Building and Construction of our New Eden Brae Waldorf 50 at North Kellyville

A Job Well Done! With James Treble (Left) and Amy Tanner (Right) It was a rather interesting day today at Eden Brae with our Interior Designer James Treble. We completed the following appointments today: Tiles and Carpet; Plumbing; and Electrical. We also revisited Kitchen Culture to take a look at our quotation and also took another look at the colours for our home. Tiles and Carpet - Dilorenzo Tiles We completed our tiles and carpet at Dilorenzo Tiles in Castle Hill and we were looked after by Anna.  James helped us greatly with our tile selection and carpet.  For once we were able to keep within the allowance with the carpet, except we paid $8 per m2 for the best underlay available.  After working a long day, I'm sure everyone would agree that coming home to lovely and comfortable carpet is important. For the entry, mud, kitchen, dining and family rooms we decided to go for the porcelain tiles.  This is of course over and above our allowance.  We were

We had our day one appointment today with Eden Brae Homes. We went through and completed the following things: Colour Selections (Both Internal & External); Blinds with Abbey Shutters; Air Conditioning; Staircase; Kitchen; and Power room & Ensuite. It's been rather an interesting day and we were graced with the presence of James Treble who is our interior designer and his assistant Amy Pacewicz along with Amy Tanner from the Home Options Gallery. Colour Selections We have chosen the following for our external colours: PGH Bricks - Mild Steel Mortar Joints - Ironed Off White Gutter & Fascia - Monument Monier Horizon Roof Tile - Barramundi Front Timber Door (Entry and Balcony) - Quantum Timber Stain Merbau Garage Door - Decowood Ironbark Aluminium Windows & Doors - Stegbar Basalt Rear Balcony Door - Basalt Hinge Garage & Laundry Door - Basalt Render to the front-middle of the home - Dune Driveway - Baines Pavers Metric - Char

Another step in our journey towards our new home today as it's been almost three months since the exchange of contracts. Stamp duty is payable on vacant land even if it is off the plan within three months. If you bought a unit, you apparently have up to 15 months to pay. Based on our land value being $735,000 the amount of stamp duty payable was $28.585.00 At least it's now complete and we can continue to move forward.

Today, we went to the CSR PGH Bricks & Pavers site in Schofields to take a look at the range of bricks, tiles, and pavers. I contacted Eden Brae to see what range of bricks the Prestige Luxury Inclusions package included.  I was advised by the builder the range available without any additional charges would be Range A, B & E. In addition, the $1 sale included upgrades to the Premium Horizon Roof Upgrade with A-Line Seamless Capping. In anticipation for our Day 1 appointment, we made a trip to PGH Bricks and Pavers to see the options available.  Prior to today, we had gotten a list of addresses of homes where we were able to see how the colour scheme works with the brick we had in mind, however, we decided to see PGH and work on a colour scheme we would believe would fit our own home. We were met by Sue who is a consultant at PGH Bricks & Pavers.  She was extremely helpful and did a remarkable job spending plenty of time with us in terms of assisting us to choose col

After transferring the balance of the 5% deposit to Reid and Vesely's Trust Account which was negotiated previously, the Contract for the Sale of Land was posted to the Vendor's Solicitor for exchange. An exciting day even though we might be watching our bank account balance dwindle, but at least our dream of building our new Eden Brae home has begun!

Today we received correspondence from Samantha Skrzypiec, Customer Service Administrator at Eden Brae notifying that she has received our file and that it will be inactive for a few months, primarily due to the land not being registered at the moment. BASIX cannot be done at the moment as it is only valid for 3 months so it won't be until February at the earliest before they can look at getting BASIX approval. In addition, we received an SMS and an email from Carolyn Maher at the Home Option Gallery and that the colour appointments must be done no later by the end of February 2017 for our new home. For the Home Option Gallery, we have been asked to put aside 2 days where: Day 1 involves being scheduled through Kitchens, Plumbing, Air, Blinds , and of course colours . This is all day appointment. Day 2 is usually booked by the consultant at the completion of Day 1 and involves consultations with Dilorenzo tiles, Electrical, and stairs.

Building Contract Day has arrived! Met with Sara Amorelli today at 2pm to sign the Building Contract and in addition we went through the plans to see if there were any errors whatsoever. Added and changed the following as a Post Contract Variation: 2 x Flush panel hinge doors - One for the Laundry Storeroom and the other was for the BED 1 Walk-In-Wardrobe (WIR); Delete the 'Manhole' to the garage; Relocate of the air conditioning unit; Relocate Gas Hot Water System; Relocate the 4000L rain water tank; Change the size of the aluminium sliding window for the Home Theatre; Deleted the aluminium sliding window for the Laundry and replaced with an aluminium awning window; and BED 1 Balcony Slide Door replaced with French Windows. Cost of the Post Contract Variation: $2,356.00 (This amount is to be paid at a later date) Balance of the 5% deposit was also due today, totalling $28,065.40 Once we were all done, we decided to have a selfie with our Tender and Co

Received the draft building contract today from the Tender and Contract Presenter Sara Amorelli. Reminded that balance of 5% is due upon signing Building Contract. 2 Days to GO before signing the Building Contract.

This is getting exciting now!  Seeing the plans for the very first time on our proposed block makes it so surreal that we are really moving forward with this project. Although the interior of the building remains unchanged from the tender, we discovered the air-conditioning unit would be placed at the back of the home theatre, hopefully we can change the location when we bring it up when we get to the Building Contract. A few bits and pieces, but essentially the layout is there for us to see. Blessed to see a backyard of almost 11 metres!  Looks like the kids are going to have a wonderful time at home knowing they have a huge backyard.

Today we met Sara Amorelli our Tender & Contract Presenter at Eden Brae Homes at Norwest Business Park this morning. We went through the preliminary plans and how the building will sit on the land based on the information from the developer as well as the tender which tells us what is included and what isn't included into the pricing.  As we are building a Home & Land Package with Eden Brae, the process is so much easier as they cover almost everything and if there is anything that they have to cover in terms of extra costs, they are to absorb the charges. We apparently got a few things for free which we didn't expect.  When we met Kevin at Homeworld Kellyville a few weeks earlier we included the cost for the fly screens, however because the property has been rated BAL 12.5 which is on the lower scale of a fire prone area, they are apparently included in the fixed price for the building. We added doors to all the WIR and Ensuites in the home.  We still had to pay

Received an email from Samantha Skrzpiec the Customer Service Administrator at Eden Brae Homes early this morning. Tender Appointment set down for 9th June 2016 at 11am! Getting excited as this is all starting to get moving and happening!

Received a call from Sara Amorelli in regards to our plans for the Waldorf 50. Unfortunately due to the "Multi" room where it was proposed to fill the void area on the first floor it now exceeds the first floor site coverage allowance. Apparently, the permissable first floor coverage was meant to only be 30% of 180.1m2 but we were way over it.  As the variation for the room costed $6,480 I did not want to give away the value that we had received from Eden Brae. As a result, to ensure that the plans will meet council specifications I had no choice but to drop the variation for the "Multi" room however I was allowed to put the amount back into other items. We decided to upgrade the following items for that amount: The Gallery (Which would have been just an empty space if we didn't upgrade); and Provide glass doors to the pantry. I guess you win and lose sometimes.

Today we did a walk through of the Waldorf 49 with Kevin Huynh from Eden Brae Homes at Homeworld Kellyville. We were given the Display Home Options List - As you know you don't get everything in the display home, but if you do want them you have to pay to upgrade it. Currently Eden Brae Homes has a $1 Sale for multiple upgrades so we definitely took full advantage of those.  These included the: Stone benchtops to kitchen, bath & ensuite; Premium roof upgrade; Higher ceilings; and Smeg Kitchen Appliances Package (90mm Cooktop, oven, rangehood and dishwasher). In addition to this was the Prestige Series Luxury Inclusions. The original Home & Land Package was $1,349,900 and by the way this is a fixed price which includes landscaping, turf to both back and front, fencing, retaining walls and a clothes line. We decided to upgrade from the Waldorf 48 to the Waldorf 50.  Primarily, we didn't like the Master Bedroom (BED 1) door to be facing directly

We have recently place a deposit on a piece of land off the plan specifically Lot 17 at Mapleton Grove in Stage 3 at North Kellyville which is a Eden Brae Home and Land package marketed under the Blue Gum Estate. We are excited to share our journey with you and hope that for those who are considering building an Eden Brae Home this blog will assist you along the way, give you tips and hints and we our course would welcome any advice from you. So with it the journey now begins! Over the weekend, we decided to start looking at property in the Kellyville area  We started looking and were driving up towards Allam's Hillrise Estate.  As we were coming back down towards Kellyville on Barry Road, we saw land and home packages being sold by Eden Brae's consultant Jim Busine.  As we were already looking to build an Eden Brae Home we decided to take a look and talk to Kevin Huynh from Eden Brae Homes at Homeworld Kellyville to talk about Stage 3, Lot 17 in Mapleton Grove and expres