Tender

Wow... what an experience.

As we were on our way to UEH, I got a phone call, but as I was driving, and my mobile was in my pocket, I let it ring out.  Got to UEH and the voicemail was from them saying they were running late with the previous appointment.  So we sat for a while.  Then got shown a number of documents by someone else - to fill the time - and after 45 minutes we went through to see someone different.

Turns out this wonderfully helpful lady was the operations manager, and she was from Johannesburg too!  Not only that, but she lives in Eynesbury herself!  Well, that got the after off on a great footing.  We got to see our consultant, and shame, she'd had a hectic day, but she was terrific.  She answered 99% of our questions, gave us personal input - she has small kids too - and was so amazingly helpful.  And even though we left after 16H30, we were in a lot better mood than when we arrived.  I cannot say how much of a difference spending an afternoon with this lady has made.

So...the Tender is 90% done.  We're waiting on the costing of the laminate flooring, and of a few other things.  All of which we should receive before the end of the week.  At which point, we'll take a week to completely finalise our outstanding choices and settle down for the wait.

Still no concrete info on the bricks though...but that'll come tomorrow...we're hoping our first choice isn't an upgrade...but we'll have to wait and see.

It was really amazing to see our house plans drawn up properly with all our alterations... sooo cool.  We've got to work out what to do with the kitchen pot drawerns, because 48cm drawers just seem a tad too small to me... so...thinking cap on and off to the Home One forums!

And then there were 3.

And so, as per UEH's instructions, we have narrowed our list down to 3 possible bricks.  Boral's Escura Flame Red, Boral's Elan Labassa, and Austral's Homestead Tan.

During our drive through Eynesbury, we noted so many different colours of bricks that it still puzzles us as to why there is even a list.  Oh well... let's see what those 3 brick types may cost us.

Bricks, the saga continues

If you recall, we're new to building a house in Australia, so we don't know much about the process.  So it's easy for us to get frustrated and confused.  We started off thinking we had many bricks to pick from and really, since the rug was whipped out from under us, we've yet to recover our footing.

We're not pointing fingers.  This is the process of building in Eynesbury.  Just... people buying land and planning to build there, need to be given the below list of bricks right at the start.  Just like we're given the list of plant and fencing restrictions/requirements, so too should the bricks be included.  Even then, with a limited number of builders, the builders either do not enquire often enough, or the updated list is not circulated by Eynesbury.  So the list below that was sent to us by Urban Edge isn't the most recent - we got that from Eynesbury ourselves, but it does cover 90%+ of the bricks.

And to add to the confusion, because those bricks are not in the "Colour Book" we were given at the start, we had no idea what category many of the Eynesbury bricks fell into, and when categories can differ by thousands of dollars, it matters.  Then we're told that bricks in the same range, are actually different prices, often 2 or more categories apart.  Then you get an unhelpful salesman at a Boral display area that simply wouldn't give my wife any sort of pricing to be able to at least compare - yes, just the price you sell to the man-in-the-street, not a builder's "account price".  And then there are the terms.  Standard/Upgrade vs Category.  Is Standard the same as Category 1 or 2?  Is the Upgrade the same as Category 3?  4?  5?!

I'm sure the ladies at Urban Edge are as frustrated as we are, and they are being as helpful as they can.  Had the list been given to us right at the start, we wouldn't be chasing our tails right now.  So tomorrow its off to look at more bricks at the display centers.  Hopefully come Monday, we'll have a resolution and we can move on to the next item(s). :)

And here's the list:

Colours, colours... yet more colours!

We went through to Eynesbury again on Saturday to look at the various houses to see which bricks we liked.  The people from Eynesbury were very helpful and offered to help identify the different bricks, we just had to pick the houses.  So off we went.  We picked about 10 houses, 9 of them in Stage 7.  Of the 10, 5 were Austral Homestead Tan, 4 were Austral Latrobe (Discontinued...) and 1 was Boral Labassa.  The Homestead Tan in the photo in the Austral pamphlet looks nothing like the real thing.

So we'll be back there again this weekend to check on those houses and pick which of the two we like most, Homestead Tan, or Labassa, both of which will apparently be an upgrade ($$$?).

We have chosen Sandy Day for the walls, with Toffee Fingers in the Theatre room.  Lexicon for the roof and Bedbox for the front door.  The kitchen will be a mixture of Polytec's Classic White Gloss with New Barron Alder Gloss, both in Thermolaminated vinyl wrap.  The kitchen and bathroom countes will be White Shimmer caesarstone.  The splashback is a special colour Michelle picked.  All the window frames, gutters, etc. will be Woodland Grey.

We'll likely be going with laminate flooring in the main areas, with carpets in the bedrooms, study and theatre.

One last thing.  Stage 3 had at least 2 Urban Edge houses that were bricked and roofed already.  Damn they are fast.

Colours, part 2.

So I didn't post the names of the colours because well... we're probably going to change half of them.  The bricks in the photo do not look that nice in reality, which is frustrating.  Not only that, but of the Category 1 and Category 2 bricks that Urban Edge offers us as part of our options, it appears there are only 4...yes...just 4... that Eynesbury has approved... jaw dropping.  We have been told that Eynesbury has not approved a single PGH brick, and Urban Edge only other normal offering is Boral.  To get Austral bricks would be an upgrade.  So of the wopping 38 brick types in Categories 1 and 2, listed in the colour book we were given, NONE, ZIP, ZERO, are apparently approved.  Boggles the mind.

So we're trying to get a definitive list from Eynesbury, but we're really confused, as we've seen so many nice bricks in Stage 7 where most of the building is going on right now.  We're wonderring if we should go ask the various builders what bricks they're using.  :)

Unfortunately, our toddler was quite sick over the weekend, so we didn't get much of a chance to look around at show houses.  This weekend however...

Colours...

So today we had our colour appointment.  We've never been to one, so weren't sure what to expect.

Well, we were exhausted by the end.  Sooo many choices.  Anyway, we've picked a variety of stuff...and we'll be thinking a lot about them, and going to see lots of show houses this weekend to double check on our selection.  Below is a picture of our initial selection...we'll see if we stick to that or not... The bricks we want to at least see on a real house...

I'll explain each colour a bit later.

Eynesbury Stage 10

We went out to see Eynesbury again - we enjoy going out there for the peacefulness - and we saw that Stage 10 is now under construction.  It's a building site, so you can just see it, but no going into it.

We did a better inspection of where our lot will be, and we've noticed that the plans of Eynesbury seem to indicate - still want to confirm this with them - that the two small dams near Stage 9 and Stage 11 are going to be kept.  That will make that reserve area an amazing place to go walking.

We were also very impressed to see 3 houses at framing stage already in Stage 3, and another almost done with its slab.  And can you believe it, they're ALL Urban Edge.  Great news for us considerring we want to start building as soon as our land titles.