Now onto the Construction Stage!

What a relief when we saw this in our inbox today. 

"Congratulations.Your file has now been moved to Construction."

We are told construction is due to start within 20 working days. Hallelujah! 

We have had a long and stressful start and we haven't even started building yet. We will go into detail in a later regarding all the dramas we've had and hopefully things to be more mindful of for future first home owners/builders. From now on, let's hope it will be smooth sailing! (yeah, right..) 

Looking forward to finally posting up photos on this blog!

CDC Approval Finally!

After a VERY long wait, we finally have CDC Approval! We were emailed the CDC approval and approved final plans from Firstyle Homes on the 22nd of June and received a hard copy in the mail a few days after.

Our CDC was from a private certifier 'Sbac' Building Consultants and Certifiers which we initially thought was the fast track approach.

This has been an extremely long wait for us considering we put our first deposit ONE YEAR ago and  our land was registered in March! We are not quite sure why there was such a delay...We were told from Firstyle that it was due to delay from Sydney Water  but considering that quite a few houses around us are well into the construction process, we weren't given any details who's part was causing the delay.

Clipsal Electrical Appointment

We attended our Clipsal Electrical Appointment on 1st June 2016. Tip: We were told that Clipsal would call us when they had appointments available and could be delayed due to high demand from other builders. However, we waited for over a month, so I called them up myself and just made an appointment on the spot. So if you are building and waiting for someone to call you, just call up and make the appointment.

Prior to the appointment, Clipsal will email you of all the directions on how to get there. Their location is in the business sector of Macquarie Park. Before you get settled into your appointment and the nitty gritty the consultant will show you a few of the selections and upgrades, mainly the selection of down lights and switches.

Our consultant was Jenna, who we found was very friendly and helpful. She sounded very knowledgable and honest and anything she wasn't sure of she asked the electricians who were at Clipsal.

During the consultant we went through where we wanted to place each of the lights, switches, phone lines, data cables and TV antennae. Firstyle only provides around 21 batten holders but you do have the option of crediting them towards an upgrade like down lights for an extra cost.

In regards to down lights we were debating whether to have them installed after handover with an electrician as we have been told by many people it will be a lot cheaper. However we ended up having the down lights installed with Clipsal mainly due to convenience. The price for each  LED downlight was $165 however since we credited a few batten lights, it came down to $105 each. We were also informed that the Clipsal does install a surface socket with the downlight so essentially it will be easier to change in the future. (Unfortunately Clipsal didn't allow for the surface sockets to be installed without the downlight being installed.)

Clipsal surface socket:
https://www.clipsal.com/Trade/Products/Electrical-Accessories/General-Wiring-Accessories-Tools/Surface-Socket-Outlets#.V2ZaF-Z94yk

We have summarised the upgrades we chose at Clipsal and price quoted.

1. Extra Batten Holder $60 each 
2. Extra Downlight 11W LED  $165 each 
3. Outdoor wall light $100
4. Extra Dimmer switch $90
5. Upgrade to slim design switch $15
6. 2 Way switch $50
7. Outdoor socket $100
8. Extra 2 socket $60
9. Extra Data/phone cable $59 
10. Heat Fan for bathroom $368

Overall we had a good experience with Clipsal although an expensive one! Our electrical upgrades costed around $3200 all up and that was us being conservative. So definitely set a budget and do your research beforehand if you can. As mentioned we did settle with some products due to the convenience. 

We can post up photos of our selections and plans. 

Firstyle and Internal Colour Selections

When we initially put down our $15,400 initial administration and planning deposit (which seemed like so long ago) we received a colour selection pack. This provided us with all the basic inclusions and general selections that were available.

First tip before going to the colour selections appointment is to DO YOUR RESEARCH! The appointment is quite fast paced and found that we were faced with on-the-spot decisions. It is definitely a good idea to have a shop around to have a rough idea of your budget.

Firstyle also has a fine print which states any additional requests after their selection appointment will incur an administration fee of $250.00 PLUS GST per ITEM. So it is best that you have some of what you want and it's best that you include it in your variation list now as you can always delete the items later if you're over budget.

We also found that during the appointment they could only really give us a rough estimate of pricing and some things actually came back less than quoted.

Below we have listed some of the variations and upgrades we included in our home and the prices we were quoted. Note: prices do not include GST when quoted.

1. Upgraded our garage door to Timbercoat $750
2. Stain finish to front door $350
3. Upgrade front door handle to a pull bar handle $395
4. Additional laminated colour to bottom kitchen cupboards $210
5. Glass splash back to kitchen $1,250
6. Star mixers to showers, bath and vanities $627
7. Water point to fridge $250

Most things we upgraded were due to convenience to save us from doing it ourselves later. To be honest most upgrades I would say were overpriced and could be done after handover. 

Will update with photos soon.