23rd June 2021
still no progress on the site as there is a timber shortage. We did meet the Project Manager last week at the preliminary hand over for my nephews home. He said that there are 120 builds on hold for the beams for the roof and because of Victor Harbors building inspector no one can enter the site to carry on any other works until these are installed. Hickinbotham are looking at lamenated beams using young timber or steel. So we wait.
The build finish date is now September 2021.
History:
Rod and I had purchased this land at McCracken. Was it a wise purchase? To build? I dont know.
We chose Hickinbotham in the end and it has been a bumpy decision to have made. We chose them as Fairmont Homes were too busy to deal with us and Weeks Home came in too dear. Hickinbotham was also chosen because my nephew and his partner will get a $500 referal fee.
You see there was a housing incentive created by the Federal Govt and the State Govts to boost our housing economy after the slump of 2020 covid year. So we took advantage of this incentive of $25,000 for a new build.
We are not entirely happy with this build as what we were told at sales and design person is that a lot of things can be changed at selections. Guess What? They weren't.
The items we are not happy about are:
no sliding door to our bathroom as they could not put a towel rail there as the screws will not have support.
no ledges in the shower recess so we now have to have soap holders or none at all
at selections we were told the NBN will be $300 only not $1300. The girl even went off to check!
rainwater tank location is on the opposite side to what we wanted.
There were several other things the draughters did when they drew up the plans and never checked with us. We had to argue that this was not a variation and they could not charge us with fees if we havent even approved of the plans. I could go on.
At the end we signed off to just get the build going . Would we build again? Ask me when the project is finished.
14th june 2021
not much to report here other than the plumber has been.
9th june 2021
Gutters added and the steel posts for the front enterance
2nd june 2021
checking after storm passed through
May 24th 2021
Frame is up at last!! We had our first walk through.
May 14th 2021
timber for frames, windows, doors and bricks have been delivered
May 11th 2021
Sewer Drainage being added after slab pour
May 8th 2021
Slab and site check
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| Hickinbothams marker |
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| looking back to the road |
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| looking at road height to our front porch |
April 28th 2021
Slab has been poured today.
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| as you can see our floor level is quite high. Rod is standing at the corner of our garage. |
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| walking up the driveway |
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| sunset at McCracken |
April 23rd 2021
checking site works where the land has been cut. the steel, piping etc has arrived on site.
April 22nd 2021
checking the site where the next door neighbours concrete path had to be cut back as it was on our land and the garage slab has to be poured here
April 21st 2021
This is exciting. The site has now been cut in preparation for the slab pour. It is surpisingly quite deep.
Rod has removed the fencing along the garage side but will need help to remove the concrete sleepers as they are too heavy.
Arpil 17th 2021
land has now been cleared and a top layer of road base has been layed in preparation for the site cut.
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| garage markings. |
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| you can see how long our house is going to be from the front of the proposed garage. |
site walk check. Aparently we have to remove the fencing as the next door neighours have built over on our land by 100mm and we need to claw back at least 60mm from their path for our garage slab. The architects have measured twice and checked with the town site plans. The neighbour has has her plans checked. So who is in the wrong?
you can tell they are serious about our site when the porta loo arrives.
April 12th 2021
site has been cleared and now for the road base to cover our site. Porta loo (portable toilet) is now on site.
January 11th 2021
off to selections....spent the whole day there and we exhausted when we left. Plus we really hope our selections are the right choice as there was no coming back.
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| Bricks, roof tiles, gutters and garage door |
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| kitchen cupboards, bench top, handles, and black tile splashback |
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| timber flooring bathroom wall tiles, and bathroom floor tiles |
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| overall colour scheme for the house including the carpet sample |
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| our house plan based on the Halifax |
This took us about 3 months of pouring over the internet for different house plans for a narrow and long block of land. It was agony in the end! the land is 10.75m at the front, 43m long and 12 m across the back.
land at purchase
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| looking towards the road |
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| road to back of property. |
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