Weeks 1-2

Hi all, and welcome to our blog.  We're new to blogging and we're new to building a home in Australia.  My name is Garrick, and my wife is Michelle.  We currently have a cute little toddler, Amy.

A few weeks ago we received a brochure in the mail about Eynesbury, and my wife told me we should go take a look - I hadn't actually even seen the brochure at this stage.  I drove out towards Eynesbury from Point Cook, and the TomTom GPS took us along a dirt road, past farm houses and livestock.  I was thinking, where on earth is this place.  Driving onto the land, we encountered the Grey Box forest, and I really started to wonder where we were.  And then we started to look around.  We looked at the houses, and a certain gentleman with quite extensive knowledge managed to catch my wife's ear and attention while I browse floor plans on the wall.  I listened with half an ear as Luke, from Urban Edge, explained various things to my wife.  I was more interested in their floorplans and what they could do.  We walked around the display homes some more, but as Amy needed a nap, we never actually drove around the first stage to explore it a bit more.  Instead, we headed home and decided to go visit Salwater Estate on the outskirts of Point Cook to see the Lavin 03 and Rouge 04 that they had on show there.  

Well, we fell in love with the Rouge 04 almost immediately.  We then started ponderring if Urban Edge would make any alterations.  Because honestly, we had seen a Porter Davis design and a Metricon design that had the Rumpus room "amongst" the bedrooms, and we liked that.  But we loved the size of the Rouge's kitchen, and the front half of the house was perfect as it was.  We visited Luke again the next Saturday - following the tarmac road this time - and he enthusiastically helped us with a slight redesign.  And then it was up to us.  Get our Style+ package, and the alterations done at the 2010-2011 prices or wait and maybe not get a great piece of land.

So the next week was spent crunching numbers, speaking to financial people, and consulting with my parents - who have built a number of houses and know the house game well.  All systems were a go... now... the land... our redesign meant that we needed an East facing plot, with a driveway on the NE corner... where...where... noooo!  There weren't any in Stage 11A that worked... so we spoke to Luke, who put us in touch with Matt, and the lot we liked could have the driveway moved.  So, lot 11010 was ours for the taking.  647sq.m of east facing land.

So after not even 2 weeks, there we were... cheques in hand... putting our deposit on our land and booking Urban Edge to do our build.  Phew... what an experience.  We are now looking forward to our new home so much.  The land titles around May 2012 and we estimate building to commence in June 2012, with a rough finish date of anywhere from December to Feb.  That gives us a fair amount of time to pick whom we want as our mortgage lender.

For now we plan the alterations, and in a few weeks we'll do our "Colour Room" visit.  I'll add picture of the floorplan when we have them finalised.

Here is the facade that we've chosen, but not in those colours.  Nice brickwork to the front, with a small patio and eaves.