Rough landscape sketch

Did a rough sketch of what we want our front landscaping to look like as per the Developer's request.

Valuation & Developer approval request

We received two calls regarding our build today:

1. Bank =  We were informed that the valuation request has been submitted.
2. Builder = Sent drawings to developer for design approval.

A little nervous about the valuation as I have heard of many forum member receiving a valuation lower by 10-20%. We currently don't need to worry about LMI but that is if the valuation comes right at the contract price. Fingers crossed...

Our BC requested that we make a landscaping plan as they needed to have it submitted to the developer for approval. Didn't know we needed to do this until now. Looks like that will be tonight's mini project!

Independent inspector appointed...

Finally decided which company to use for our inspections. My top two choices were:

1. Darbecca
2. Building Expert

I decided to go with Darbecca as they seemed much more helpful over the phone and spent some time answering all of my questions.

After hearing all the defects other forum members had been finding with PD (and many other builders) throughout their builds, I thought it would be best to have someone that can monitor and check all the work being completed that is completely independent to Porter Davis.

Looking for some lighting options

We're doing our own lighting both outdoors and indoors. 

We were at bunnings yesterday and decided to have a look at some outdoor lighting and some pendants for the kitchen island and dining table.

Merrifield Melbourne Estate - Camera

The Merrifield Estate developer has installed an 'aerial' camera. This takes a photo of the Stage 1 (Display Homes), Stage 2 & 3 areas every 30 minutes.

It's great to be able to watch the area progress, especially now that homes are starting to be built. We can just make out our block in the far left corner of the pictures. 

http://merrifield.cloud9.com.au/PhotoGallery.aspx?installationID=638&homeID=571 

So close!

Went out to the block again today. Cross-over and pathway concrete has been poured. Looks like the block has been scrapped too. No too long till we get titles....

Contract appointment

Almost 4 months after our initial deposit we finally reviewed and signed our construction contract with Porter Davis. The delay was mainly due to my work travel commitments.

As a whole, the day went quite smoothly (surprisingly!). The contract consultant was very nice and extremely helpful. We spotted a few mistakes in our selections and drawings but these were updated accordingly for our final set of contract drawings.

The only real disappointment of the day was that our splash back cannot be one single sheet. We were half expecting this since hearing that the maximum size was 3m. So we made a decision to have one single 3m piece in the center with two pieces either side. We much prefer this over having a big line right down the middle of the stove/oven. 

Here is a quick summary of the day

The good stuff:

• Knowledgeable and helpful consultant
• Drawings were fairly accurate to what we requested
• 90% of costs supplied at Colour were accurate
• Any mistakes found were fixed immediately (Pricing, dimensions)
• Consultant was very accommodating with any last minute (non-structural) changes 

The not so good stuff:

• Garage extension was much more than originally quoted by the BC. $3,000 suddenly became $5,000+! Our BC was very apologetic and we managed to come to an agreement.
• Rush Rush.... Seems like this is becoming a pattern. Lucky we didn't have many issues in the drawings and are only building as single story house.
• Kitchen culture drawings which included all our cabinets was not updated as per our appointment.
• Some items in our 'Tender Document' were not very clear and required clarification.