel site suggests that all dark colours will fade to some extent.

Engineering Done

It's been a while, but the engineering is now done, so things are about to get interesting.
We spent nearly all day last Sat looking at fixtures and fittings, and once again left with too many options and no decisions made. The idea was that we'd try and get our fixed price based on actual selections, but I think we'll have to go with the regular system of being given an allowance and making alterations to that within our budget as things progress.

BTW
Here's how our house will look on the block.
The front is to the left, and the rear lane access to the right.

Poll pics

I'm not 100% sold on the colour scheme we've been looking at, so I've been looking at other options.
Please vote in the poll to have your say!

Sample 1:


Sample 2:


Sample 3:


Sample 4:

Going rafting?

Picked up the drawings from the drafters yest arvo and notice they've drawn a raft slab instead of strip footings that we said we wanted all along. We'd had a whole discussion about the merits of the two types and settled on the strip because we wanted to raise the level of the internal floor a bit to allow for grading, ensuring the water flows away from the house on our very flat block. I don't know how all of that was just forgotten.
The drafters told us they'd just thought a raft would be better, so they did that. With no consultation whatsoever! They then acted like we were just changing our minds now. I wont be paying any extra for alterations!
Strip footings basically use the same amount of concrete no matter how high you make them, and really only cost you in extra bricks/mortar and a bit more fill/dirt. Combined with the fact your builder's a bricky, there's good reason to go strip footing.
Anyway, the engineers were starting on the slab specs, so we were a little panicked about the whole thing.
After lots of phone calls confirming the benefits of the strip footing etc, I think we had that sorted.

Then they asked - when are the builders going to provide the frame layout so we can do the bracing calculations?
I didn't have a clue that was coming! :D
Another call to the builder and it's worked out that the normal thing is the frame company work out that stuff, so all I had to do was tell the drafters it wasn't their job.
Fffeww... It's so hard coordinating things when you don't know how they are meant to be done. Sure glad I gave up on the idea very early on of owner building!