28-Jan-2011
We have found land!
After much driving arround various estates in South Eastern Melbourne we have finally found an estate that meets our initial criterial and also provides some additional unexpected benfits with the local ammenities.
The new chosen location works well for us, it has access to train station albeit via a
fair walk (20minuts), bus or 5 minutes via car, the wife's confidence is not strong with driving so she preferes to use public transport where available so we didn't want to end up in an estate that was miles from a train station.
It takes about 20 minutes to get to my current work. Shop
locations are good as well with only a 5 minute drive to most of your typical shops, Coles, Kmart, Woolworths, misc food shops and about 10 minutes to large home maker
centre, this will be important when we first move in and need to shop!
It's probably not an area you would buy your investment property
but great for new family's with lots of local activity centres, parks and sporting facilities for when the our DD grows older.
Now that we have found the estate we have to chose a block of land! One that preferably meets our criteria for north aspect living areas.
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Revisiting the Dream
Mid Jan 2012
A year after our initial attempt at home ownership my wife and I were keen on looking into new options for a home. Our baby girl was growing fast and needs an area to play with all her toys, we were also finding out that our storage space was quickly disappearing with all the presents, toys, clothes, and other baby products that you collect.
We started to visit some of the displays again and started looking for land in estates that will provide a few requirements for ourselves.
Being newbies into first home owner builder, we were initially looking into purchasing house and land package, and while this was great for fixing site costs, it made block location difficult for the house design we desired. We quickly developed a set of requirements for our block of land and started looking out houses that matched this design.
Requirements:
So off we went looking at new estates and displays to get an idea of what would work for us.
A year after our initial attempt at home ownership my wife and I were keen on looking into new options for a home. Our baby girl was growing fast and needs an area to play with all her toys, we were also finding out that our storage space was quickly disappearing with all the presents, toys, clothes, and other baby products that you collect.
We started to visit some of the displays again and started looking for land in estates that will provide a few requirements for ourselves.
Being newbies into first home owner builder, we were initially looking into purchasing house and land package, and while this was great for fixing site costs, it made block location difficult for the house design we desired. We quickly developed a set of requirements for our block of land and started looking out houses that matched this design.
Requirements:
- Location Location Location: This was by far the most important decision, we couldn't afford to build in the new estates that are closer to the city and my wife doesn't want to drive so she prefers access to public transport.
- Facilities: Shopping Centres, and key shops. e.g. Bunnings LOL and activities for our daughter when she grows a bit older.
- Next was Siting: We wanted a north facing block. A block that would give us north sun over our main living areas with bedrooms situated over the east side of the house and garage protecting the house from the west sun. This was important not only from a heating and cooling cost reduction but also a lifestyle. We have lived in houses that had rooms etc in the south end of the house and they were always very depressing due to the lack of Sun so we wanted to avoid this in our design.
- House and Block Size: We were after a block that would provide not a large back yard and at the same time not something that is completely useless. We like the idea of a small garden for veggies and some space for the kids to play with our pet rabbit. We noticed a common style of designs with new house is to have the alfresco cut into the backyard with the rest of the house wrapping around it and effectively leaving a very small space of say 2 - 3 meters behind the house.
- House Layout:
- Master + 3 Bedroom
- Ensuite
- Bathroom (not a shower room)
- Theatre room (huge movie fan and have always wanted to build one of these for ever)
- Bedrooms/Games room to the rear of the house to keep noise/kids mess away from the entertaining areas.
- Family & Kitchen Area The wife wanted a house that had these rooms very light and bright and "open"
So off we went looking at new estates and displays to get an idea of what would work for us.
Saturday, 21 May 2011
In the Beginning
Hi All,
My wife and I are looking into building our first home and we thought this would be a good way to document our Journey.
In the Beginning.
About a year or so ago my wife and I were looking to move out of our rental property. The main reason was due to the face that my wife was pregnant with our first child! Living in an area that has a very high turnover rate due to the close location to uni's, schools, and public transport further encouraged us to move as we wanted a more quiet and stable area to live in. We lived in the first of a two unit block and getting used to all the constant new neighbours and their noisy habits was getting tedious on us. The other motivating factor is the pain of watching a hefty sum of money pay someone else’s mortgage.
This sparked number of conversations and ideas of building bungalows, or extending my mother’s house back or up or both, but ideally we just wanted out of the rental at all costs. In the end we settled on an idea to renovate mums house with the plan of and selling and putting all our funds together. Off we all went and had a look at a number of display villages. We all decided on the Porter Davis Cayman as it gave us separate living areas that we could retreat to when needed. The up downstairs could easily be split for a two family type setup.
26th Feb 2011 - The renovations start.. Mums house needed a number of items fixed before we could enter the house into the market, roof repairs, full repaint, trees cut back, black berries cut and garage emptied of the 25 years or so of hording and other miscellaneous stuff that has been unattended to. So we went into home maker over mode, wife worked hard on cutting back away the black berries while she was pregnant. Her motivation of long term gain kept her going, but how sorry I felt for her cutting those things! I worked on cutting back tree's to open up the front of the house, and repainting all the trims and window frames. We worked nearly every weekend and every night doing repairs etc.
8th of May 2011 - Things started to change... We quickly realised that we bit off way more than we could chew. We got as far as completing the front yard fixed painting the eaves and trim, and then started to fix one of the bed rooms and then the out of nowhere the stress started to show with Mum. So we decided to pull the pin on that idea, if we can't handle the stress of a bit of reno’s how on earth could we all manage to go through the building process and then living together right? Haha...
My wife and I then looked at how we could do this venture on our own at this time, but the blow back from all the effort put into renovating, and mind you she put a huge amount of effort in while she was pregnant, and she'll never let me forget that either, never really gave us the motivation to look any further especially knowing that we weren’t getting the Cayman anymore. We parked the idea for a bit and worried more about the little one that was on the way.
My wife and I are looking into building our first home and we thought this would be a good way to document our Journey.
In the Beginning.
About a year or so ago my wife and I were looking to move out of our rental property. The main reason was due to the face that my wife was pregnant with our first child! Living in an area that has a very high turnover rate due to the close location to uni's, schools, and public transport further encouraged us to move as we wanted a more quiet and stable area to live in. We lived in the first of a two unit block and getting used to all the constant new neighbours and their noisy habits was getting tedious on us. The other motivating factor is the pain of watching a hefty sum of money pay someone else’s mortgage.
This sparked number of conversations and ideas of building bungalows, or extending my mother’s house back or up or both, but ideally we just wanted out of the rental at all costs. In the end we settled on an idea to renovate mums house with the plan of and selling and putting all our funds together. Off we all went and had a look at a number of display villages. We all decided on the Porter Davis Cayman as it gave us separate living areas that we could retreat to when needed. The up downstairs could easily be split for a two family type setup.
26th Feb 2011 - The renovations start.. Mums house needed a number of items fixed before we could enter the house into the market, roof repairs, full repaint, trees cut back, black berries cut and garage emptied of the 25 years or so of hording and other miscellaneous stuff that has been unattended to. So we went into home maker over mode, wife worked hard on cutting back away the black berries while she was pregnant. Her motivation of long term gain kept her going, but how sorry I felt for her cutting those things! I worked on cutting back tree's to open up the front of the house, and repainting all the trims and window frames. We worked nearly every weekend and every night doing repairs etc.
8th of May 2011 - Things started to change... We quickly realised that we bit off way more than we could chew. We got as far as completing the front yard fixed painting the eaves and trim, and then started to fix one of the bed rooms and then the out of nowhere the stress started to show with Mum. So we decided to pull the pin on that idea, if we can't handle the stress of a bit of reno’s how on earth could we all manage to go through the building process and then living together right? Haha...
My wife and I then looked at how we could do this venture on our own at this time, but the blow back from all the effort put into renovating, and mind you she put a huge amount of effort in while she was pregnant, and she'll never let me forget that either, never really gave us the motivation to look any further especially knowing that we weren’t getting the Cayman anymore. We parked the idea for a bit and worried more about the little one that was on the way.
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