A New Beginning

Why we are writing this blog:
To help keep track with the progress of the construction of our dream home, and have the option to look back and see how amazing the whole job has been. 


Just a bit about us. We are a family of 6 and we have been house hunting for almost 9 years now. We have been renting and never owned our own home. The reason for choosing such a large home is that we can comfortably fit everyone into the house, and leave us some spare rooms in the future when the children move out. 


We've looked at hundreds of houses but could never settle with something that the whole family agreed on. That was until we visited the Sandringham 45 at Wantirna South, Beaumaris Facade. We fell in love with the house at first sight and found that the floor plan would suit our family perfectly! We love the open plan concept and especially the void area in the kitchen. On the 10th April 2012, we decided to put down a deposit to build a Sandringham 45 from their prestige collection in the heart of Doncaster East. This will be a knock down rebuild project as there are not many empty plots of land available in the area anymore. 


We have built a commercial building before in Doncaster East but we have not done anything like a residential project until now. Just about 2 weeks ago (15th April 2012) after many consultations with the council and real estate agents we managed to secure a perfectly located plot of land in the heart of Doncaster East, Victoria. The land is fairly flat with only a slight inclination towards the rear of the block. It is a conner unit and currently have the cross-over opening toward the court area (Length area). We will have to relocate this to the width of the block. Our council representatives have been down to the site and gave us 'OK' to cross-over clearance. We have always lived in the area and we love it in the Eastern suburbs. Doncaster Westfield is just a 5 minute drive away. 
We've been very proactive in the whole process leading up to the purchase of the land and determining whether the house we want will fit on the land, subject to council approvals. 


Just prior to purchasing the land, we have read that Porter Davis had quite a number of bad reviews online. Our hearts were saddened to hear that our potential builder had a stack of problems with previous customers. So we decided that we should check this with the sales consultant and we managed to get in contact with the Regional Manager for the Eastern suburbs and have an opportunity to meet him and talk things through to ease our hearts. The whole PD team at the moment are very helpful and they are always willing to talk things through with us whenever we needed some clarification. We are still very cautious with the whole process and have engaged our own independent inspectors to walk us through the whole building process, checking every stage required. Some of them are friends of ours who have assisted us in our commercial building. 


Even before purchasing the land, we made our way down to Hopetoun Interiors to look at the standards and upgrades available to the house. The showroom is beautiful and we were not surprised to the extra costs for some of the products. You don't get things for free in this world, someone needs to pay for it. 


We are stoked about the Prestige inclusions as part of being 'standard' for our build as this helps with the cost of bringing our home to a designer feel without the large hefty price tag along with it. 


We are very excited about the whole process! We have ordered our independent soil test 2 weeks ago and now we are just waiting on PD Office to give us a call to book us in for our tile, colour and electrical appointments. 
PD has been getting bad publicity, but I applaud them for being so transparent with us and willing to help us along the way. Im sure we are off to a great start so far and I'm just looking forward to a happy working relationship with the builder.