Little by little

Not much to report back on!! We went down to the block last weekend and we now have a footpath and a crossover :) Very exciting to see something to define where our block is! Stage 12 (first half) just missed out on getting our land title because of the Christmas break, but we are planned to settle before the end of January now, hoping this will mean a Feb site start!! I can not believe how quickly Christmas has come around, this year has flown by :) 
Merry Christmas and Happy and Safe New year to everyone!!!

TILES AGAIN!!!

We went back into Beaumont tiles today and had another apt as we have decided to go through metricon for our tiles (just easier in  the end). We had a different lady today her name was Tracey and she was amazing, very helpful and thorough. We picked the same tiles as last time but just modified them, so it was less expensive, all in all we had a better experience compared to the last time and left quite happy! 

We also made a trip out to the Avenue today and found that we had Street signs and the roads are finished!!!

APPROVALS!!!

We received our developers approval on Tuesday!!! And Our full approval on our Finance today!!! Once we fix our floor issues, We will be completely ready for our land to title and Settlement!!!! :)

TILES!!!!

We had our tile apt yesterday at Beaumont, the apt was at 9am so we arrived at  8:50am, we already new along the lines of what we wanted, when we walked in the manager greeted us and told us that our lady would be right out, but after 20mins of waiting, someone else sore us waiting and asked if we were waiting for someone, she then went and told our lady and she finally came, (at this point i wasn't annoyed really i just assumed our apt would run a lil late) then she took us into her office and went through our plans with us, which were wrong as since signing our contract we have had all our variations done and we have taken the carpet out of the hallway and replaced them with tiles, she then became very rude toward us and informed us that it might have been a waste of time coming out today because the plans aren't right and we might not be able to do the selections, ahhhhh i was annoyed to say the least then she left us in her office waiting as she went to see if we would be able to still go through with the apt, when she finally came back 10mins later she told us that we would be able to do it but it wouldn't be complete because there estimating system was not working properly and we would have to return to sign off the final quote anyway.. arrrggg so anyway we went out to the floor to finally start our apt 45mins later then we were suppose to!! We new that through the main part of the house we wanted 600x600 whitish tiles so we picked them out quite quickly then for the bathroom we had seen a tile in one of the displays homes in the Cranbourne display centre the fairhaven display ( As we had been told to look through the displays to get ideas) so we asked if she could tell us which ones they were and if they still had them in stock she then told us that if we did not no the exact lot number that she can not tell us what tile it was, but left us to see if she could find out what tile we were talking about, when she finally returned to us she told us she couldn't find it and that she didn't think we were prepared enough for our apt and that she thought we should just come back another time, well to put it nicely i sore red!!!! I then told her that we had arrived at our appointment on time and waited around 20 Min's before she even attended to us and then because our plans were not exactly right and there estimating system was down that wasted another 20mins, and she is telling us WE WEREN'T prepared enough because we asked if she could tell us if they had a tile that was in one of displays, and i asked if she was joking?? Then also asked for her manager, after explaining what had happened, the manager asked her when her next apt was and SHE SAID 1:30, at this point the manager made a face at the lady and told her to take as much time as we needed and if we went over the allotted 90min time slot that it did not matter!!!! She also asked us which display it was? and went out the back for a couple of Min's and came back with all of the information for the fairhaven and was able to tell us that the tile we liked was not in stock anymore(At least she gave us answers) AHHHH i was so angry at this lady and I was not in the mood for picking out tiles with this obnoxious lady, anyway Tristan and i decided at this point we would  take as much time as we needed and make sure we were happy with our decisions!!! In the end we did get through our apt finally and waited for our quote (of course excluding our hallway) Which was a whopping $8500,(excluding the $5000 we are already paying in our contract for Cat 1 tiles) ahhh so much money (we plan to see if it would be anywhere near this price if we were to get it done ourselves)!! So of course we didn't sign anything yesterday, and now we have to wait for the revised quote and decided if we wont to go with these tiles and that price, we may have to now go back in and do our apt again anyway to get the paper all signed and everything!! I can truly say that it was the most horrible/worst experience i have ever had and i will be telling Kate (CSC) exactly that and if we do have to go back we will defiantly be requesting to not be doing our apt with that rude lady!!
Jay i do remember reading that you also had a bad apt with these people (maybe the same lady)! I just can not believe how rude she actually was!!

COLOURS AND ELECTRICALS DONE!!!!

Yesterday Tristan and I had our colour apt at 9am and Electrical at 2pm, its was a busy day but not as bad or as stressful as i thought it would be, Tristan and I didn't really have any big disagreements that we weren't easily able to compromise on, i think we both had very similar ideas.
I have some pics.......... I don't know if i can remember all the colours names so bare with me!!

External

Top: Roof tile (Cat 1).  

Bottom left brick: feature brick (Cat 8 Graffite, this brick has a slight shine to it. )

Middle Brick: House Colour Parchment (Cat 2)  

Bottom Left Corner: Timber look garage (Upgrade)

Colour swatch's in the middle: Gutter (black) and Fascia (Cream)

We are also having our front windows in Timber same colour as the garage door (Upgrade) 

Bottom middle: Black windows aluminum to the rest of the house.

(Ignore the tile on the right hand side, it was an option that we are not going with anymore)

Kitchen

Caesar stone Underneath: (Cat 1, Osprey )    

 Left: stainless steel look kick boards       

 Middle: Ebony Macassar Laminate ( cabinets under island and underneath  overheads)     

Right: White Gloss (upgrade for overhead cardboard's)

Bathroom

Middle: Ensuit and bathroom vanities both Ebony Macassar in Gloss (Upgrade) (If any of you have been to the Avenue Metricon display Talbot, we have used the same in the Kitchen and Bathrooms as they did as we loved it!

Laundry

Top: Laundry bench top, Diamond gloss finish Laminex in pure mineral stone (upgrade)    

Bottom: Laundry cabinets Laminate same as kitchen

Other Studio M Upgrades:

Carpet (Cat2) Light Brown (looks grey Tho)

Bi-parting doors in kitchen and family area upgrade to Stained timber

Glazing to bathroom and toilet windows

Mirrored doors in both bed 1 and 2

Tiled kick rails in bathrooms

Locks on ensuite, bathroom and toilet doors

Upgrade to colour stamped drive way in blue stone and charcoal

92mm x 12mm square architraves

Electrical Upgrades ( I don't have the list in front of me)

2 Outdoor double power points

Antenna

2 extra Tv points

3 x 2 way switches

5 Outside Junction boxes

( I think that might have been it)

All in all we had a good day, we slightly went over our budget but not by much!! We also have our tile apt next Saturday hmmmm.. hope its not too pricey does anyone have any idea if there is a Cat 1 600x600 white tile and if not how much to upgrade there tiles approx cost them??

Contract Signing today!!!

Tristan and I went off to Metricon Head office today for our contract signing with Kate, it took us 3 hours in totally as this was our very last chance to change anything structural, and we did, adding a couple of cavity sliders to the house one in ensuit etc, also moving a couple of down pipes and we also decided that we were going to have the front windows of our house done in timber as we like the finish look of them (our garage is also going to be a timber look finish), other then that, most of the other things were small little changes, we already have such a big list of upgrades and we haven't even had our Studio M apt or our electrical, were hoping that we have covered most of it already before we get in there :/ !!
We also made our fortnightly trip down to the estate last Saturday afternoon, the roads in Chantenay look like they are nearly finished and alot of the cross overs have been done, We also were early enough to go have a look through the metricon displays that have opened, it was nice to see our facade, although ours obviously wont be exactly the same it was nice to have an idea what it would look like.(As the Belize does not have a display home). Also we are going to try and go down to see the tiles before we have our Studio M and electrical on the 11 of Nov!!

Kate our CSC

I had a call late Friday afternoon from Kate at Metricon introducing herself as she will be our CSC, we made all of our appts Contract signing, M studio, Electrical and Tiles, which is all booked in to be done by the 20th of November. First of which will be our contract signing on the 26th October!!

We didn't get a chance to go down to the estate this weekend, so were hoping next weekend when we go down that we might have the road done!!

We have also been informed by the forum that there are no phone lines and Internet in our estate which is a bit of a worry, so glad i found the forum very helpful as no one else has informed us about these problems, but i cant help to wonder how exactly Linda has a land line out the front and how the display homes will have phones as well!! I really hope that we can get this fixed before we move in!!

I do have some photos on my camera from last weekend that i will try and upload this week when i get a chance of what we believe is going to be our block of land!!

Building the Belize with Metricon

Ok, so i have been looking through a lot of blogs recently since we started this whole process, so i thought i would start my own! My partner and I are building the belize with Metricon, in the Avenue, at this stage we have put our deposit down and we are waiting for a our land to title which is meant to be in December, we are also waiting on Metricon to ring so we can have our M Studios appt and what not!
Last weekend we went down to the Avenue where we found they have started to do our roads, this very exciting as we have not even been able to stand on our land as we cant get there in the car but when we go down this weekend we plan on getting out and going for a walk , i will try and get some pics!!