Contract sign

Contract sign
18th December 2014

Today we had our contract sign. We were excited to say the least ;)
It took awhile as when we had received our contracts from tender we had noticed that Carlisle Homes had changed our floor plan somewhat! We noticed that the kids toilet was turned around facing front ways instead of the side which it originally was on the plans, as well as the kids main bathroom shower was cut in half which was very strange as we knew this as a double shower not a single!!

We also had noticed they had taken off our doors to our "theatre" and then made it smaller and removed our doors all together and has renamed it the "study". Therefore we needed to have a lengthy chat to our CLE regarding these issues we had discovered at home whilst going through the contract at our contract sign appointment.

Jason and I therefore were waiting a fair while in the carlsile homes consulting room for our CLE to go upstairs and speak to their drafts man. We ended up having about an 5 hour appointment in total from this instead of a 2 hour lol
Anyhoo, CLE came back eventually lol and she had told us that they wernt able to tell us that day how our floor plan would be, we signed everything else besides the floor plan left that in the hands of Carlisle Homes and went on our Mary way ...they had told us we would most likely hear back from them after xmas now as it was so close to xmas and their drafts man would attend to it after xmas break up!!

Have to admit was slightly frustrating not being able to just sign off our contract in full that day and it just be done!! Asfterall they were the ones that decided to change the exsisting  floor plan on us just to "accomodate" the butlers pantry, we had originally been told that they just took bit out of the 2nd and 3rd bedroom laundry, and theatre and that was it.

So now we wait till after xmas ............

Colour Selections

Colour Selection : 28th October 2014


Our original colour selection was for august but with the sale of our home falling through, we needed to push this back. We both figured would be much more beneficial to be picking new home options in once our home had sold and we could solemnly focus on our new home build!!

So glad we did as we were both in a much better frame of mind by october knowing our house had sold!

OMG appointment for Colour Selection is for 8.30am-4.30pm
We were so organised, well enough lol that we were done by 12 ;) Our consultant just needed to type everything up so she sent us to lunch at 12 and we had bite to eat, came back to her at 1pm and went through last couple of things and we were done. She emailed us through all the paperwork that afternoon, and we have printed it all out and have it in folder now for our own records!! Our own facade pics and floor plans, so HAPPY

Today was a big day not only for Jason and I but for the kids too, poor Kadence was up and woken at 6am so we could drop her and Rylan off to my parents house, where they were kindly taking Kadence to school for me and looking after Rylan as we had our appointment and really didn't want to take him lol, he would be bored anyway.
So off we lugged the kids to my mum and dads and we were off on the 1 hour and 30 minute drive to Malvern to SPECTRA!!

I had such a good time, we pretty much  knew what we liked and wanted so we were looking forward to the process!! We had a couple of times where we were unsure of colours/tile picks but our consultant helped us with, which was great!!

Ok so now I will try add our colour pics and choices ;)

ENJOY!!!


External Colours

Bricks -- Blackwood  Austral Bricks
Roof Tile -- Elabana- Barramundi
Gutters and Downpipes-- Colourbond-- --Monument
Garage Door -- Dynamic Deco Wood-Slimline--Western Red Cedar
Render --  Dulux- Self- Destruct

Fascia-- Colourbond -- Paperbark
Timber Awning Windows--Jarrah

Front Entry Door

Windsor -- Jarrah

Internal Colours


Flooring Colours: Carpet-- Desert Brown
Laminate Flooring-- Castello -- Olivia Walnut
Floor Tiles in Wet Areas-- Tabacco Gl-Porc

Ensuite Colours



Wall Tile-- Exile Biscuit Gl-Porc
Floor Tile-- Tabacco Gl-Porc
Feature Tile Above Vanity-- Mosaic Deco Staggered
Benchtop -- Caesar Stone-- Linen
Cupboards -- Laminex polar White

Kitchen Colours/Butler's Pantry



Cabinets (overhead) -- Laminex Natural -- Jericho 039
Base cabinet Doors and Panels -- Silk Finish-- Polar White
Benchtop -- Caesar Stone -- Linen 2230
Glass Splashback-- Sea Elephant P11B7

 Splashback colour with benchtop colour and overhead/under cupboard colour (white) on top of the flooring ;)

Splashback is that square at the back with the benchtop colour in middle then the over head bench colour on top of bench colour!!


Laundry Colours


Benchtop -- Laminex Natural -- Jericho 039
Cabinet Doors and Panels -- Laminex --Polar White  205
Overhead Cabinets-- Laminex-- Polar White 205
Wall Tile-- Linea Grey 
Floor Tile--  Tabacco Gl-Porc



Kids Bathroom


Benchtop -- Caesar Stone-- Wild Rice
Wall Tile-- Exile Biscuit Gl-Porc
Floor Tile-- Excile Tabacco Gl-Porc
Cabinet Doors and Panels-- Laminex-- polar White 205

Colour Browse

Carlisle Homes Colour Browse : June 2014

 When building a Carlisle Home you get to go to a place called "Spectra" It's a building that has all their selection options for colours, tap wear, baths, tiles, EVERYTHING!! It really is a FUN place! I love that everything is also under the 1 roof. BRILLIANT no running around to different places for different rooms of the house.

We had a "browse" colour selection appointment, where we got to go in and just "browse" the different options Carlisle Homes have. WOW it's so exciting, they really do have great amount of choices and instead of just having 1 type of basin etc, you get to choose out of 3 as a "standard" inclusion. We loved that we had options/choices in our home after all, not everyone likes the same thing hey ;)

This was great fun we walked in, went everywhere took it all in and were EXCITED!!
No choices needed to be made though on this day, which was GREAT not overwhelming at all, as we didn't need to pick on the very first time in seeing everything.
It gave us an idea of what we could choose from, love having choices! We received paperwork that we could then right names of colours down under the corresponding section. Which was awesome, everything had names etc so we could write it down if we liked it, and no doubt change our mind on once we came back for the colour selection process appointment ;)

We came back to "browse" at SPECTRA a couple of times! They allowed us with no appointment to come when we wanted to look and yet again get a feel for what we may choose come selection day!

March - October 2014

Ok so March was when Jason and I placed the house we are currently living in on the market!!
It's been a rough PROCESS to put it politely :/
What a HUGE effort. We decided on an agent, and well every saturday we held the open for inspections. Pretty much every week getting ppl walking through which was great! BUT there just wasnt any bites. When we finally had an offer made, it just wasn't what we wanted, therefore we declined of course. We kept being positive, and figured it would sell soon. Afterall, that's what the agent had told us from day 1.
IT WONT TAKE LONG TO SELL
Well it get's to August and we have an offer, so we decide to take it, it's not exactly what we wanted but we figured it would be time to take the offer and move on!
We have our 2 weeks wait for finance from the buyer to be approved, well then they ask for 1 week extension, we of course agree to that and give them more time to get their finances sorted with the banks.
Only to get a call 2 hours before the deadline from the real estate agents saying that the buyers finance has indeed been DECLINED!! yep, sale had fallen through :( We were very upset, I was in tears! We had waited sooooo long for our home to sell gave the extra week and had noone else through the home for that time, as we had assumed it was sold! To be devastated with this news that we were thrown back to square 1 :(

Really this is our luck!! Seems something always happens lol.
So we are put back onto the market and continue with the mundane open houses every saturday and the phone calls every few days, that someone is interested in "looking" at our home, only for Jason and I and the kids ;) to clean and tidy our home, drop everything so to speak. For strangers to come into our home, for them to say "it's too small", "there's not enough car spaces"
Well let me tell you IT GOT OLD FAST!!!

 Ok so then we get to couple weeks later for myself to receive a call from an agent (same agents office we were currently with) for this new guy to say that the agent that was dealing with the sale of our house was incompetent and our house should have been sold months ago!! YEP our thoughts too, but anyway.
This new agent guy had informed us he's taking over the agent/s office and that he had brought the franchise now.
Hmmm, new agent met with us ASAP and arranged new pics of the house, a floor plan for our home as we hadn't got one in the old agents marketing.
This new agent seemed eager, enthusiastic and very professional! Our luck was changing.
Let me tell you it sure did change, he had then sold our home in 3 weeks!!! :)

YES we had an offer, from an open house we held one Saturday then 2 days later the guy brought his wife through. They had signed the contracts, and we did and it was a done deal. Best part was they were purchasing the home as a rental property, therefore allowing us to stay on as their renters. ^ months minimum rent then month by month there after. Worked out perfect for us. We are building we don't know when the house will be built!

Settlement is 30 days so as of the 7th of November 2014, we no longer own our home and are renters!!



Now we can look on to the future, and plan our build of our dream home!!

March 2014

Went into Carlisle Homes in Waterford Estate, Melton South. The house we choose to build was a display home here. It's called the atlantique mk4 33.
Jason and I fell in love with this house, the floorplan is Divine! We really wanted open plan living, after the home we have lived in for the last 10years is so small and box like.
This home has it all, huge kitchen, open plan and 4 bedrooms, theatre room, rumpus, living/study and another main living area!! It's really beautiful

We fell in love we had looked at other displays too, but we kept coming back to the atlantique, it just was our #1 pick of the lot!!
After a few months of talking about putting our current home on the market we decided to place a deposit on the Carlisle homes home.( $1,000) and it had a promotion on it too which was a BONUS.
Carlisle Homes were celebrating their 10year's in building. To celebrate they had a customer 10 year promotion.
It meant that we had a choice in tiles or floorboards for the floors, included and that we would get a butler's pantry also included in our lovely kitchen!!

Omg a butler's pantry, what more could we want.

Here is the floor plan of the home we are building with Carlisle Homes




  

Love all the rooms!! and all the space.
Ours is slightly different to this still though. As our kitchen sink isn't in our island bench it's on the left side of the kitchen where there is a door we are making it a bench space with sink in it. That way we get full use of the island bench and have more room in the kitchen more open look.

We also have Butler's pantry in replace of the walk in pantry. Will have a sink in there and shelving and has a door on it also. Cannot wait for my kitchen!!! ;)

Ill try find relevant pic to update it, so you know what i mean ;)

Found our block of land in Eynesbury

March 2014:

Jason and I had been to Eynesbury a few times, we really liked the area. We decided to look for what types of blocks of land were available in our price range. We went to the land sales office, for the lady to tell us that the next stage of land (11) wouldn't be available until May. There were however, blocks of land for sale in stage 4. We had noticed on the maps in the sales office that these blocks of land that were available would be situated right across from the "proposed' school. We wanted to move to Eynesbury for the quiet surroundings and to preferably live in a nice "quiet" street. Especially seen as we were selling our current home (in a fairly busy road) and dangerous location for the kids. Even a simple task like going out the front to get in the car, was dangerous, as cars would fly down our street and well you can imagine with little ones in tow how scary and hard it is to keep them by your side and safe at all times.

I had remembered that a friend of mine knew someone with land in Eynesbury and i recalled her mentioning that her friends were thinking of selling their block of land.
I called to ask if she knew if they were still thinking of selling and if we could get the peoples phone number to talk to them ourselves in regards to being interested in potentially buying the block.
We asked what stage the block was in what size, and price they would sell for.

Once we had the details we set of in the car to check out the block!!!
We really liked the spot it was in, nice quiet, court like street. PERFECT!! for what we were looking for, great location, beautiful size and at a GREAT price!!! We had gotten LUCKY :) We loved that the house we wanted to build would fit nicely on the land with fair amount of room left, not too much yard but also adequate space for the kids to play out the back.
Before we knew it we had made an offer for the block and it was soon ours! :)