For those who know us know it’s been a looooong time to get to this point. This point being late October 2019, and finally there is movement. This particular post will go over the last ~ 2 ½ years to get to mid’19. It’s rather long winded (much like the author ). Future posts will move forward from there and are shorter with more photos. If you want the whole history then read on. If you don’t, suggest you skip to the next post titled ‘Pre-demolition’.
Late 2016. We bought our block eons ago, always with a view to, one day, do a big renovation or Knock-Down Rebuild. We’re not in a flashy suburb by any stretch, but it’s a ~ 700m2 block in the Sandbelt, backing onto a golf course, so we thought it was worth staying. In the meantime, it served its purpose. No real aesthetic appeal but it was functional. Much like the thinking behind Pruitt Igoe Even the possums moved out from our roof cavity about 3 years ago, after one of them fell through the lean-to sunroom ceiling damaged by years of water damage – true story! But we endured, saving our money to one day invest in a new home.
Well, that day arrived late 2016 … we started the process. At the outset, rightly or wrongly, we leaned towards larger volume builders. Primarily for the one-throat-to-choke benefit but fully understanding that all builds/renovations will encounter problems, and volume builders have their own pros & cons much like bespoke builders. I would like to think we went into this with our eyes open, and aimed to be realistic, flexible and just deal with each issue as it arose.
Weeks were spent scouring the web for house designs, reading blogs & forums about other people’s experiences. It was an eye-opener, but not enough to scare us off. Then months of driving to display homes in far-flung, newly built suburbs. The design that most appealed to us was Porter Davis’ Hoffman 39, and in particular, the New England façade. (Sample stock image top left and the external colours will be more like the pictures to the right). Back of our house will be a speckled light brown brick (both upstairs & downstairs)
We liked the weatherboard look and it was in keeping with our neighbours’ weatherboard homes. A small part of our thinking was that our neighbours would be more likely to support the project & inconvenience if the end-product was more palatable to them. As usual I had overthought this. Our neighbours were just happy for us to build, and relieved that we were not subdividing & trying to squeeze in multiple dwellings … unlike another owner 3 houses down who is trying to cram a 3 storey house & 2 x double storey townhouses onto a 600 sqm corner block!!!! Like a lot of these homes, the upstairs ‘façade’ only wraps around the sides of the house by a few meters, with the back of the house consisting of a brick upstairs and downstairs. Bottom front will have the rendered look as illustrated. Anyway, not too modern or flashy, but, not another faux French Provincial either
Inside, the layout appealed to us mainly because of:
- 4 decent sized bedrooms, all upstairs, with the master to the front, and kids’ rooms to the back. By the time this is built I might be too old to climb stairs, but as the kids get to an age where they have friends over, then us oldies can retreat upstairs … or better yet, run away.
- The layout used our modest 15m block width quite well with a decent sized laundry & storage area which had outside access. Like a lot of the homes it had an open plan kitchen, dining & living area towards the back of the house with a square finish preferred over an al fresco area. Great storage in the kitchen, galley, walk-in pantry and laundry. This would also leave us a bit of a backyard to put in a pool, and still have a little bit of garden left.
So, by the time we spoke to Porter Davis we had a fair idea of what we wanted.
2017
Jan’17 – Sales Stage.
Maybe because we had selected Porter Davis (PD) before even talking to them, or maybe we got lucky, but our sales agent wasn’t pushy and instead focused on accommodating our needs within our preferred design, and showing us what other PD customers had done with their home, and being honest with what changes PD could accommodate (& indicative cost) vs what they couldn’t. Some of the layout changes to the ‘standard plans’ we settled on were:
- Added lots of windows – we both like lots of natural light, and we wanted to enjoy the views onto the backyard & golf course. Walls that had no windows got windows, especially upstairs (even if highlight windows), and existing windows were made larger. Sliding door to the backyard was made a triple stacker. If you suffer from solar urticaria or you’re a vampire, then this house is not for you.
- Increased the width of the garage to the fence line, and increased the lounge room width
- Increased the study width a little by shifting the internal shared wall to the family area (to get a more functional study)
- Increased main bathroom at the expense of the upstairs study nook
- By adding a window to bedroom 4 meant having to change the room configuration (to accommodate their ducting cavities) thus slightly increasing its size by shifting the wall out into the games room a little
- Lastly, a little ashamed to admit we added in a laundry chute from the master ensuite (which sits directly above the laundry bench). Silly, I know, but we thought it might increase the odds of dirty clothes making their way to the laundry, rather than a series of ‘magic spots’ strewn through the house. And yes, one day we may well find the youngest stuck in there claiming that his brother dared him.
Made the first ‘sales stage’ payment. Also started visiting their ‘World of Style’ South Melbourne showroom which displays all the colours, fittings, appliances, materials, kits in different settings (similar to a home idea center), and then going back to display homes to see these various finishes applied in a finished home. This is like serving a kid red cordial, giving them a cute puppy, and letting them loose in a candy or toy store with the instruction of picking something they like. Everyone obviously knows this is where their margin comes from. I’m sure people could either save themselves money by doing it themselves afterwards, or for the same money get better quality. However:
- Our view (again, rightly or wrongly) was that we wanted the prime (PD) to oversee & be responsible for a lot of it, even if we paid a premium for that.
- Because it’s a double storey sitting on a slab, some things have to be done at build time or they’re impossible to do afterwards, e.g. groundfloor electrical, ducting etc
- And for things that could be done afterwards, e.g. flooring – we didn’t want to be stuck organising flooring post hand-over, and then dealing with skirting & paintwork touch-ups etc
} but very quickly the headline price left the original list price far behind
May’17 Tender & Contract Stage. One does not have all the information back from all the various department appointments (where each department is e.g. kitchen, curtains, colours, electrics, wardrobes), but one has a pretty good idea of what the total expected cost will be (give or take $50k). Even for items not presented, the various departments are quite good at giving a ball park estimate, provided that a $5k or $10k item here or there does not shock you. For the most part this process went well. The only exception regards a window we specifically added upstairs to the back for views of the backyard & golf course. Despite initially receiving assurances, to our chargrin, we noticed they had obscured (frosted) it in the drawings & neglected to tell us.
May 2017 to mid 2019
If I detailed all the ‘issues’ over 2 years in this Kafkaesque nightmare this blog will stretch beyond even the most patient human’s attention span. Broadly there speaking the issues can be categorised into 3 complications, which if they were mutually discrete, could have been dealt with much more quickly. However, that was not the case here. The 3 broad complications which contributed to the delays were:
- The Tree. (aka Arbol de la Muerte aka The Money Tree aka That F####g Tree!)
For those who don’t know we have a very large & beautiful Liquidambar in our front yard right at the corner of the driveway & front fence. Shades the house in summer, lets light in during winter, and a roadhouse for birdlife. The ‘tree protection plan’ (TPP) & council had a significant impact to the builder’s standard procedures & time on the project. To give you an idea – the fine for illegally chopping a tree down (which was never contemplated) is $30k. To date, the costs incurred directly & indirectly more than double that!! - The Builder. No news to anyone that volume builders need things to happen a certain way for their well-oiled machine to run. The aforementioned TPP threw an enormous spanner into this machine. However, in addition to this, there were other issues associated with building in our area, in what volume builders call ‘out of zone’ (i.e. not in new housing estates). For this reason, they apply a surcharge. No problem with that & we expected to incur extra costs in addition to these. These issues were e.g. overhead wires, service provisioning impacted by the TPP, and private open space. However, our observation has been that this charge does not equate to proactive management of the issues. Instead a lot of that work fell on us to resolve, compounded by not having expertise. So, we chose a volume builder as a prime, paid extra for the zone, but then still had to deal with all the zone related issues – go figure!
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The Council. This peremptory organisation’s inconsistent interpretations & application of rules caused many months of delays. On some matters it was at best, obtuse, and worst, obstructionist. In addition to their own delays, the necessary re-solutioning caused further delays. No one has problems with rules that are consistently applied, but when you can find contradictions meters away, it leaves little room for credibility & trust. Sorry to say that one lesson I have learnt from dealing with them is “If you don’t think you’ll like the answer, then don’t ask the question”
Sorry about ‘unloading’ but it explains some of the delays, and brings you roughly up to mid 2019, where we could start getting some traction on this project. Sorry it took so long. But I warned you!
The next post is “Pre-demolition” covers some of the activities leading up to demolition.