Floor Plan (Sketch)

Here is our floor plan sketch.

Modifications:

• Front part of the house is dedicated to a 1 bedroom unit.
• We've extended laundry to match the width of garage (now also includes a 'mud room' - to hang bags, store shoes etc)
• Media Room in middle of the house has been turned into a study nook / wine rack / WIP / Ensuite & WIR to Bedroom 2 (which is now the main bedroom in our part of the house).
• Swapped windows between Living & Dining Room
• Created an alcove between 2 windows in Living Room so we can put a fire place.
• Putting timber bi-folds out to Alfresco with no corner wall.
• Expanded width of house by 1m which gives us a bigger family room, kitchen and essentially allows us to have the study nook.
• We put a 4th bedroom on the back of house with French doors opening to the back yard. This is going to be a playroom and has a wardrobe the full width of the room.
• Created a 'store room' behind the toilet space opening to the outside (for storage of mower etc - didn't want to waste valuable backyard with a shed).
• Made Bedroom 2 bigger (our room)
• Oh & we've flipped garage & self-contained unit around to best suit our block.

NB: Eden Brae don't tend to make so many modifications to their plans however we needed to due to converting part of the house to a unit.

So, what do you think?

The very beginning!

We thought it was time to start a blog to document the journey of building our home. If not for anything other than so we can one day look back and remember it in it's entirity.
It all started in November last year with an idea. Long story short, we started to work out if it was feasible to build a home that could mutually benefit us (hubby, wife & 2 little boys) as well as my Dad in a self-contained "Poppy" Flat!

After pouring over MANY floor plans and looking at a LOT of display homes, we kept coming back to the Eden Brae homes. The Saville 27 in particular appealed to us because we could turn the media room that's in the middle of the house into a WIR and ensuite for us. Which in turn meant we could turn the "Parent Retreat and Office" into a Self-Contained unit for my Dad.

Fast forward to 7th March - We put a deposit down on some land in one of the new Estates in Sydney's North West. It's a 581 sqm block, with great orientation. Very happy! Won't register until September though unfortunately.

Same day, we dropped in to the Eden Brae display office and decided that even though our land won't settle for a while, to lock in prices as we wanted to take advantage of some of their current specials - 1/2 price aircon and 2 extra squares for only $3000. We didn't know what their next sale would include, if anything (which of course ended up being the same but never mind).

So the next day we sat down with a fabulous EB sales consultant - Bede - for 5 hours while he sketched our perfect home with all the bells and whistles - well maybe not all the bells & whistles but enough to keep all of us happy!

After almost 4 weeks of deliberation by EB, they came to the party and said they'd give us a Fixed Price Tender even though they couldn't access our site and do soil tests etc. Phew!!! Ideally we want everything to have gone through council and be ready to build as soon as the land is ours.

Fast forward again to 30th April - we sat down with our EB Consultant for our Tender Presentation. Initially we were blown away by the costs factored in for site costs etc but all in all it looked pretty good. We are currently in the middle of getting a new Tender re-drawn to reflect some of the changes to the original one which we should get by Monday.  Upon reflection, we have realised that we have been really lucky that we're essentially getting a custom designed home at project builders prices.

High-lights so far:

• Excellent Mortgage Broker
• Excellent EB Sales Consultant
• Fabulous house design which will have every spare inch utilised
• The pre-approval from the lender
• Finding our block of land, which is bigger & more private than we could have hoped for

Low-lights so far:

• Incompetant Conveyancer (don't even ask)
• Finding out from the Lender (today) that their assessment rates have changed and that they will be re-assessing everything AGAIN prior to land settlement (which possibly means that they'll offer to lend us less!). Can only cross some of these bridges as we get to them though unfortunately.
• How slow times seems to be going
• Land taking so long to register - seems to be the cause of all possible hurdles & problems

Here is our little patch of Australia...
(click to enlarge)