Site Cut

With the heavens eventually opening up (we have been very lucky so far) over the last few days, we couldn't have the site cut until today. We were shocked that they decided to cut it while we had more rain predicted for the next few days but boy was it exciting to see how big the house would be and how much of the land it took up (just under half). We knew it was a big house but until you see the excavation, it's quite deceiving on paper.

gravel for the drive-way

....4 days to go

We now have the concrete shell started and we couldn't be happier. Mat, our supervisor has been fantastic and has been on top of the whole project, making sure we do not delay MJH from starting. 

They finished the shell in 2 days leaving just enough time to hand over the land to MJH

Thank you soooo much Mat we couldn't have wished for a better supervisor.

right side of the pool just near the plinth for my Buddha

just doing the steps in shallow end 

OMG...now that's a pool!

5 days to MJH construction

We now have plumbing to the pool

Countdown...9 days to go

With not only the countdown to build being started, I watched the weather forecast like a hawk. With every dark cloud passing by, I begged for the heavens to open up somewhere else. The gods must have heard me and we managed to get through to the next stage dry...phew

We now have a massive hole in the ground covered in steel  and supported by timber

Shallow end

My buddha will sit on the plinth above

the deep end

Pool construction

They started the dig and I couldn't believe how red the dirt was. Being on an old orchid has definitely been a bonus for us. We had no surprises with hitting rock, clay or water so no extra excavation was needed. With the pool being so large (8x8x4x4), it took them 2 days and 13 truck loads to finish.

Pool Pegout

Award pools came and pegged out the pool. It's surprising how different it looks now that they have it mapped out on the ground compared to just seeing it on paper. I'm so looking forward to watching another one being built it's fascinating.

4 little red pegs

We have 4 little red pegs sitting on our block as of this morning, and now we can get the pool started before our 20 days is up...it's gunna be tight!

Approved!

We have been approved...hooray and yippee onto the next step - CC

It's approved (the pool)

We've been approved and are now ready to start. And now we have to wait until we get the house plans approved by the developers and the water factory and then council.

The Pool

We signed the contracts for the pool today and now are looking forward to seeing it come to life as this will be constructed (concrete shell) before the build

Pool contracts

We signed the contracts for the pool

It's sold!

We sold our home in Kellyville Ridge at the first Home Open.

Having built this Wisdom Home only 4 years ago, it was quite sad to know that someone else will be living in it soon.

I'm keeping a positive mind though, and can't wait for our new 'Dream Home' to be built.

We had 32 groups of people who all said it was a beautiful home come through, with 4 couples taking home a contract.

We also had 2 groups of people trying to buy the house there and then (it was a bidding war) in the backyard.

We had one couple who didn't want to leave and sat in the sitting room just admiring.

We were happy to take the highest offer that was made, signed the contracts and popped open a bottle of champs and celebrated.

I would highly recommend both Sid and Ruma of Century 21 Bella Vista, who did an outstanding job with the campaign.

Both of them made selling our home (however sad) a pleasant experience.

you can see why we wanted to build on a much bigger block - not much room left for the kids to play once you put a pool in!

We built the home on a 620m2 block with 21m2 frontage & extended the third garage to the rear of the house (think 4 car garage now) to accommodate our wake boat. 

Making a move

After many months of getting itchy feet, I convinced Geoff (husband) to put our 4 year old home on the market and build again.

For a long time (probably due to the many trips we've made throughout Asia), I've wanted to create our very own 'Tropical Oasis'.

Still wanting to build a modern home, I knew I would have to incorporate a 'Modern' look, with an Asian twist.

We had built on a block size of 620m2, returning to Sydney after spending 4 and a half years in WA.

 We had a pool and a smallish backyard for both the boys and Oscar my maltese x shih-tzu (think Foo dog), to play in but it just wasn't meeting our needs anymore.

We had a wonderful experience building with Wisdom Homes, but we didn't want to build another double story home on such a big block this time around so we started looking at single story homes instead.

Leading up to the home open which was going to be on the 15th September, we purchased a 1543m2 block in Pitt Town, North West of Sydney.

Now that things were getting serious, I spent almost everyday wondering around the display homes both over the net and in person and whilst some were very nice, others were just over the top too expensive, or not the right design and just didn't have that 'OMG' factor.

We wanted something that we could tie the 'Resort' look into, with the main living areas & Master bedroom to the rear so as to make most of both the pool area and backyard when the kids are playing footy!

 After going through the MJH display homes here numerous times, we eventually made an appointment to sit down with Aaron (salesman) at Homeworld Kellyville .

We told him that we just loooovvvved the designs that we had already been through, but they just didn't give us what we were looking for.

When we told him what we wanted to do, and the style of home we thought would best suit us and our lifestyle, he showed us a brochure of the 'Chesterfield' design and as soon as we both went through it, I looked at Geoff and we both smiled and said... 'That's the one'.

I couldn't stop smiling, I wanted to sign up there and then, but instead we arranged for him to get a site inspection asap.

Within a couple of days he rang us with the soil test results, and said to come in.
By this time, I had changed the plan slightly (should've been an architect), and came up with a design that was just perfect and catered to all of our needs.

We added a lounge room and a powder room, a third car garage and included a home office.

You can see the actual plan & changes here

Yep... all the way back to those trees!